Katerina Pošová

"We ought to have a Ministry for the Moral-Intellectual Environment"

An interview with Jirí Menzel

Prague, January of 1998.

Jirí Menzel - photo by Martin Poš
Jirí Menzel -
photo by Martin Poš

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  Even the most compacted encyclopaedia entry of "Menzel" is rather lengthy, but the most important data should be summarised in a nutshell here: Born in Prague on 23rd February, 1938, he graduated in 1962 from the Prague FAMU (Academy of Film Arts), in a class headed by Otakar Vávra, with classmates such as Evald Schorm, Pavel Jurácek,Vera Chytilová, Jan Nemec, Drahomíra Vihanová.

From Closely Observed Trains up until Chonkin, he directed fifteen long feature films, while from Machiavelli's Mandragora in 1965 at the Prague Cinoherní Club up until the Mandragora premiere at the City Theatre in Ceske Budejovice he staged many dozens of plays on both foreign and domestic stages (e.g. in the German city of Bochum he directed Örkény's Cat's Play); acting in numerous films as well as theatre performances and winning countless international and domestic awards, including the Oscar. He says he is extremely lazy. This, however, does not hinder him from pursuing his praiseworthy ambition, i.e. to stay a good man and never bore his audience with his oeuvres. He does both with healthy self-irony and an excellent sense of humour, as is obvious from our conversation. He is currently paying special regard to public life and political events, in his feuilleton under the title "I don't quite know..." published regularly in the Prague weekly entitled Story. Our first question is, then:

What is your view now, in the middle of January, 1998, of the current domestic internal political complications?

Well,.. We are faltering along amidst revolutionary changes. This whole transition is a difficult business. It is difficult to get accustomed to the range of new things. Like when a child is growing into adulthood, encountering so many changes in his adolescent years that he is unable to find his way. In circumstances like these it is easy to make silly mistakes. For many years we have not been held accountable for anything, we just had to be obedient, and all of a sudden we are expected to take responsibility for our actions and decisions. We are, however, not yet strong enough to bear the burdens of independence and of having rights. A young man in his adolescence, if he has not been provided with the right moral foundations during his upbringing before, may well turn into a scoundrel, but if he is just a bit intelligent, he may learn from the experiences of the wise old people and develop into an honest and responsible adult.

What are the things that you think have been most neglected in the recent years?


It was this intellectual and moral measurement that I have mentioned. Many conversations and conferences last year discussed that which was missing or was to be rejected during the economic transition. That the theory of the all-redeeming free market, just like Marxism, fails to take the human element into account. Humankind, during its history so far, has always been restrained by some kind of order, and without such an order the most wonderful society itself will be unable to function. Those honourable American and Western-European political regimes which we hold up as our models today, have been based on the ideals of Christian morality, i.e. principles which paved the way for the development and evolution of new and modern states. The current new, free society, however, is not sensitive enough to these ideals. This is what we need to set right in the first place.

In the recent past we have hardly known the meaning of the world "ecology", and by now we have a "Ministry for the Environment". We cannot destroy our environment without consequences. Our moral climate, however, is constantly deteriorating. I am not thinking only of racism or the skin-heads, but the fact that there are many who think that hitting our fellow-human beings in the head with a baseball racket is perfectly all right. The problem is not only that people have become thieves and swindlers, but that many consider their fellow humans to be unprotected preys. It think we ought to have a Ministry for the Moral-Intellectual Environment, which would supervise the observance of certain rules without that being considered as an infringement upon human rights and freedoms.

In public traffic, in the food industry and in commerce this is considered a matter of course. That people should not murder each other on our public roads, that shops should not be selling poison, that at least the young should be protected against filth. We are in need of some kind of a code of morals, which would make it impossible that people be subjected to tasteless vulgarities, and violence and aggression be popularised. Our forefathers not too long ago died of dirtiness and the lack of the most basic hygiene. Then the soap was discovered and the observance of the basic health norms was made compulsory. Yet for human beings to be healthy, in addition to the cleanliness of the body and the environment, the hygiene of the intellect and the soul is obviously just as much necessary.

Would you like to be twenty today?

No. Although in one way I am envious of the twenty-year-olds of today, who may study, do sports, travel and do whatever they like. For them it is just a matter of course. Yet I often think, that if these children do not come to their senses now, then in forty years' time, when they will be sixty, their lives will not be easy.

How do you greet your students?

That they should learn the craft in the first place. Even the most talented pianist needs to learn how to play the piano first, (and then needs to practice for a life-time) and the "soul" can be put into it only at a later stage. There is one more thing that I always warn my students about, which has seemingly nothing to do with the process of creation. But as I am growing old, I experience it more and more, that especially in the profession of the director, but surely also in that of the author, a consequently observed set of values is of great importance. Because you like it or not, the essence of every one of our works is the human being, and as an author we are in fact doing nothing but evaluating the deeds of our heroes.

