Ján Kadár (1 April 1918 – 1 June 1979) was a
Hungarian-born Slovak film writer and director of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
heritage.
As a filmmaker, he worked in
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, the United States, and Canada. Most of his films were directed in tandem with
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for the film ''The Shop on Main Street' ...
. The two became best known for their
Oscar-winning ''
The Shop on Main Street
''The Shop on Main Street'' (Czech/ Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film about the Aryanization program during World War II in the Slovak State.
The film was written by Ladislav Gr ...
'' (''Obchod na korze'', 1965).
As a professor at FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, Kadár trained most of the directors who spawned the
Czechoslovak New Wave
The Czechoslovak New Wave (also Czech New Wave) is a term used for the Czechoslovak filmmakers who started making movies in the 1960s. The directors commonly included are Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Pavel Juráček, Jiří Menze ...
in the 1960s.
After moving to the United States, he became professor of film direction at the
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
in Beverly Hills. His personal life as well as his films encompassed and spanned a range of cultures: Jewish,
Slovak, Hungarian,
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
, and American.
Early years
Kadár was born in Budapest,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
. Later his family moved to
Rožňava
Rožňava ( hu, Rozsnyó, german: Rosenau, Latin: ''Rosnavia'') is a town in Slovakia, approximately by road from Košice in the Košice Region, and has a population of 19,182.
The town is an economic and tourist centre of the Gemer. Rožňava ...
, in the newly created
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
, where he grew up.
Kadár took up the law in Bratislava after high school, but soon transferred to the first Department of Film in Czechoslovakia (probably the third such department in Europe) at the School of Industrial Arts in
Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...
[Martin Votruba, "Historical and Cultural Background of Slovak Filmmaking."](_blank)
/ref> in 1938, where he took classes with Slovak film's notable director Karel Plicka
Karel Plicka (in Slovak: Karol Plicka) (14 October 1894 6 May 1987) was a Czechoslovak photographer, film director, cinematographer, folklorist, and pedagogue. He is considered a founder of Slovak film education and filmmaking. He helped estab ...
until the department was closed in 1939. Kadár's home town became part of Hungary again in 1938.
With the application of anti-Jewish laws, Kádár was detained in a labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
. He later said that it was for the first time in his life that he acted as a Jew: He refused conversion and served in a work unit with a yellow armband rather than a white one which was the privilege of those baptized. His parents and sister were murdered in the death camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
at Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
.
Film director
Overview
Kadár began his directing career in Bratislava, Slovakia after World War II with the documentary ''Life Is Rising from the Ruins'' (''Na troskách vyrastá život'', 1945). After several documentaries expressive of the views of the Communist Party, which he joined, Kadár moved to Prague in 1947 and returned to Bratislava temporarily in order to make ''Kathy'' (''Katka'', 1950), his first feature film.
Beginning in 1952, he co-directed all his Czechoslovak films with Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for the film ''The Shop on Main Street' ...
solely in Prague except their Czech−Slovak projects ''Death Is Called Engelchen'' ( sk, Smrť sa volá Engelchen, cs, Smrt si říká Engelchen, 1963), ''The Shop on Main Street
''The Shop on Main Street'' (Czech/ Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film about the Aryanization program during World War II in the Slovak State.
The film was written by Ladislav Gr ...
'' (''Obchod na korze'', 1965), and ''Adrift'' ( cs, Touha zvaná Anada, sk, Túžba zvaná Anada, hu, Valamit visz a víz, 1969) shot with Slovak, Hungarian, and Czech actors on location at Rusovce, Slovakia. Kadár returned to finish the latter one from the United States, where he immigrated in November 1968.
It was his last work with Klos Klos or KLOS may refer to:
*Klos (surname)
*Klos, Dibër, a town in eastern Albania
** Harketari Klos KF, a defunct football club based in Klos, Dibër
*Klos, Elbasan, a village in central Albania
* Klos, Mallakastër, a village in south-central Alb ...
. He then resumed his career in the U.S. and Canada working in both films and television. He was also a popular professor of film directing at the American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
's Center for Advanced Film Studies.
1950s
While touting the obligatory Marxist-Leninist doctrine and adhering to Socialist-Realist filmmaking, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for the film ''The Shop on Main Street' ...
first bounced between comedy and hard-core propaganda. Kadár's first feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
''Kathy'' (''Katka'', 1950) made before he teamed up with Klos was little different in this respect from their subsequent joint work.
