#Jaroslav Kucera

[gacougnol]

Jaroslav Kucera

[pierreism]

Touha a.k.a. Desire, 1958. dir. Vojtěch Jasný

The more Jasný I see the more he becomes my favourite of the new wave. Cinematography by new wave regular Jaroslav Kucera, who was also previously married to Vera Chytilová.

[genevieveetguy]

Listen Robert, denoting your superior as a murderer in public doesn't seem like constructive criticism.

The Cassandra Cat (Az prijde kocour), Vojtech Jasný (1963)

[byneddiedingo]

The Cassandra Cat (Vojtech Jasný, 1963)

Cast: Jan Werich, Emília Vášáryová, Vlastimil Brodský, Jiří Sovák, Vladimír Menšík, Jiřina Bohdalová, Karel Effa, Vlasta Chramostová, Alena Kreuzmannová. Screenplay: Jirí Brdecka, Vojtech Jasný, Jan Werich. Cinematography: Jaroslav Kucera. Production design: Oldrich Bosák. Film editing: Jan Chaloupek. Music: Svatopluk Havelka. 

Sometimes you have to wonder how a movie came about. I mean, how did the premise underlying The Cassandra Cat --  a cat whose gaze makes people change colors, revealing their true selves -- emerge? It surely didn't come from spitballing in a story conference. Was it from someone nibbling on a funky mushroom while foraging in the Bohemian forest? And even granted that premise, how did it become the basis for a fable about hidebound authority stifling the creative imagination? Actually, that latter is pretty much standard for Eastern European filmmakers under Soviet rule, finding any way to poke at the oppressors without waking the censors. Whatever the origins, the resulting film is a sprightly creation, featuring an astonishingly docile cat. I mean, if anyone tried to put sunglasses on one of my cats, or trundle them about a village square with a gang of children, I'm sure the results would have been unpleasant. Still, The Cassandra Cat makes me wish the story had been turned over to one of the Czech masters of animation like Karel Zeman or Jiří Trnka rather than made into a live action film. The special effects in the movie are just clunky enough to be distracting, especially if your tolerance for the kind of whimsy prevalent in the film is low.   

[yeuxxsansvisage]

Sedmikrásky, 1966. Věra Chytilová. Jaroslav Kucera.

[sesiondemadrugada]

Morgiana (Juraj Herz, 1972).

[luzfosca]

Jaroslav Kučera. Slovensko, 1974

[bigspoopygurl]

Daisies (1966)

“A doll. I'm like a doll, aren't you? I'm a doll.”

Director: Vera Chytilova

Cinematographer: Jaroslav Kucera

[outofilm]

daisies (1966) dir. věra chytilová; cinematography by jaroslav kucera

[ilkel]

Sedmikrásky ~ Daisies (1966 - Vera Chytilová)

[gacougnol]

Jaroslav Kucera

Alice

Prague 1971

[facesofcinema]

Sedmikrásky (1966)

[genevieveetguy]

- I don't understand anything anymore. - I understand everything. Call me Robert.

Fruit of Paradise (Ovoce stromu rajských jíme), Vera Chytilová (1970)

[paolo-streito-1264]

Jaroslav Kucera #photography.

[restinpicturespod]

ANOTHER PERFECT SHOT

DAISIES | 1966 Director | Věra Chytilová Cinematographer | Jaroslav Kucera

RIP 15: Remembering Filmstruck

[byneddiedingo]

Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová in Daisies (Vera Chytilová, 1966) Cast: Jitka Cerhová, Ivana Karvanová, Julius Albert, Jan Klusák, Marie Cesková, Jirina Myskova, Marcela Brezinová, Oldrich Hora, Václav Chochola, Josef Konicek, Jaromir Vornácka. Screenplay: Vera Chytilová. Ester Krumbachová, Pavel Jurácek. Cinematography: Jaroslav Kucera. Production design: Karel Lier. Film editing: Miroslav Hájek. Music: Jirí Slitr, Jirí Sust. Girls just wanna have fun. The adjective usually applied to Vera Chytilová's Daisies is "anarchic," but that doesn't quite apply to a film so cleverly staged, photographed, and edited. To be sure, the impish young women whose adventures the film chronicles are in some sense anarchists, in that they try to break all the rules they can find to break. And if you're looking for the conventional beginning-middle-end narrative structure you won't find one. But Daisies is not just Dadaist nose-thumbing. It's framed by images of the mass destruction of war, against which, the film seems to be saying, the sheer mad hedonism of its two uninhibited sprites should be viewed as trivial. Chytilová takes her cue not only from Dada but also from the Marx Brothers, whose antics would be appalling in real life but are liberating to the spirit when viewed in the context of a work of art. Daisies is akin in this sense to an apocalyptic comedy like Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, made only two years earlier, and its spirit and some of its techniques come from Richard Lester's A Hard Day's Night, also from 1964. They reflect an era when youth thought it could change the world, only to be put down, as the Czech filmmakers like Chytilová would brutally be put down, by the establishment it so gleefully mocked. That Daisies can be grating as often as it is giddy suggests an awareness that the road of excess may lead to the palace of wisdom, but not without paying a price.