Věra Chytilová | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Chytilová at her home in the 1980s | |
| Born | (1929-02-02)2 February 1929 |
| Died | 12 March 2014(2014-03-12) (aged 85) |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 1962–2011 |
| Spouse | Jaroslav Kučera |
| Children | 2, includingTereza |
Věra Chytilová (Czech:[ˈvjɛraˈxɪcɪlovaː]; 2 February 1929 – 12 March 2014) was anavant-garde Czech film director and pioneer of Czech cinema.[1][2] Banned by theCzechoslovak government in the 1960s,[3][4] she is best known for herCzech New Wave 1966 filmSedmikrásky (Daisies).[5][6] Her subsequent films screened at international film festivals, includingVlčí bouda (1987), which screened at the37th Berlin International Film Festival,[7]A Hoof Here, a Hoof There (1989), which screened at the16th Moscow International Film Festival,[8] andThe Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (1992), which screened at the18th Moscow International Film Festival.[9] For her work, she received theOrdre des Arts et des Lettres,Medal of Merit and theCzech Lion award.[10]
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Chytilová was born inOstrava,Czechoslovakia, on 2 February 1929.[11] She had a strictCatholic upbringing, which would later come to influence many of the moral questions presented in her films.[12]
While attending college in Brno, Chytilová initially studiedphilosophy andarchitecture, but abandoned these fields. She then worked as a draftswoman, a fashion model and as a photo re-toucher before working as aclapper girl for theBarrandov Film Studios inPrague.[13][14] She then sought a recommendation from Barrandov Film Studios to study film production, but was denied. Undeterred by the rejection, she would later be accepted into theFilm and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) at the age of 28,[11][13] the first woman to study directing at the school.[15] While attending FAMU, she studied underneath renowned film directorOtakar Vavra, before graduating in 1962.[13] Chytilová's dedication to her artistic vision manifested early in her studies, with her graduation film's screenplay,Strop/Ceiling, being rejected by her professor for its kitschy nature. After getting her classmatePavel Juráček to rewrite the script for their professor's approval, she defiantly shot the original script.[16]
Upon her graduation from FAMU, both of Chytilová's short films saw theatrical release throughout Czechoslovakia. In 1963, Chytilová released her first feature film entitledSomething Different.[13]
Chytilová is best known for her once highly controversial filmSedmikrásky (Daisies; 1966).Daisies is known for its unsympathetic characters, lack of a continuous narrative, and abrupt visual style. Chytilová states that she structuredDaisies to "restrict [the spectator's] feeling of involvement and lead him to an understanding of the underlying idea or philosophy".[11]
In 1966, Vera Chytilová’sDaisies was banned from screening in her home country of Czechoslovakia for over a year, due to the depictions of gross food waste at a time in which food shortages were plaguing the area. In the film, the two main characters, Marie I and Marie II, not only present the folly of bored, spoiled middle-class women, but also their own helplessness as young women devoured by a society that values them only as sexual objects and is, as they say, spoiled anyway. The characters justify their cathartic behavior to themselves saying ‘If the world is rotten, let us also be rotten’. Chytilová battled censorship of this film for her biting anti-corruption and consumption critiques, still managing to win the Grand Prix at the Bergamo Film Festival in Italy. The film would cement Chytilová’s film career, gaining public notoriety not just in her home country but around the world.
After the Czechoslovak liberalization of 1968 led byAlexander Dubček, widespread reforms decentralized the government and lessened restrictions on the press, granting artists like Chytilová creative freedoms they previously did not possess.
It was in this climate that Chytilová would begin working on her next film,Ovoce stromů rajských jíme (Fruit of Paradise; 1969), an experimental and psychedelic retelling of the story ofCreationism, from an avant-garde, liberal perspective. After months of tense negotiation, the Soviet Union responded to the reformations by invading the CSR with the armies of the other Warsaw Pact nations and swiftly taking control of their government. The removal of Dubček marks the end of theCzech New Wave, as the Soviet Union not only rolled back the social reforms, but imposed even harsher restrictions on the press and centralized the government as a part of theSoviet Union. Chytilová and many others like her were forced to choose between filmmaking and their home country.
Vera Chytilová was banned from filmmaking for seven years, still working under her husband's name until she was approached by the government, this time imploring her to make films for their state-run studio,Short Film Studios in 1976. Around the same time, she was invited to attend a newly assembled Year of Women film festival in the US that her government would not let her attend. The festival had asked to screenDaisies and Chytilová revealed that she had no uncensored prints of the film and that she was no longer allowed to make films. She was aware of two uncensored prints inParis andBrussels, but neither were in her possession.
