Prague, September 12, 1994

Dear Pepi and The American University students:I would prefer to write you the promised talk about cinema in the form of letter, because I’ve noticed that when I write with a specific audience in mind I do a better job. Otherwise, I sometimes get shy and turn more academic like my own bust, which, considering my buxom size, is a heavy weight, after all. Also, when I don’t know the people I’m talking to I squirm somewhat and don’t know whether to be more cordial or less. These questions are very complicated – the I overcome it somehow and all goes well.We have four themes, but I forget the fourth one, so I’m going to write down three.1. Films written from a literary base: We write them alone without the consent of the author, who either has died long ago or is out of touch.2. Films based on one’s own theme.3. Films which we make because the theme was offered to us: We need to test our ability to manage these by doing them. That means that these are also the films (and I think this was the fourth theme topic) about which we know virtually nothing but we accept the work and from our own experience we must put life into them to make them work.

1. A script based on a literary subject.I have written three such screenplays:Valerie and the Week of Miracles, base on Vitezslav Nezval’s poems, directed by Jaromil Jires. The Hammer against the Witches, base on the Vaclav Kaplicky novel, directed by Otakar Vavra. Faun’s Very Late Afternoon, base on Jiri Brdecka’s story, directed by Vera Chytilova.Mostly the literary base is given to us, the script writers, and then we work mostly with the director. Valerie and the Week of Miracles was written by me, Jires merely signed on the dotted line (Cross out those parts which do not fit – we won’t wash our good Czech laudry in front of the foreigners, right?).The first condition of the author or co-author of the script based on literature is that s/he must define a point-of-view (POV) in regard to the subject. The story and the atmosphere must in no way remain alien to him/her. She must allow herself out and then become consumed by the atmosphere of the story and then adjust it to her feeling, imagination, and reasoning. But all this exclusively – even with the greatest possible respect for the author – must simply smell of the writer’s own life. It is the first orientation into what must or may be omitted, shortened, what should be pressed on. One must, above all, understand that film and literature are two quite different territories. It is necessary for the author or co-author of the script to come to their native spiritual ground.If the subject of the story or novel remains alien to the script writer, they will start to be afraid, they won’t have the courage to go into it. And a frightened script writer is like a good swimmer who, despite being a good swimmer, is afraid to dive into an unknown lake for fear of drowning. And for a script writer to die from stagefright is stupid and inconvenient because a corpse cannot write anymore.i’ll give an example: the film Hammer against the Witches was about one of the last court trials of the Inquisition in Europe, one of the most disgusting time in world cultural history. In the town of Sumperk in Moravia, thanks to a bigoted countees, a Catholic and her personal priest came to power. The book’s author, Vaclav Kaplicky, wrote the novel from authentic testimonies preserved from the torture rooms. I got them on my desk in written copies where I read the confession of the Dean Lautner, an intelligent man of the Enlightenment who, in addition, poor man, was sleeping with his cook. Before the Inquisition court it was perfectly proven that both the cook and the Dean were in contact with the devil. Their bodily torture and testimonies were a sample of the results of their totality, they were in a symbiosis together, when the bones in the cook’s foot where crushed by the so-called Spanish boot, what else could the poor girl do than confess? Yes, she had had intercourse with the devil, she had travelled to meet with witches on a certain hill where orgies and the cursing of God had taken place.both were burned, but the inquisitor. Who at the time had long been busy as an innkeeper in the Moravian city of Olomouc and now came to power again, as an experienced and seasoned inquisitor, fought his way through, I guess, three hundred executions by burning, confiscated the properties of the dead and in the end, in blessed advanced age, even managed to marry a young girl from Sumperk. All this in the course of three years.The story was a sort of parallel to the totalitarian regime which existed here at the time, and the piece had to be written in such a way that it would be allowed to be filmed at all. Otakar Vavra as a fellow script writer was a very good partner. We worked on the script for quite a long time: he had the first version of the script already prepared, but it was necessary for us to get inside the story. Every day, I prepared the possible psychological positions of the characters in action and deducted dialogues from them.Here we face and important matter: the screen writer must respect the literary base but, as I have already said, s/he must make it her own, feel with it. The study