Biography

Educational theorem does not educate, as well as the chemical formula does not cure. Since childhood I like least of all a raised finger, and I would not for the world allowed anyone to force me into a position of an annoying mentor.

[on his admiration for Iva Janzurová]: "There's a situation in How About a Plate of Spinach? (1977) that the script editors doubted could be done at all. It's a sequence in which a one-year-old girl transforms overnight into a 40-year-old woman while mentally remaining a toddler. It was said that such a thing was impossible, that it would be terribly embarrassing. But in the end it stayed in the script because we were firmly convinced that Iva Janzurová will pull it off. Hence our constant demand for the best cast. Sometimes it's harder than in Strindberg's play. We don't need an actor to die convincingly in epileptic seizure, but the audience has to believe, for example, that he has the body of a woman and the brain of a man, like in You Are a Widow, Sir! (1971). That's why for us a good actor is literally the alpha and omega. If it weren't for Iva Janzurová, whom I consider the best and most beautiful among Czech actresses, I wouldn't dare to even consider some of the characters. But since this wonderful comedienne exists, I can afford to do practically anything, her talent can handle even the most extreme situations."

[on what kind of actors his movies need]: "It is not possible to cast charlatans who have established themselves as experts in various grimaces and practical jokes. Remember the scene in the movie How to Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer (1975), for instance, when Dr. Mracek discovers he's starting to turn into a carp. Jaromír Hanzlík plays it in such a way that you can feel how embarrassed he is that such a thing is happening at all. We almost feel sorry for him. Only a real actor can cope with such a situation. If some cheap stand-up comedian was given this part, we wouldn't see such a satisfying result."

[on title of You Are a Widow, Sir! (1971)]: "Original working titles ranged from 'A Brand New Prefect' to 'Mrs. Steiner's Kidneys' to 'To Kill a King Is No Joke' to 'Who Wants to Kill the King?', which was to build on the success of our previous film Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966). One of the possible titles considered was also 'For God's Sake, We Ate Mrs. Keletti!', but we were persuaded that that would be a bit too much."

[on collaboration with Hermína Franková]: When I got my hands on Hermína's story idea for The Girl on a Broomstick (1972), it was about a witch who flies into barracks amongst some soldiers and there were these cheesy things like 'young girls, young boys'... And that didn't seem to me prospective at all, there wasn't really an opportunity for fun. Hermína surely has a sense of humor. And yet Hermína's humor and mine are so different that anytime we tried to do something together, it usually had gone wrong. Cause it won't click. So in this case, I said if I was going to do it, I wanted free hands, I started doing it on my own, and that became 'The Girl On a Broomstick'.