At the age of 100, the famous director Otakar Vávra passed away

Prague - At the age of 100, director Otakar Vávra passed away on Thursday. This was reported today by Czech Radio - Radiožurnál. A month and a half ago, the renowned filmmaker underwent surgery on his hip, from which he was recovering in the hospital on Homolka. He is the author of over 80 scripts and directed around fifty films. He created the still-popular comedy The Camel Through the Eye of a Needle, Krakatit with the excellent Karel Höger, his adaptation of Hrubín's famous poem Romance for a Cornet is highly regarded, and his peaks of work also include The Witchhammer about witch trials in the Šumperk area in the 17th century. He is sometimes criticized for films that conform to communist ideology.
    Vávra, who celebrated his significant birthday at the end of February in the Prague Mánes and received the Grand Prix for his lifetime contribution to world cinematography at the international festival in Zlín in June, broke his femoral neck during a summer stay at his cottage. Vávra's life partner, director Jitka Němcová, informed ČTK two weeks ago that the operation went well. However, she noted that "a demanding procedure at such an advanced age is always risky."
    Otakar Vávra was born on February 28, 1911, in Hradec Králové. As a young man, he studied architecture in Brno and Prague. He quickly dropped out of university to pursue filmmaking. Vávra shot his first film eighty years ago, and his last direction was in 2006 for a music video to one of the songs for the DVD of the album by Michal Horáček and Petr Hapka Guardian of the Flame. After 1989, however, the director's big dream to film the story of the murder of Jan Masaryk remained unfulfilled. He needed 50 million crowns for that, which he could not raise. He summarized his memories in the book Memoirs or My Cinematic Century, which he presented on the occasion of his milestone birthday.
    He did not only film the poetic Romance for a Cornet, the existential Golden Reneta, or the dark The Witchhammer but also ideologically tinted tendentious films. Some criticize him for collecting honors under every regime. They point to two trilogies - the war Days of Betrayal, Sokolovo, and The Liberation of Prague and the Hussite Jan Hus, Jan Žižka, and Against All, which this holder of the Medal of Merit or Czech Lion for long-term contribution to domestic cinematography directed.
    "He must have been succumbing to the pressures of his surroundings; if it was politically defined, it couldn't help but reflect in his work," said critic and publicist Eva Zaoralová about Vávra in a documentary titled A Hundred Years is What a Person Gets Once in Life. At the beginning of the year, his life partner Jitka Němcová filmed about him.
    During his teaching work at Prague's FAMU, where he founded the directing department, Vávra raised a generation of directors of the Czech New Wave. When Jiří Menzel faced his first major and challenging tasks in the second half of the 1960s - adapting Hrabal and then Vančura in the films Closely Watched Trains and Capricious Summer, he knew how to do it thanks to Vávra. "I owe him for everything he taught me - and that's quite a lot. And it's not just me, but also many others who acquired their professional skills thanks to him," said Menzel to ČTK this March at the launch of the book Otakar Vávra - 100 Years of Director Jiří Menzel.
     Menzel once wrote about his professor that he mastered the technique of dealing with any authority. If any Czech film monument were ever to be erected somewhere, according to him, it should say that Otakar Vávra contributed to Czech film. "Respect for the craft, objectivity, and awareness of connections - these were Vávra's assets," wrote Menzel. After all, Vávra always believed that the art of compromise is one of the fundamental skills of a director. With cleverness and maneuvering, he dealt with the powers that be, and with the charm of his personality and insight, he captivated students.