of such a terrible event was very troublesome for me. Director Vavra, to fulfill my wish, even obtained a photograph of a portrait of the burned intellectual, the Dean Lautner. I hung it above my desk and was looking at his smart face, his prominent nose from morning till evening. My compassion for him and my admiration of his mental strength had a good influence on me. I realized that I too must have so much strength to be able to evoke in the viewer the same sympathy and the same compassion – and with this realization, my torment ceased. That is: the subject became a matter of my personal honor. It was the defense of and the respect for the Dean who had been fond of women, played the violin and had liked to drink a glass with his friends one in a while. His bad fate should have been a warning – in many respects Lautner resembled Socrates. Every day I realized more and more that that man was very close to me and so I even prepared for Director Vavra dialogues that did not come out of the text of Vaclac Kaplicky’s book, but that maintained his ethics and meaning.I think that you will be interested in a description of a discussion between Otakar Vavra and myself. One day, he read one of the dialogues that later we together would shorten, deepen or throw out – and he told me: Dean Lautner in his time would never have said this. I answered: Dean Lautner now is in our hands. Very person whether written literarily or filmcally is, in essence, a phantom. It is we who input into that character what he will or will not say. And then it will be the truth. We are on his side, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for his personal freedom – and we treat it like our own personal freedom. After a longer argument, we agreed on what to leave in and what to cross out. But the phantom of a beautiful human being remained.I think, this is an example. In fact, of how to treat a literary base, or, in this case, a historical subject. Not to be frightened by what one could or could not say. To say it is for him . Of course within the frame of veracity and the style of realistic perception.In the margin, I would like to note: Emil Filla, the famous Czech cubist painter, wrote the thought: Free art is destined exclusively for free people.And Pablo Picasso told the stunned Gertrude Stein. Who after seeing her portrait screamed, “But I don’t look this way!” but one day, everyone will see you this way.The change of one value into another one is in fact the essence of creative work. What role will be played by feeling and intelligence, perceptiveness, decency, ethics, humility – rests upon the shoulders of the one who creates it. The narcissist can never win, nor can a megalomaniac or wheeler-dealer.Through all this that I am telling you, I want to say that the literary basis is the foundation of one’s own understanding, of one’s approach to oneself, the search for oneself which is the most important element of our actions, even where art not concerned. To summarize. I would say: to make everything thoroughly into your own, read a hundred time the passages which remain alien and if they still remain aline, better avoid them than to slavishly work them into the script. It won’t be truthful, it won’t have its own warm blood, its own essence. In the contrary in places where I have found myself, I remember the sources of thought and feeling that were secret, about which I may not have known very much. There the exciting work begins: to go from the original intention on circuitous roads of reason and feeling and, of course, of talent to preserve the thought of the other author and, at the same time, for it to be processed in a living way by another living person.The law of film does not allow long dialogues, no matter how clever. Film is a photograph, an imprint of live people, and to juxtapose dialogue to the situations and pictures that are accompanied by the spoken word is the first thing that the screen writer must master. The viewer in the cinema is not the reader of a book.The words of a book create in the mind of the reader and abstract and personal image of how and where the story is. Despite that it might be erroneous, it is still entertaining and beautiful for the reader. FILM DICTATES IMAGINATION – film is not as abstract as the written word – in spite of this, the abstractions in it must function like an engine of a good clock. This is why the screenwriter does not express himself merely through dialogue, but must find the right appearance, the phantom of the landscape, of the interior, of the light, this must be firmly deposited in the screenplay. Of course it can happen that the circumstances during the real shooting change the original intention of the screen writer and the director. But the foundation must be built up rationally and well. Then it is possible to deflect from the original intention, because even this deflection has its justification, it still has its wings, its designed direction. When the script does note have its wings, the film cannot end up well. The screen writer is obligated to submit to risk, it is always better to invent the most demanding scenes and then to reduce them. From a full jar of water it is possible to drain a lot. From a half full one it is