On nothing. I don’t have any films on the way. I have some trips coming up because I have been invited to several foreign film festivals. After the New Year I will be doing theater in Belgrade, then in Bratislava, then at Prague Castle and then in Český Krumlov.
Which one of your professions is closest to you personally?
I am a professional filmmaker. I do theater because it is my love. I love it and I am asked by theaters to work. I am actually not an actor and it is not my profession. I am only an amateur actor. When someone is brave enough to offer me a role then I happily accept it.
Aren’t you too modest? To be sure, you won a Golden Plaque in 1977 at the International Film Festival in the Virgin Islands for your role in Vera Chytilová’s The Apple Game, and in the Tender Barbarian you also excelled…
Yes, I have many very courageous friends
When a person acts, he says only what the author wrote for him and does only what the director tells him to do. And if he doesn’t act well, then the director is guilty of poorly casting him. With directing, on the other hand, only you can guarantee the result of your work. The responsibility is immense. Everything is up to the director.
But as a director, the success of a film must make you even happier…
I always say that it is actually my friends who make the movie and I follow them around to the festivals afterward.
Are you naturally so modest or did success teach you to be so?
Apart from being a genius, modesty is my only character flaw.
Let’s go back to the beginning of your career in the seventies. During that period, you began to work with Bohumil Hrabal. What was it like then?
I came to that happy time a little bit undeservedly. Originally I wanted to do theater, but I wasn’t accepted by the Faculty of Theater. I then went to television for a year before registering at the Faculty of Film and Television. I finished university and went to the army and when I returned some old colleagues – Evald Schorn, Věra Chytilová, Jan Němec – asked me if I would like to work on a feature length film based on Hrabal’s short story Pearls of the Deep. I didn’t have any idea at the time that I could even make a feature length film. I wasn’t very exceptional at the faculty and wasn’t even a very good student and I had almost no self-confidence. Then all of a sudden I was able direct independently, without the prior apprenticeship. My short story was successful and on the basis of that, I got a manuscript for another of Hrabal’s works, Closely Watched Trains. No one asked how well I did at school or whether I had experience. And that’s how I got into film; it came to me out of the blue.
We met during the filming of Pearls of the Deep. And we became friends while writing the script for Closely Watched Trains. I had enormous respect for Mr. Hrabal and he was very obliging, friendly, and it was wonderful to work with him.
The cooperation was quite rewarding since you received an Oscar for Closely Watched Trains. You were only 28 at the time. Such success would certainly have an effect on a young man.
It was different at the time than it is today. America was far away. There was Prague Spring and socialism with a human face was being established, censorship was being abandoned, there was the immense hope that Czechoslovakia was casting away its Bolshevik chains. In such an environment of revolution, an Oscar didn’t get much attention. And then the Russian tanks rolled in and things that were much more important than Mr. Menzel’s winning an Oscar took place. That is probably why I don’t have a very reverent relationship to that award. I am much happier that people still know the film and that it is still alive. For example, when I was introduced at a festival in Edinburgh, everyone showed the same indifferent expression: Oh, it’s some Czech. But when they heard that I made Closely Watched Trains, they immediately perked up and became more deferential to me: It was you who made that excellent film? Or when someone says that they decided to make movies after watching Closely Watched Trains. This spring I was in South Korea, where after forty years Closely Watch Trains had its premiere in theaters. I am much more elated with everything else than at the Oscar. That film simply did well, the adaptation was good, conditions were good at the time, casting…
The literature that was written in the fifties, so-called socialist realism, was an unreality printed on paper, and moreover was wrapped in pink cellophane. In contrast, Hrabal was able to describe the way life really was, in an unusually perceptive way. Not naturalistically, but through his own poetic method. He put things together that seemingly didn’t belong; phrases that he had heard, events or characters that he had heard about or imagined. He exposed reality by illustrating it in strange relationships and new connections.
But you have your own “poetic method”. You are renowned because of how precisely you are able to capture the poetry of art in adapting a book for the screen. How do you do it?
