Chytilova, Vera (1929—)

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Chytilova, Vera (1929—)

Czech film director. Born on February 2, 1929, in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); educated at Charles University and Film Faculty, Academy of Music and Art (FAMU), 1957–1962; married Jaroslav Kucera (a cinematographer); children: two.

Filmography:

Ceiling (short, 1961); A Bagful of Fleas (short, 1962); Something Different (1965); Automat (1966); Daisies (1969); The Fruit of Paradise (1969); The Apple Game (1976); Inexorable Time (short, 1978); Panelstory (1979); Calamity (1980); The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun (1983); Prague, the Restless Heart of Europe (short, 1985); Wolf's Cabin (1986); The Jester and the Queen (1987); Tainted Horseplay (1988); The Liberator (short, 1991); My Inhabitants of Prague Understand Me (1991); Inheritance (1992).

In 1978, when Vera Chytilova's film The Apple Game found its way to the United States, David Andelman wrote in The New York Times: "Chytilova cannot be classified as a dissident; she's a compassionate, committed woman, a director long considered in the first rank of Czechoslovakian filmmakers who once were numbered among the best in the world." It had taken the "non-dissident" Chytilova seven years to make The Apple Game: six to be granted permission from the authorities to make the film and one year of production. Apple Game is a simple, powerful love triangle that weaves in and out of the delivery rooms and wards in a maternity hospital in Czechoslovakia. Hardly a threat to state security, the film did not carry forward the socialist agenda of those in power. Though it won top awards at several international film festivals, Czechoslovakian authorities considered it frivolous. When they finally allowed it to be released, it was shown at only one theater in Prague. But with word of mouth, the lines to see the film went around the block.

Chytilova didn't grow up with a strong desire to become a film director. She studied philosophy and architecture in college and worked several jobs (in drafting, modeling, and film continuity) before landing a coveted spot at FAMU (Film Faculty, Academy of Music and Art), Prague's film school, where she studied directing. She came of age with Milos Forman, best known in the West for Amadeus, and Jaromil Jires (The Cry) during what's been called the Czechoslovakian "New Wave." Leaning heavily on the French-style cinema verité, which literally means "camera truth," Chytilova and her colleagues often used non-actors and improvisation in their films to give the effect of authenticity.

The early 1960s saw a positive resurgence of Czech writers and a relaxation of bureaucratic control over the arts, now referred to as the Prague Spring. During this time, Czech native Franz Kafka was once again recognized as an important writer, and Western plays by writers such as Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett and Ionesco were put into production. Czech filmmakers like Jan Nemec (Diamonds of the Night) were allowed to depict the state of affairs in Czechoslovakia as Kafkaesque and surreal. But no filmmaker pushed the envelope like Chytilova. Daisies and The Fruit of Paradise (both 1969) provoked the audience and enraged the censors. In particular, Daisies, which featured two teenaged girls in a nihilistic orgy that culminated in a Kafkaesque food fight, went way beyond what the censors could tolerate or even comprehend. While Chytilova was commenting on the destructiveness of a conformity based on apathy, the censors were complaining about the waste of food.

With the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chytilova was fired from Barrandov Studios. The head of the studios was arrested and many of the films that had been produced were not allowed to be released. Directors like Forman and Nemec went into exile in the West. Though Chytilova was not officially "blacklisted," she and the leading Czech directors who remained in their homeland were not allowed to work as Czechoslovakia went into a cultural dark age.

"What I most value in a person is courage," Chytilova told David Andelman in a New York Times interview. In 1975, she took a stand, though these were still dangerous times. She wrote to Czechoslovakian President Gustav Husak, telling him in effect that she had been censured. Perhaps because she attributed her censure to male chauvinism in the industry rather than politics, the letter did not land her in jail, and Chytilova was allowed to work again. The Apple Game was released in 1976, with critics both in and out of Czechoslovakia hailing this work as the best film to come out of that nation in the previous ten years.

Between 1976 and 1992, Chytilova made 11 more films. Though still virtually unknown to Western audiences, she has been widely regarded as one of the best filmmakers in Europe (a retrospective of her work aired on French television in 1989) and certainly one of the few Eastern European filmmakers whose films depict women as an oppressed class. Calamity, produced after The Apple Game, illustrates her dedication to feminism. "It's … about courage," she said. "In a sense it's about myself. All my films are. Like the heroine, I also feel a victim, like all women who are victims…. We are still a bit primitive in our treatment of women."

During the 1980s, Chytilova found inspiration while working with an avant-garde theater group called SKLEP (The Cellar). The Jester and the Queen, made in 1987, is a filmed version of their play. With the release of her 1989 film Tainted Horseplay, Chytilova became the first Eastern European filmmaker to deal with the subject of AIDS.