As a result, the festival began applying international pressure on the Czechoslovak government by petitioning on Chytilová's behalf.[12] With this pressure, Chytilová wrote a letter directly toPresidentGustáv Husák detailing her career and personal belief insocialism.[11]
Due to the success of the pressure campaign and Chytilová's appeal to President Husak, Chytilová began production ofHra o jablko (The Apple Game, 1976).[17][12]The Apple Game was completed[13] and subsequently screened at theKarlovy Vary International Film Festival and theChicago International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Hugo.[11][12]
After the release ofThe Apple Game, Chytilová was allowed to continue making films but was continually met with controversy and heavy censorship by the Czechoslovak government. Věra Chytilová's last film was released in 2006, and she taught directing at FAMU.[12]
Like many Czech New Wave filmmakers, Chytilová was influenced by post-Stalin Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Chytilová sought to display the hypocrisy of the government by presenting the complete opposite. Chytilová was anti-consumerist and called herself an individualist, rather than a feminist.
Women star in almost all of Chytilová's films and ideas of gender, sex, and power are at the central idea of her films.
Czech society was the primary focus of Chytilová's work, although the style of Czech New Wave filmmakers was to have international relevancy.
Chytilová's films before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia were highly experimental, known for psychedelic colors and nonlinear editing.Daisies andFruits of Paradise can be characterized by absurdism and surrealism. The color filters and other experimental tactics Chytilová used were exclusive to her films of the 1960s.
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Chytilová described herself as a control freak and, "An overheated kettle that you can't turn down".[18] Chytilová's "overheated" attitude made it difficult for her to gain work within theSoviet Union controlled film industry. She was known as being actively critical of the Soviet Union, stating that "My critique is in the context of the moral principles you preach, isn't it? A critical reflection is necessary".[12] She would routinely cause havoc and "hysterical scenes" to attempt to make films that were loyal to her vision regardless of the heavy censorship that was routinely imposed.[12]
Chytilová embodied a unique cinematographic language and style that does not rely on any literary or verbal conventions, but rather utilizes various forms of visual manipulations to create meaning within her films.[19] Chytilová used observations of everyday life in accordance with allegories and surreal contexts to create a personalized film style that is greatly influenced by theFrench New Wave, andItalian neorealism.[11]
Chytilová actively used a filmic style similar tocinéma vérité in order to allow the audience to gain an outside perspective of the film.[13] Her use of cinéma vérité is best illustrated in her 1966 film,Daisies, in which these techniques create a "philosophical documentary, of diverting the spectator from the involvement, destroying psychology and accentuates the humor".[13] Through these manipulations Chytilová created a disjunctive viewing experience for her audience forcing them to question the meaning of her films.
Chytilová is cited as a militantfeministfilmmaker.[20]Josef Škvorecký states that, "In a true feminist tradition Vera combined intensive intellectual effort with a feminine feeling for beauty and form".[20]Daisies is seen as a feminist film due to its attitude and active critique of male attitudes towardssex.[13] However, Chytilová did not see herself as a feminist filmmaker, but rather believed in individualism, stating that if a person does not believe in a particular set of conventions or rules then it is up to that individual to break them.[18]
Chytilová was born in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, on 2 February 1929.[11] She refused to leave Czechoslovakia after the Soviet Union Invasion of 1968 stating that "Making films then became a mission".[12] She married cinematographerJaroslav Kučera whom she met while attending FAMU.[20] During the Soviet Union occupation, when Chytilová could not find work as a director, she and her husband built their family home and raised their children – an artistTereza Kučerová (born 1964) and cinematographer Štěpán Kučera (born 1968).
Chytilová died on 12 March 2014 inPrague, surrounded by her family, after long-term health issues.[21][22][23]
| Year | Title | Director | Screenplay | Story | Music | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | The Ceiling |  N | N | [24][25] | ||
| 1962 | A Bagful of Fleas | N | N | N | ||
| 1963 | Something Different | N | N | N | [26][27] | |
| 1966 | "At the World Cafeteria" inPearls of the Deep | N | ||||
| 1966 | Daisies | N | N | N | [28][29] | |
| 1970 | Fruit of Paradise | N | N | [30] | ||
| 1976 | The Apple Game | N | N | N | [17] | |
| 1978 | Inexorable Time | N | ||||
| 1979 | Prefab Story | N | N | N | [31] | |
| 1981 | Calamity | N | N | |||
| 1981 | Chytilová Versus Forman − Consciousness of Continuity | N | ||||
| 1983 | The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun | N | N | |||
| 1984 | Prague: The Restless Heart of Europe | N | N | N | ||
| 1987 | Wolf's Hole | N | N | [32] | ||
| 1987 | The Jester and the Queen | N | N | |||
| 1988 | A Hoof Here, a Hoof There | N | N | |||
| 1990 | Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a Liberator | N | ||||
| 1991 | My Citizens of Prague Understand Me | N | N | |||
| 1992 | The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday | N | N | |||
| 1998 | Trap, Trap, Little Trap | N | N | |||
| 2000 | Flights and Falls | N | N | N | ||
| 2001 | Exile from Paradise | N | N | N | N | |
| 2005 | Searching for Ester | N | ||||
| 2006 | Pleasant Moments | N | N | [33] |
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