impossible.Suddenly during shooting a cloud or a bird flies across the sky, suddenly in the exterior, a tree of such beauty appears that no one can resist putting this tree into the picture. Sometimes it is worth nothing, other times it may suddenly become the guide of the action which talks a different, but decipherable, language and supplies the film with charm and spiritual beauty. During shooting, unforeseen things take place – but script stands constantly like a firm foundation – it is always individual what to do with a coincidental change – but now I’m talking about the practice of shooting which is another question.Now Pepi and Students, I’m going to make an inclusion. I don’t know if you should not ask of Vavra, in the interest of dazzling him, whether The Hammer on the Witches won any prizes. I don’t really have a capacity for the prizes, I always forget about them, but somehow back then it was very famous, so if it would be good regarding your students, then ask him about it. I’m under the impression it was in a festival in Mar del Plate. Otherwise, I receive box office revenues and so I know I that especially in South America, where those poor people have been occupied for centuries by the good Christian Catholics, they were mad with joy when they saw the film – so imagine what must have gone on in their history !!! it is so funny, isn’t it.Valerie and the Week of Miracles received first prize in Bergamo, Italy. I had three films there as a screen writer, in two I was also the art director: Valerie, The Daisies, and We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise.So I know that you have already gone mad. Be your own editor and give yourself counsel about what you will translate for them and what you will chuck. I only mean more is always better than less, and especially in your case, my Pepi.So then we’ll wrap up here, you can translate for example according to the system, “Mein Vater ist Bleistift” (My father is a pencil) and you are done.So here I continue:
2. The Script according to one own subject or theme.I will start with me again for an illustrative example. Here in the Czech Republic I have written four of my own subjects.
3. The Murder of Mr. Certa* M. S. - director Ester Krumbachova.
4. About the Party and Guests* – director Jan Nemec.
5. We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise* – director Vera Chytilova.
6. The Martyrs of Love* – in collaboration with Jan Nemec, director Jan Nemec.When one brings his own subject to the territory of film, he is enthusiastic in the beginning, especially when someone nods kindly and says he has the money for this, so this means yes. Or at another time when you search for money yourself and find it. I don’t know how films are realized in other places, but here the law governs that the following conditions need to be fulfilled:A) A synopsis which contains and expresses the meaning and aim of the film.B) The film story stating the location, the demands for this location, the atmosphere, the number of cast performing in the movie.C) A literary screen play which contains dialogue, the concrete events and their surroundings.D) A technical screen play which works out all the technical requirements, i.e. the number of the cast including extras, the demands of the camera, sets, exteriors, the time of the day or season of the year, etc.Under the pressure of all these circumstances the screen writer soon loses her original enthusiasm because film work requires a great deal of money. The work of the writer, painter, sculptor, or musical composer is separate. In these areas each is responsible for herself and does not need co-workers. But one cannot succumb to this film pressure. It is, of course, necessary to keep your attitude of morality toward your own idea. The meaning of the thought which was the source of the writing of the film story or synopsis must remain always together. The original idea must not be taken away from its beauty, nor from the necessary claims which arise from it. If, for instance, the sunrise will play an important role, everything else must submit to this – if sunrise, then sunrise. The financier’s pressure is always necessary to confront the intentions of why sunrise must be there, so you must demonstrate spiritual maturity toward your own intentions. Otherwise you could hang yourself right away.Of course in the case of film, you are never sure how it will turn out, what will be the reaction. This is what you need to take into consideration. I think that during the writing of your own subject or theme one fact must decisive: this film must be shot – I want it.Again we are returning to the same position as during the adaptation of someone else’s subject: we must identify with the material that we invented. We must stand behind this. And here a lot of torment begins because whether you want it or not, the thought terrifies you, scares you and weakens you. After all, “What if this does not turn out well?! Or: “Is it any good what I’ve invented?” Of course, yes, this is the guide inherent to all creative activity.I think it is best to imagine that people we like and respect will watch the film. As if it were a letter to a friend. The word SPECTATOR often becomes a monster, which wakes us from our