Their choice of themes began to change with the first, mild relaxation of communism in Czechoslovakia after Soviet leader Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956. Kadár and Klos's first film during this minor thaw, ''Three Wishes'' (''Tři přání'', 1958), a cagey satire on aspects of everyday life, outraged the authorities and was shelved until the more relaxed conditions in 1963.
The studios suspended both directors for two years.
Their Communist Party membership protected them from a worse fate, however, and Kadár was able to find a refuge in semi-propagandist, technically avant-garde work for the early Czechoslovak multi-screen shows at the ''Laterna magika'' (''Magic Lantern'') project.
1960s
The first feature film Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos (26 January 1910 – 19 July 1993) was a Czech film director who collaborated for 17 years with his Slovak colleague Ján Kadár and with him won the 1965 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for the film ''The Shop on Main Street' ...
were able to make in five years showed a decided return to classical black-and-white film-making with barely a trace of Kadár's more experimental work at the ''Laterna magika''.
A gradual relaxation of communist control in Czechoslovakia, whose first signs came from Slovakia, enabled the Bratislava journalist and writer Ladislav Mňačko
Ladislav Mňačko (28 January 1919 in Valašské Klobouky – 24 February 1994 in Bratislava) was a Slovak writer and journalist. He took part in the partisan movement in Slovakia during World War II. After the war, he was at first a staunc ...
to publish his novel ''Death Is Called Engelchen'' (''Smrť sa volá Engelchen'', 1959) and Kadár and Klos to reach for it from Prague after their suspension was over. The novel and their film ''Death is Called Engelchen
''Death Is Called Engelchen'' ( sk, Smrt sa volá Engelchen) is a 1963 Czechoslovak war film directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos. It was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Golden Prize.
Plot
At the end of ...
'' ( sk, Smrť sa volá Engelchen, cs, Smrt si říká Engelchen, 1963) spotlighted a new take on the massive pro-democratic Slovak revolt of 1944 that previously had been portrayed only as invariably glorious. It showed some of its aspects that brought about human tragedy.
The film was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival
The 3rd Moscow International Film Festival was held from 7 to 21 July 1963. The Grand Prix was awarded to the Italian film ''8½'' directed by Federico Fellini.
Jury
* Grigori Chukhrai (USSR - President of the Jury)
* Shaken Ajmanov (USSR)
* S ...
where it won a Golden Prize.
The directors' next film, ''Accused'' aka ''Defendant'' (''Obžalovaný'', 1964), rehashed the propagandist structures of the earlier Socialist-Realist filmmaking, but turned them around by replacing the content mandated in the 1950s with committed social criticism that was quickly becoming one of the hallmarks of Slovak cinema and Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
*Czech, ...
cinema of the 1960s.
All of these experiences and influences intersected to bring Kadár and Klos Klos or KLOS may refer to:
*Klos (surname)
*Klos, Dibër, a town in eastern Albania
** Harketari Klos KF, a defunct football club based in Klos, Dibër
*Klos, Elbasan, a village in central Albania
* Klos, Mallakastër, a village in south-central Alb ...
their enduring success with ''The Shop on Main Street
''The Shop on Main Street'' (Czech/ Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film about the Aryanization program during World War II in the Slovak State.
The film was written by Ladislav Gr ...
'' (''Obchod na korze'', 1965), a compassionate and tormenting depiction of the dead-end street faced by many in Central Europe during the deportations of the Jews to German concentration camps German concentration camps may refer to different camps which were operated by German states:
*Concentration camps during the Herero and Namaqua genocide
** Shark Island concentration camp
* Cottbus-Sielow concentration camp in Cottbus interning Jew ...
during World War II. The film received several awards, including a foreign-language Oscar
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People
* Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms.
* Oscar (Irish mythology), ...
. Slovak and Czech film academics and critics still consider it the best film in the history of Slovak cinema.
Kadár and Klos's work on their next project based on the Hungarian novel ''Something Is Drifting on the Water'' (''Valamit visz a víz'', 1928) by Lajos Zilahy
Lajos Zilahy (27 March 1891 − 1 December 1974) was a Hungarian novelist and playwright. Born in Nagyszalonta, Austria-Hungary (now Salonta, Romania), he studied law at the University of Budapest before serving in the Austro-Hungarian army du ...
, and, effectively, a remake of the Hungarian film with the English international title ''Something Is in the Water'' (''Valamit visz a víz'', dir. Gusztáv Oláh and Lajos Zilahy
Lajos Zilahy (27 March 1891 − 1 December 1974) was a Hungarian novelist and playwright. Born in Nagyszalonta, Austria-Hungary (now Salonta, Romania), he studied law at the University of Budapest before serving in the Austro-Hungarian army du ...