An adaptation is always a challenge for a filmmaker. When you write an original screenplay, you create it directly in pictures. In a book, you must turn the words into an image. The challenge is looking for expression in film. For example, how to describe what is going on in the mind of the characters. Sometimes situations in a book are only illustrated, which is often a shame. Professor Vávra at the Faculty of Film and Television (FAMU) taught us to understand the essence of a book, why it was written. And then to try to remake it according to the author. I tried to direct films in same way that Mr. Hrabal would likely have if he had learned to make films from Professor Vávra. I have always had this humility in making an adaptation, whether it was from Hrabal, Vančura or Svěrák. Whenever I adapted something, I tried to get to know the author as best I could, to get under his skin. Of course we don’t change our own personality. But the film is always based on the essence of Hrabal, on the essence of Vančura, on the essence of Svěrák. That is why I am never happy hearing people say Menzel’s film; it is always rather Hrabal’s film.
Then the adaptation of stories in The Snowdrop Festival is also Hrabal’s film? Apparently you consider its essence to be ultimately closest to Mr. Hrabal…
Maybe it’s because the film takes place in Hrabal’s hometown of Kersko. And in contrast to the other films, it has no dramatic storyline. In Larks on a String there are two parallel storylines, as there are in Trains. Cutting It Short is a story of conjugal love. Whereas The Snowdrop Festival is an impression from the Kersko forest, with dialogues in Hrabal’s absurd style.
The Snowdrop Festival is, like the majority of your films, a comedy. In one interview you said that you consider comedy to be the most useful of all genres.
That is true.
Probably, yes. I don’t have the desire to pass on any idea to the audience, and I am not sure I have the right to do that. It is only that there has always been a certain optimism, playfulness and upbeat appetite for life in me. And I want my films to infect the audience. I remember how the painter Jan Zrzavý was once asked what the point of his work was. He said “I want to create beauty. Only beauty.” Such simplicity pleases me. I can’t stand artistic declarations, the need for a work to say something. In the theater and on film, I want people to laugh and at the same time to discreetly see themselves as they are. In a way that isn’t too painful.
How can people get to know themselves through comedy?
Out of all the world’s creatures, man is the funniest. Čapek and Mr. Hrabal saw this. Each person is funny in his own way. And so, through laughter is it possible to try to see this. Vančura said “To laugh means to know better.” Of course, this isn’t the humor where someone pokes you in the ribs or says something rude. It is humor that takes you somewhere. Such caloric laughter is the most natural, the most pleasant and the least difficult way to get to know the world.
Where has humor and laughter taken you?
I think that in spite of my life’s ups and downs I am a happy person.
How does bitterness relate to laughter? I am alluding to the fact that your new film I Served the King of England was presented as a “bitter comedy”…
I didn’t come up with that. That was done by the distributors. Comedy it is, but it is bitter because it is Czech. I would have written a Czech comedy.
Your new film, as well as your older films, has been very successful abroad. Therefore they are understandable to more than just Czechs. Why do you think that is?
I don’t know. I made King and other films for Czechs. Even thought there are things there that a Japanese person can laugh at. I have just heard that the film was well received in South Korea. Even in spite of a complex storyline that is full of historical references. There are probably situations that seem funny to people all over the world. But when filming, I don’t think about how to make a film that will be successful abroad. I am happy when it does well with Czech audiences, and in Moravia and also in Slovakia. The rest is just a bonus.
According to the reception, the film was well liked by audiences. Are you happy with the result or would you have done something differently?
Everything. Even when writing the script I know that it wasn’t perfect. And then during every day of shooting I knew what I should have done differently. There are always a thousand decisions that you must make, a thousand different possibilities. You’ll never do it perfectly, so you can only consider whether this decision will be less bad than another. So I agree with the critics that the film isn’t perfect. But in contrast to them, I know where it isn’t perfect.
I knew from the start that Líza’s character had to be played by a German. And in Julie Jentsch, we had the best German girl fall on our laps. At first I was against casting her and I had my doubts as to how such a star would behave. But I was finally persuaded to go along with it. And when I saw her, I knew from the first moment that she would be perfect. She doesn’t have any of a star’s behavior; she wasn’t patronizing to anyone on the set. She is a normal, friendly, super girl and at the same time is a great person.
And the Bulgarian actor Ivan Barnev in the role of Jan Dítě?
I had worked with him previously in the theater. Then I was looking for someone in the Czech Republic who had his charisma, his actor’s personality, but I couldn’t find anyone similar. So I had to persuade him. Some critics couldn’t understand how he could play the same character as Oldřich Kaiser. After I Served the King of England had its premier in Hungary, there was a discussion and one of the audience members asked me if the young and old characters in the main role were in fact father and son, since they looked so much alike. So, I don’t know.