sleep at night. But one day we paying attention to this, we say to hell with it. The SPECTATOR is a sort of model for the horror which grows up in the world of thoughts, like a poisonous mushroom. There are dumb viewers and clever viewers, you cannot do anything else but stand personally behind your idea and simply TRY IT.The work itself, on you own subject brings with it a lot of pitfalls. For instance, in the original version somebody else’s thought, very well liked, copied itself from the surface of the rational and emotional world, thought which became ingrained in your memory without your realization. I’ve noticed many times that it seemed to me as if the tunnel were jammed some place. Suddenly nothing went ahead. The dialogue was worked over, at one time here, at one time there, and the thing was stupid all the time.You must be careful to check yourself while writing the script. When something does not work tie and time again then the thing is bad, you might have a feeling that it doesn’t work because of the complexity of the thought which you are unable to formulate correctly. I think that the very opposite is true: if you do not move something from one place to another then it will be looked at from the wrong angle, and then the error is in me and not in the thought. There exists no thought which can be expressed easily with the exception of talking which can be expressed easily with the exception o talking about the weather and the family garden. But there also isn’t any idea which is impossible to express. You must only find the way to do it. Your frame of mind might be what’s at fault or the circumstances, but as soon as you discover what masks you tick, as soon as you hit the nail on the head, then the entire affair moves on from there and you continue writing.It’s a matter of course that sometimes, as a writer, you hesitate between variation A and B. the most important thing is to recognize whether you are expressing YOUR OWN ESSENCE, or if unconsciously you are copying something that you admire and want to imitate. This can happen and it does happen as well. When detection uncovers falsehood, further work is not easy but is still easier than before.I think the uniqueness of your own subject or theme resembles a precious jewel in the rough. At first it looks like an ordinary stone but the more you busy yourself with it, the more you polish it and make it beautiful. This is a signal that work does not have to turn out badly and a thrilling adventure then begins.In a decently written screen play which is not base on a calculation but which comes from an internal conviction there is one necessary aid and that is common sense toward yourself. At night you might write a very long dialogue that seems splendid. But in the morning when reading it over you find that unconsciously you copied an idea which was not your own, that you were bragging about your cleverness to yourself. This is bad course. Modesty isn’t a given virtue. It is a necessity which arises from personal honor. And therefore it is completely natural. It is the result of your struggle with yourself.Sometimes when the screen writer is still a beginner, it can happen that s/he succumbs to a feeling something like this: I’m going to stretch this out here so that in the end I’ll score a splendid goal. But such goals exist on another field – on the football field. In the work of the screenwriter reason and emotion must reach a balance in the course of work. Reason dictates reason: do not stretch this out, it will be boring; cross this whole thing out, this is good for nothing. Emotion says: here you must say what is necessary for people to learn, what situations the characters are in, what it looks like for them, and do not cross this out. Therein lies the peculiar feeling you know so well. After all these internal arguments, calm appears only when emotion becomes reasonable and reason does not win completely. They must hold each other by the hand simply. Each of them is one wing of one bird, one wing of an airplane. They both must function otherwise there will be a crash.However, in the case of filmmaking which contains as great an amount of work as perhaps the building of a cathedral were glass workers, stone masons, sculptors, brick layers, pavers work to create a gorgeous structure. It is, nevertheless, necessary to keep turning your attention to THE RESULT OF THE FILM and its feasibility. It is useless to pine for unreachable effects. The effect itself is completely pitiful. It is a mannequin. One can dress to show off for the effect of showing off, organize soirees or behave ostentatiously. Art does not belong in this territory. It is in itself a sufficiently beautiful testimony about a living person who expressed his life in a unique manner. Let us remember Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”! What impresses people – the human presence and feeling arising from it is sufficient with the Sunflower.In addition the screen writer must search for the feeling of rhythm. In this aspect film is very similar to music. Cinematic rhythm may have very different phases which can be either long silences or long dialogues. And it is the job of the screen writer to feel this sense of rhythm. It isn’t easy