2024-07-31 02:21:55
Theater and musician Jiří Suchý has been a film fanatic since he was five years old, when his mother started taking him to the cinema in Klatovy. At that time, he enjoyed pictures with the actress Shirley Temple or the comic couple Laurel and Hardy.
Later, he was captivated by American grotesque or Jiří Voskovec with Jan Werich. “When I saw them in the theater, I decided that I would be a comedian and that there would be two of us. The bad luck was that I didn’t have an iota of talent,” said Jiří Suchý at the Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště this Monday.
The 92-year-old star of Prague’s Semafor theater admitted that cinema attracted her more than the stage at the beginning of her career.
Among the films that Suchý himself directed, visitors to this year’s festival could see the comedy The Bride from 1970. It is the first feature film he made.
At that time, Suchý chose Marta Vančurová, a student of the Prague DAMU, for the main role. “She was a remarkable type. But Barrandova was horrified and they rejected her,” he recalls. However, the director did not accept that. “I secretly filmed the rehearsals. When they saw her, they backed away. She had enormous charisma. That was probably the first time in Barrandov’s history that a novice director could take a novice in the lead role,” claims Suchý.
He admits that not all viewers liked the film. After the launch, he received anonymous messages in which people cursed him. They also made disrespectful comments about the film itself, which the Summer Film School screened on Saturday and again this Monday. “Common people didn’t think about it,” sums up the creator.
On Sunday and again on Tuesday, the festival will also present Suché Brusu’s brand new documentary called Pochodem všhod or Stop the State from 2021. The author filmed it in his home environment during the covid pandemic.
During Monday’s conversation with the audience, he admitted that he and his colleague Irena Zlámalová are now shooting another film, this time about music, in the apartment and at the cottage. “It’s called Hudba, she said come, so I went. It will be a beautiful thing. That’s what I tell myself before every screening,” laughs Suchý.
Suchý also reminisced with the festival visitors about the creation of his first film, the amateur film The Way Across and Back from 1956. This unfinished project was inspired by a pair of travelers Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund. “I filmed about 20 minutes. I tried to be humorous, it was terrible. I directed it, played the main role and was also the cameraman,” admits Suchý.
He also announced to the audience that at the time when he was out of favor with the previous regime, Ladislav Smoljak and Zdenek Svěrák cast him in a small role in the film Vrchní, prchni. It premiered in 1980. “When it was finished, the Barrand leadership saw me and almost got knocked out. They had to cut it out,” concludes Jiří Suchý.
The versatile artist received the annual award of the Association of Czech Film Clubs, which organizes the Summer Film School, at the festival this Sunday. This year’s 50th anniversary started on Friday and will last until Thursday, August 1. It includes more than 150 works and a rich accompanying program.
Video: Sample from the film The Bride
Marta Vančurová and Josef Dvořák star in a trailer from the film The Bride, directed by Jiří Suchý in 1970. | Video: Semafor Theatre