, 1943) was interrupted by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.
Kadár and his family quickly resettled in the United States, and although he returned briefly to help finish the film released as ''Adrift'' ( cs, Touha zvaná Anada, sk, Túžba zvaná Anada, 1969), his involvement was limited by comparison to his previous work with Klos. That was also the last time that the two directors met.
1970s
Ján Kadár's first film after immigration to the United States and his first solo feature film since 1950 was ''The Angel Levine
''The Angel Levine'' is a 1970 American drama film directed by Ján Kadár and starring Zero Mostel, Harry Belafonte, Ida Kamińska, Milo O'Shea, and Gloria Foster. It is based on a short story by Bernard Malamud about Morris Mishkin, an elderly, ...
'' (1970), a substantially modified version of Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseba ...
's short story ''Angel Levine'' (1958).
He later directed ''Lies My Father Told Me
''Lies My Father Told Me'' is a 1975 Canadian drama film made in Montreal, Quebec. It was directed by Ján Kadár and stars Jeffrey Lynas as an orthodox Jewish boy growing up in 1920s Montreal. The film received the Golden Globe Award for Best Fo ...
'' in Canada.
Filmography
* ''Life Is Rising from the Ruins'' (''Na troskách vyrastá život'', 1945)
* ''They Are Personally Responsible for Crimes against Humanity'' (''Sú osobne zodpovední za zločiny proti ľudskosti'', 1946)
* ''They Are Personally Responsible for a Betrayal of the National Uprising'' (''Sú osobne zodpovední za zradu na národnom povstaní'', 1946)
* '' Katka'' (1950)
* '' The Hijacking''; aka ''Kidnapped'' (''Únos'', 1952)
* '' Music from Mars'' (''Hudba z Marsu'', 1954)
* '' House at the Terminus'' (''Tam na konečné'', 1957)
* '' Three Wishes'' (''Tři přání'', 1958'')
* ''Death Is Called Engelchen
''Death Is Called Engelchen'' ( sk, Smrt sa volá Engelchen) is a 1963 Czechoslovak war film directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos. It was entered into the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Golden Prize.
Plot
At the end of ...
'' ( cs, Smrt si říká Engelchen, sk, Smrť sa volá Engelchen, 1963)
* ''Accused
Accused or The Accused may refer to:
* A person suspected with committing a crime or offence; see Criminal charge
** Suspect, a known person suspected of committing a crime
* The Accüsed, a 1980s Seattle crossover thrash band
*''The Accused'', a ...
'' (''Obžalovaný'', also known as ''Defendant'', 1964)
* ''The Shop on Main Street
''The Shop on Main Street'' (Czech/ Slovak: ''Obchod na korze''; in the UK ''The Shop on the High Street'') is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film about the Aryanization program during World War II in the Slovak State.
The film was written by Ladislav Gr ...
'' (''Obchod na korze'', 1965)
* ''Adrift'' ( cs, Touha zvaná Anada, sk, Túžba zvaná Anada, hu, Valamit visz a víz, 1969)
* ''The Angel Levine
''The Angel Levine'' is a 1970 American drama film directed by Ján Kadár and starring Zero Mostel, Harry Belafonte, Ida Kamińska, Milo O'Shea, and Gloria Foster. It is based on a short story by Bernard Malamud about Morris Mishkin, an elderly, ...
'' (1970)
* ''Lies My Father Told Me
''Lies My Father Told Me'' is a 1975 Canadian drama film made in Montreal, Quebec. It was directed by Ján Kadár and stars Jeffrey Lynas as an orthodox Jewish boy growing up in 1920s Montreal. The film received the Golden Globe Award for Best Fo ...
'' (1976)
* ''The Case against Milligan'' (1976)
* ''Freedom Road
''Freedom Road'' was a 1979 American TV historical drama mini-series starring boxer Muhammad Ali and Kris Kristofferson, based on the 1944 novel by Howard Fast and directed by Jan Kadar. Running for four hours, it was first broadcast on NBC on ...
'' (1979)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kadar, Jan
1918 births
1979 deaths
Hungarian film directors
Czechoslovak film directors
Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States
Hungarian Jews
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
People from Budapest
Directors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners
Immigrants to Czechoslovakia
Presidents of the American Film Institute