of course, especially in the case of those who are just starting out. But it can be done, we have rhythm in our blood, we have and learn the rhythm of the seasons. Everybody is born with rhythm but may not know how to express it. This does not mean however, that the beginning author should old onto the railing of axioms. It is not even possible. Especially in creative work it is not possible at all. Those who want to express themselves realize their error in the course of work, realize their gifts and their limitations and that is the first step. No commandment exists and no permission of what is allowed and what isn’t. That is up to the creator. That is your burden and you greatest worry. But simultaneously your greatest joy as well.When I worked on numerous screen plays I imagined certain types of people who would correspond to my intentions. I hung photographs of my friends who had nothing to do with acting around the table where I wrote. Then I arrived at an interesting discovery: I exchanged those photographs for others. Situations and words which were coming put of their mouths obtained a different meaning by the appearance of whichever individual. It was a very mysterious and interesting process, an experiment which gave me progressively greater chance to liberate myself from my biases about the way in which to stylize a person, about what someone would stay or not say at all. From each phase the dialogue gained a new appearance. Let us say that I would cast Stalin in the role of a noble animal lover and the defender of widows. Let’s say that the chief of the most terrible gang would be Albert Einstein. Or, that the character of a mass murderer would be represented by Albert Schweitzer.This is one of the few guidelines which I would offer or your examination. This liberates the writer. He knows he’s not confined and can freely work on the character and his words because in the end what will matter will be the casting of the actors and non-actors anyway. What will matter simply, are the characters photographed and recorded by the camera. But at the same time one can be inspired during the screen writing by the changing of faces. One begins to grasps more of, and more easily the meaning and sense of the dialogue. The faces and personalities are inspiring. Each person emits some unrepeatable SOMETHING. It is like with fingerprints, of which not a single one is similar to that of someone else – and there are millions of us. This instinctively chosen game with photographs further reminded me that if creative a work lacks desire to play it cannot be creative. Human beings during childhood age are encoded with games. Nobody should eve forget that. It is impossible to work with fantasy, the necessary muse, without desire to play, to know that I am playing, to enjoy my playing, and then to tighten things a bit, to make them stricter. But without the original joy of playing nothing is possible, other than repeating other people’s ideas or boring morality or bestiality. Both of the latter are disgusting, each in its own way. Now I want to summarize what I said in an understandable manner: Art cannot be taught like an alphabet. There must be, firstly, the talent for the art itself and as long as the artist is strong he will persist with his work with patient and tenacious strength and will eventually do what he wanted to, without regard for anyone else or for his success or lack thereof. To the artist this doesn’t matter, what matters is only that he finishes what he set out to do.Script writing cannot be taught by precepts. Only those close to film and who love cinema can accept as their own different methods from movies they have seen and then attempt to create something that cloud be called a film script. We have said enough by now about the stumbling block and joys that derive from this. The only thing that is important is for writers to express themselves with a personal gusto and to be able to understand where they have erred. This I think is very important. Because film making requires teamwork, no one can manage without consulting with friends who have the same blood type. Be the discussion lengthy and even unfruitful, they still bring some king of opportunity. After all, no filmmaker exists in isolation as, say a painter does. Filmmakers are forced to interact with others and that is good. Because this way, the requirements the screenwriter has in mind become crystalized. You know that when you want to shoot your first film you cannot shoot it in the garden at Versailles in the presence of the King. When your personal ideas are sufficiently strong and can pass these tests without harm and without attempting to jump from a bridge, then you are ready to become a filmmaker.I will conclude with a European fairy tale which appears in all nation in approximately the same version. A young man, (sometimes it’s a girl), must walk up a glass mountain where he must collect “the water of life” which brings the dead back to life and the ill back to health. At the bottom of the hill usually stands an old man, the symbol of wisdom, who gives advice to the daring young person: “When you walk up horrible monsters will scream at you: ‘I’ll kill you!’ do not look after them! Do not care about