Could you live outside Europe?

I do not think so. I do love to travel, but I also love to belong somewhere. Not to mention that Prague is so beautiful.

It is well-known that you are a very tolerant person. What does this mean for you in your private life, and in your relationship to democracy and aggression?

In my view, being tolerant means making ourselves conscious that the other person may have his private truth. I try to understand it, and then hopefully to respect it. But nobody is entitled to tolerate aggression. As soon as faces are smacked in a dispute, the person who first hit is guilty. That person is trying to make up for the absence of convincing arguments. No violence in human relationships should be tolerated. And I think that is also true for art. I mean the portrayal of violence as well as that certain artists are aggressively pushy. To be able to protect ourselves against that, however, it is the moral foundation that we have mentioned already that is required.

What are the human characteristics that you reject to such an extent that you are unwilling as much as to meet the person with those traits?

Hypocrisy. Conceited snobbery. Filthiness, meanness. I had a couple of old cronies, who were taken to pull the wool over my eyes and throw mud at me. I detest them more that those whom I have always known to be scoundrels. In this I have the memory of an elephant; I never forget if somebody deceived me.

Do you not regret not having established a family?

No. I do not feel the need to reproduce myself. But the fact that the role of the father is missing from my life has kept me rather immature; and I am more of a failed son than a wise father...

What characteristic would you like to see in your child, if you had any?

Just one characteristic? Perhaps I should cite one of Fromms' beautiful thoughts, that s/he should learn to be his/her own God, i.e. that s/he is responsible to himself/herself for all his/her actions.

What is your relationship to nature?

I am basically an urban person. When we were children, my sister would tell me about what nature was about, down here green, up there blue. And the water wet.

If you were unexpectedly forced to leave your home and take only twenty kilograms of baggage with yourself, what would you include in it?

Well... I know no woman of 20 kilograms.. I don't know... A few books, warm underwear, a bathing trunk and ten kilos of oranges.

Is there something that you could hardly live without?

Yes, running hot water.

You said before, "well, I don't know..." This is the title of the weekly feuilleton that you have been writing for the picture weekly "Story" for over three years now, and of which a volume has been compiled and published. What is more, the volume was published in Hungary, too, where it became a best-seller! Will you continue writing?

Of course! That's what makes up part of my living nowadays. I like doing it, and I am proud to say that I have been told by a number of people that they were buying "Story" for the sake of that feuilleton! Not bad, isn't it?

Do you have a perfectly unfulfillable desire?

Yes, of course I do, but perhaps it was good that it was not fulfilled. I have always wished that my apartment be swarming with many-many beautiful, naked girls!

Naked girls are a pretty sight, if the girls are pretty, but what would you do with them?

I apologise, but I believe that I'd have a few excellent ideas as to that. Another wish? I am a petty-bourgeois, and I have always wished for a happy, quite life, under a huge umbrella. This, however, I need to deserve. And this is my trauma. That I have always felt that I was indebted. Man should to some extent feel grateful simply for being in the world, what's more, should make redemption. Man should be more persevering, more ambitious. And that is what I am not.

Do you really think that ambition is such a enviable character-trait?

Not really. But I am aware that if Milos Forman was not a sufficiently ambitious person, he would never have made Amadeus. And that would be a real pity, wouldn't it?

Let's talk a little about film, then, the rather painful complications around making a film of Hrabal's beautiful novel, entitled I have been His Majesty's Waiter. There were numerous articles written about it, and to my knowledge the Hungarian papers have also mentioned the phenomenon. How long have you come with it?

Not too long at all. The copy-right was purchased by Vladimír Zelezny, general-manager of the commercial television called Nova Tv. Vladimír, as I was only willing to shoot a decent feature film of it and not a television series, on which, however, he has insisted, - spread the rumour that Menzel was no longer interested in the idea. He offered it to Forman, who also turned it down in the form of a series. As far as I know, Zelezny is now looking for some famous director who would do the series for him. That's not going to be me.

A terrible story... I know that you have written a number of versions for the screen-play, and after settling the matter with your domestic rival, Karel Kachyna, it almost seemed that you can start shooting. Are you much disturbed by this ?

I am rather sad, I admit it. I would certainly see the world in brighter colours, if Zdenek Sverák (i.e. the screen-play writer and an actor in Seclusion Near a Forest, My Sweet Little Village) Honza's son (i.e. Jan) was not a film director but a post-office clerk. Because then perhaps it could have been me who shot the The Elementary School and perhaps even Kolya. But I am able "to take a distance", and be happy about that the Honza-boy is doing it well, and that I still had a trifle of luck in this life, i.e. that I was given the chance to meet Mr Hrabal. That it was me who could shoot Trains at that time and not someone else. That I could work in Club Cinoherní in Prague, that I could play in Single Gentlemen's Boarding House, that I have a few good cronies and pretty girl-friends...

