Milos Forman at The New Yorker Festival

This past Saturday evening I attended the Milos Forman event at The New Yorker Festival. Milos was wonderful, informative and he has a great sense of humor. I was happy that the place was sold out. David Denby did a good job of asking questions. First they showed a short film with some highlights of Milos's films (Loves of a Blonde, The Fireman's Ball, Taking Off, One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest, Ragtime, Amadeus, The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon). Milos spoke about his time working in the Czech film industry and how he wanted to leave because of the Communist regime. When he came here he had problems staying in the country because the government thought that he was a member of the Communist Party. He never was and he was finally allowed to stay here. He spoke about how he came to direct Cuckoos' nest. Originally Kirk Douglas was to send him the book in Czechoslovakia but the book never arrived. Ten years later Michael Douglas, who produced the film, sent Milos the book (Kirk was always upset that Michael and Saul Zaentz picked Jack Nicholson instead of him for the lead). Milos also spoke a bit about how he had to cut some scenes out of Ragtime. He told of how it was to go back to Czechoslovakia to film Amadeus. He also told the story of how hard it was to get insurance for Courtney Love when he made the Larry Flynt movie. The studio didn't want her but he insisted that she was the right person for the part. Milos also said that he liked to use the conflict between the individuals and institutions as one of his themes because it makes for good drama. He said that the individual needs institutions but then gets used by them (I totally agree with him about this).

Then Milos spoke a little bit about Goya's Ghosts. He said that the film is about so many things and to say it was about one thing wouldn't do it justice. He showed a trailer of the film. It is similar to the Spanish trailer but there is more footage and it is, of course, in English. There is a great scene of confrontation between Javier and Stellan. He said that he saw Natalie on the cover of a magazine and decided then and there that she was a perfect Goya's muse. He was impressed with how down to earth she is. He said that he felt that right now Javier is the best and most versatile actor around (I totally agree with that). He mentioned that Javier wanted to play Goya and was at first disappointed that Milos wanted him for a different role. Milos said that it would be too easy to cast Javier as Goya. From what I've read it seems that Javier's role of Brother Lorenzo is the more complicated role. The trailer was amazing. Milos said that it was hard to get the film made and he is still not even sure if it has a US distributor yet. But he said that he thought (and hoped) that the film would come out here in January (maybe whichever distributor the film has will release it in either LA or NY for one week at the end of December so it can qualify for the Oscars but I don't know). I am sure that it will get a distributor here but you would think that distributors would want such a film. Milos said that the distributors look at the film and think "will it make money?" and that is their main concern. They are worried because it doesn't have a happy ending. Like I said, I am sure that it will get a distributor but it is a shame that it is taking this long and that it might not qualify for this year's awards season because of this.

David Lynch's Inland Empire is also having trouble getting a distributor here even though it has several distributors in Europe. I can tell that people liked the Goya trailer and one man I spoke with said that based on the trailer he would see the film right now!! So would I!! I don't know which distributors the producers have approached but perhaps they will have to go with a smaller, artier distributor that would really be behind the film. All in all, it was a splendid evening.

If you are interested in reading more about Goya's Ghosts there is a very good web site run by a very nice fellow. But it is in Spanish (there is a link for his English language site but most of the updates are on the Spanish site). Here it is: http://fantasmasdegoya.blogspot.com/