Oscar-winning director Milos Forman dead at 86

OSCAR-WINNING Czech-born film director Milos Forman, known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus, has died aged 86, his agent told AFP on Saturday.

“I heard from (Forman’s wife) Martina Forman very early this morning letting me know Milos passed away at Danbury Hospital near his home in Warren, Connecticut,” Forman’s friend and agent Dennis Aspland said.

The Czech news agency CTK quoted Martina Forman as saying Forman died suddenly on Friday after a short illness.

“He passed away quietly, surrounded by his family and his closest people,” she said.

In an obituary on Twitter, Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas labelled Forman a “genius of cinematography.”

Born in the town of Caslav east of Prague on February 18, 1932, Forman lost both parents in Nazi concentration camps.

In the 1960s, he joined the New Wave of filmmakers standing up to the Communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia, making himself famous with Black Peter, Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball.

Shortly before the 1968 Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia, which put an end to a liberal period known as the Prague Spring, Forman moved to the United States via France.

CINEMA ‘GENIUS’

His career overseas started with Taking Off in 1971, followed by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest four years later, which brought Forman his first Best Director Oscar.

An American citizen since 1977, Forman returned to still-Communist Prague in 1983 to film Amadeus, which earned him a second Oscar for best director and won eight out of 11 nominations.

“He was my dad’s best friend and we both looked up to him,” Czech director David Ondricek, the son of Forman’s cameraman Miroslav Ondricek, told the website of the DNES daily.

“He had a beautiful character and fantastic energy. People wanted to be near him, he was a fabulous storyteller and a kind man,” Ondricek added.

Gilles Jacob, former director of the Cannes Film Festival, said Forman had been the only director who proceeded from the New Wave to “great, popular American author films covered with Oscars.” “He loved beer, tennis, Cannes. He said: ‘Tell the truth, that’s all’,” Jacob tweeted.

British director/writer Edgar Wright (Baby Driver) said Forman had “a tremendous filmography that documented the rebel heart and human spirit.”

Antonio Banderas also paid homage to Forman. “Milos Forman has left us. Genius of cinematography and master in the portrayal of the human condition,” wrote Banderas.

Meanwhile, American writer/producer Larry Karaszewski who made two films (including Larry Flynt) with Forman, said the director was “our friend and our teacher. He was a master filmmaker — no one better at capturing small unrepeatable moments of human behaviour. We made two movies together and every day spent with him was a unique adventure. Milos loved life. I will miss his laughter.”

Actor/comedian Josh Gad also mounr ed the director’s passing, tweeting that Forman’s work was “up there alongside the greats”.

Forman’s other films include Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981), Valmont (1989) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which won him another best director Oscar nomination, as well as Man on the Moon (1999) and Goya’s Ghosts (2006).

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