You are known and renown as a film director, a theatre director, a film as well as a stage actor. In which of these hats do you feel most at home?

At home!!!... Well, of course, if everything runs smoothly, it is a great feeling to be standing there upon the stage, and breathe together with the audience. Which of my roles did I like best? Well, of course, the drunkard old student of the Boarding House, Halibut. We have played it for sixteen years! A few times even in Budapest.

As you pronounced "at home" your face almost transfigured, so I would like to ask you: How do you feel in this long-awaited, beautiful and new apartment? Was it worth the energy and the huge amount of money?

Yes, indeed! And even the multitude of debts, too. With my twin brother, Hanicka, we have spent our first Christmas and New Year's Eve here, and although we are both very conservative, we have not for a moment wished the old place back, in spite of the fact that that's where we have lived with our parents. This, as you can see yourself, is sunny, cheerful, airy and spacious. At last my books have enough room, as well as my collections of video-tapes and other beloved toys. I feel very well here. (Me, too, although one is allowed to light a cigarette only on the terrace. Is this what is called tolerance?! - K.P.)

After 1989, in possession of a wealth of western experiences, you were very anxious to point out to the domestic film industry the dangers of commercialisation and a total liberalisation of production and distribution. At that time, you were accused of regretting the decline of censorship, i.e. curtailing the freedom of creation. Today, the whole of the Czech movie market is controlled by American distributors who flood it with their trashy, bloody action films and tasteless shilling- shockers, while the best domestic film-makers need to devote more energy to raising funds for their plans then to creative work proper. Do you have a sense of gratification for having been right in so many things?

I am not that malicious. What I do worry about, however, is that the small funds available for subsidising film are being used for making "art", i.e. hokey-pokey. Films that chase the audience out of the cinema. I think that it is not so much film-making but those educated producers that are to be supported who, in addition to quality, want to take responsibility for a return on the investment as well. And those distributors who are willing to take risks, and want to offer real, anthropoid quality to the audience. The kind of quality that was represented by, e.g., Mozart's operas. His arias were sung in the streets a few days after the premiere. Jan Sverák's Kolya has been seen by over two million people at home, while critics and some of our colleges are making faces and put on fastidious airs, saying that is sentimental kitsch and the like.

You are a member of the world-renown Los Angeles Academy which selects the winners of the Oscar, as well as the member of the European Film Academy distributing the Felix-Awards. This, however, is far from being as popular as it would deserve. Why so?

This is a very exact diagnosis of the crises of European film. It may look like a paradox, but the great advantage to America is that that's something men with the money decide. There it is of primary importance that a film should be given a perfect professional shape. And one always finds some among these that are also artistically valuable. But look at the list of the Oscar-winning films at any time: they have always been box-office hits, in the noblest sense of the word. As opposed to this, Europe is made up of a number of tiny countries, with a number of tiny film industries. Every country produces its films for itself, and the smallest its territory, the more difficult for the country's film industry to be self-sustaining. During its ten years of existence, the failure of the Felix Award has always been that it wanted to popularise the best films, the way American model does it. These films, by European criteria, have been artistic, decent, they have just not been known by anybody, because they were unattractive in commercial terms, they were no "box-office hits". And thus, as the awarded films have been hardly seen by anybody, the Felix, - unlike the Oscar - remained an unknown phenomenon in Europe. It is exactly this stupid, tortuous superstition, that has been spreading more and more over the last fifty years, is what most characterises the opinions of European filmmakers, i.e. that if people like something, that is consequently no art. But now even the European Film Academy is beginning to grasp, fortunately, that that attitude needs to be changed (see, e.g. The English Patient...).

Few people in the Czech Republic know that you are the chairman of the Preparation Committee of an international as well as Eastern-European enterprise, called Alfa TV, initiated by the Hungarians. Its goal is the simultaneous satellite transmission of valuable, good European films in many different languages. Why have you accepted this position and when will the program start?

Why I have accepted the position has simple reasons. All of us here in Europe know a lot more about America than about our neighbours. The intention of Alfa TV is to remedy that situation. I am quite assured that similarly lovely and valuable films as our Ground School or Kolya are made in Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Holland and everywhere, available, however, only to the limited number of domestic viewers. Alfa will have the opportunity to show these films to the viewers of all the twenty-five countries at the same time. These films and programs will be rather different from what all those commercial satellite channels have been feeding us for years. The programs will hopefully start, unfortunately with some delay, around Christmas.

As my last question; I would like to ask you in what form would Jirí Menzel like to be reborn in his next life?

Perhaps as a pretty girl. But that, I am afraid, is not too lasting a thing.... I know now: an eagle! I would enjoy flying high, over cliffs and among clouds...

Thank you for your confidence in me and your honest answers. For your 60th birthday I would like to wish you the very best I can think of, i.e. that in your forthcoming, very long life nothing should ever be worse!

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