24
Mar/11

JANUS FILMS CLASSICS: MILOS FORMAN

24
Mar/11

LOVES OF A BLONDE is part of Janus Classics series at Lincoln Center

LOVES OF A BLONDE (LÁSKY JEDNÉ PLAVOVLÁSKY) (Miloš Forman, 1965)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St.
Friday, March 25, 1:00
Series runs through April 1
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.com

Released a few years before the Summer of Love and Prague Spring, Miloš Forman’s Loves of a Blonde is a very funny romantic black comedy that also has a lot to say about women’s burgeoning sexual freedom. The delightful Hanu Brejchovou stars as Andula, a young factory worker whose sexual liberation is ahead of its time in an old-fashioned small town. When a trainload of military reservists arrives, most of the single women do their best to attract the uniformed men at a big party, but Andula is more interested in pianist Milda (Vladimíra Pucholta). In a scene for the ages, three men try to pick up Andula and her two friends, with hysterical results. Later, when Andula visits Milda in Prague, she meets the piano player’s parents (Milada Jezková and Josef Sebánek), who are a droll riot. A Czech New Wave classic that evokes Godard and Truffaut, Loves of a Blonde, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, caused a sensation when it played the New York Film Festival and introduced Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus) to the world. Notably, assistant director and cowriter Ivan Passer, who also worked with Forman on The Firemen’s Ball, defected to America following Prague Spring and went on to make such films as Born to Win and Cutter’s Way.

THE FIREMEN’S BALL is one of two Miloš Forman films screening at Lincoln Center on March 25 in Janus Classics series

THE FIREMEN’S BALL (Milos Forman, 1967)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St.
Friday, March 25, 3:00
Series runs through April 1
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.com

Miloš Forman’s final Czechoslovakian film is an absurdist comedy about a local firemen’s ball and lottery, featuring a group of grumpy old clueless men who struggle through selecting contestants for the beauty contest so the winner can give the eighty-six-year-old former chairman a present before he dies of cancer and all the lottery gifts are stolen. This fun film has a charming element of silent slapstick that will have audiences laughing out loud. Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball are screening March 25 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Janus Classics series, followed by Jean Renoir’s The Golden Coach (1952) and The Rules of the Game (1939) on March 28, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) and Cries and Whispers (1972) on March 29, and more.