them! You must never turn your face toward them! As soon as you do that you will petrify, you will turn to stone. It is a very wise axiom. It is a cryptogamic communication about the deal of man who decide to fulfill his life with his deeds and therefore every such person finds his “Water of Life on the Glass Mountain.” one has the right to object that fear of a threat can be so strong that one succumbs to it and retreats. Yes, of course that depends on the individual. Someone backs out sensibly, someone does not back out sensibly – both are equally good as long as each maintains his original intentions to express something that upsets him, and attempts to implement his intentions.And here is yet another little additional remark. The time of happy endings has not completely passed yet, but the time of horrors and unethical movies has substantially increased. When your realize that the detective novel, i. e. stories about killing have become the center of the consumer market and that a fondness for this theme has lasted already for 100 years, this is, for lack of a better word, completely bad. I think that on the ground of creative work such as cinema, the author should choose from his thoughts. Above all, he should choose ones which have not been formulated correctly yet. Further, they are the reasons why so many things pain him about people. In addition, he does not enjoy too much good luck or hope from society and therefore the author himself would like to analyze and formulate something that hurts him the most or vice versa what pleases him and amuses him the most. Finally, he would like to call other people’s attention to situations so that they can play along with him and have the same pleasure. I think that from the rich grounds of life and casual thoughts, it is always possible for a writer to choose from within himself thoughts that not only will fly but that will also endow him with a feeling of enchantment from his work.Lately, I have read dozens of scripts by young people. Though often talented, they are marked by a tendency toward a darker and hopeless side. I am not amazed by this especially because in youth a persona suffers and yet enjoys it at the same time. I know it because I survived it, I experienced the feeling that sadness makes me more sublime and better. It is not funny, it is a fate of humans. In spite of that I would suggest that the story as nostalgic or sad as it may be should be written with a certain dispassionate point of view. This is one of those few pieces of advice I am able to pass one: to take this as a game ti play because in fact despair, sorrow, merriment, passion, joy – all those are common guides through life and as we have already said creation must have two wings. The script which lacks this chance has no chance to live.It is important to realize that whatever you write, you must not put demands on yourself that yours is guaranteed genuine Art. Not at all. On the contrary, the more you believe that you are doing Art with a capital gold letter, the harder it will be to continue. This is because, thanks to your surreptitiousness, you may find yourself in the net of artistic gossip, superstitions, stupidities, stuffiness, and snobbish or expert literature which dictates what is right and what is not right. It knows how many centimeters of film should or should not be in certain scene. All of these are the frightening blabber – these are the monsters form that glass hill.When I was young I wrote a large inscription above my writing desk: F… ART! It helped me a lot, I got rid of my fear that I MUST do ART and I did everything the way I felt and thought it. Not that the work would be easier because every decent job is always demanding but I was not afraid and I managed to poke fun at myself and crack jokes about wrinkles between my eyebrows. That is very advantageous. It is better than a cold, at any rate, but especially it leads to your personal freedom without which you cannot live on the one hand, but which is damn heavy on the other hand.Well, and if the screenplay isn’t the creation of your personal freedom., what is it after all? If the theme isn’t chosen with the urgency of an inner pressure what kind of them is it? Who does it belong to? The created completed work is after all something like your invisible child; it has your traits and your appearance. Why else should you procreate if IT isn’t actually YOURS?I have said enough. I think there will be time to ask questions and if I do not answer them myself, certainly someone will answer them, but be careful with just anyone!!! we can let ourselves be taught but we must not submit to the bias and fiction that someone who’s more experiences is better. Why not think instead that you managed to stand behind yourself firmly enough that while you accept the advice, you accept it in the position of an opponent, not a penitent novice? No one needs that. Everything is a risk, life itself is a risk, why not accept the fact that whatever you do will turn out differently than you think? Isn’t it all the same? I think that each talent is worth this test. Let it prove itself.

LETTER #2 (addendum to letter #1)

• editor's note:The Murder of Mr. DevilThe Party and the GuestsFruit of ParadiseMartyrs of Love