- The Fireman’s Ball
As part of the series “Prison Break!: Great Escape Films of the 20th Century,” the University of Chicago’s Doc Films Club is screening One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the famous Jack Nicholson vehicle that’s director Miloš Forman’s most overrated film. In his capsule review, Dave Kehr writes, “This slick and entertaining 1975 film of Ken Kesey’s cult novel will inevitably disappoint admirers of director Miloš Forman’s earlier work . . . there is little of Forman’s real personality in the film, which smooths over the complexities of his Czechoslovakian work in favor of some mighty simpleminded conceptions of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” While it’s true that Forman was already something of an awards favorite before he came to America (Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball—which helped kick-start the Czech New Wave of the 1960s—were both nominated for Oscars), after the major success of Cuckoo’s Nest he settled into a long career of making complacent prestige pictures, their blandness only occasionally leavened by the trenchant humanism that made his early work so vital. You can find my five favorite Miloš Forman films after the jump.
- The Fireman’s Ball (1967) Though its premise amounts to little more than an anecdote, Forman stuffed this little masterpiece with enough satirical bite and cultural commentary that it was “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia following the Soviet invasion of 1968. The final sequence features one of the great visual jokes in film history: a local barn is engulfed by flames, and when the farmer complains that he is cold, the firemen simply move his chair closer to the fire. Out of the frying pan. . .