Such a reaction must make you happy. What is more, the film was successful at the Czech Lion awards, where it won the award for the best film of the year. Abroad it won the critics award at Berlinale. And even though you’re now relaxing, you travel from festival to festival and in the new year you will do theater. Aren’t you tempted to dive back into filmmaking?
Tempted, yes. But I am not tempted by the martyrdom that comes with asking for money.
Somehow I don’t want to believe that you don’t have another literary work in reserve, something that you have been thinking about for a long time.
I don’t. The first Hrabal fell on my lap and on the basis of its success, others followed. Someone always came and asked me to do a Hrabal or a Vančura. During the previous regime I was employed at Barrandov and – except for those years of normalization, when I wasn’t able to makes films – those in the studio tried to get me to work, because they knew that people liked my films. After the revolution, everyone had to find work for himself. And I don’t know how to do it. I wait until someone comes to me.
What kind of book or screenplay should someone come to you with?
Anything that is fun, that isn’t foolish and for which there is enough money. Of course, I have a love of literature, but Čapek has been filmed completely, Hrabal also, while Poláček is difficult to bring to a contemporary context… It isn’t so simple to find a work of inspiration and, more importantly, someone who has the courage to put money into it.
In this respect, things were easier during the previous regime?
On the financial side of things, certainly. Film was supported by the state and directors were state employees. There was money for films. And when a person knew what couldn’t be shown, there was no problem. I don’t say that I would like to return to those days. Not at all. I am happy to be an unemployed filmmaker, so long as the Bolsheviks aren’t in power here. But it is different today. So much money goes into a film. And I don’t have enough confidence in myself to be able to convince some company that it won’t lose money on my films.
I think that it is very good. In Hungary for example, film is strongly supported by the state and they have many more opportunities. Poland has a large audience base, four times larger than ours. Despite having relatively poorer conditions in the Czech Republic, a whole bunch of great films have been made, which have done very well in audience numbers. Good and bad films are made everywhere, but I think that here the ratio is definitely in favor of the good films. There are so many young directors here, who have the ambition to make respectable films.
Which of them do you like the most?
I like Hřebejk, Svěrák. I really admire Zelenka, Ondříček, Renč… They are all actually the children of my friends. I have known them since they were in strollers, these colleagues.
And foreign filmmakers?
I love Woody Allen. I look forward to every one of his films. He is able to bring wonderful humor to very serious things. And he can’t stand to make proclamations. The substance, the message, is simply in him and in everything he does. That’s what I like so much about him. For me he is Chekhov and Chaplin rolled into one. My wife and I have seen some of his films three or four times. Small Time Crooks and Hollywood Ending for example. Those are brilliant films.
Woody Allen is considered to be a great artist. What exactly does it mean to be an artist?
I think that Woody Allen is completely indifferent to being labeled as such. He makes films that bear his personality. That’s enough. He is not trying to say anything. It is in him. Our predecessors such a René Clair, Chekhov, Zrzavý didn’t make films, write books or paint to make a statement. They were working in their professions. Their statements of course, came out of their work. Hrabal used a new literary technique that opened up a completely different view of the world. But the trend of today, which supposes that the label of “artist” is more important than the work itself, is foreign to me. Often, those who hide behind it aren’t very good at what they do. So I would rather not be an artist.
Jiří Menzel (1938) is one of the most renowned Czech film directors, as well as a successful theater director and actor. In 1962 he finished his studies at Prague’s Faculty of Film and Television (FAMU). He is one of the contributors to the Czech New Wave of the 1960s, a famous era in Czech filmmaking.
Jiří Menzel’s films have been praised by audiences all over the world and have won an array of awards at international festivals, including an American Oscar in 1967 for the best foreign film for Closely Watched Trains, as well as a nomination for the prize in 1987 for his comedy My Sweet Little Village. Menzel’s films have been praised by juries at festivals in Mannheim, Karlovy Vary, Chicago, San Fransico, Venice, Montreal, Berlin and elsewhere.
Jiří Menzel has received several awards for lifetime achievement, including France’s Order of Arts and Literature, the Akira Kurosawa Award at the International Film Festival in San Francisco and Hungary’s Order of the Cross and Star.
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