Milos Forman

Milos Forman stands as one of the few established foreign directors to find success within the American film industry."

"Forman moved to academia in the late 1970s, teaching at Columbia University and eventually becoming co-director of its film program. After a five year break (during which time he had acted in two films, Mike Nichols' Heartburn, 1986 and Henry Jaglom's New Year's Day, 1989), he returned to features to helm an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Forman had first become interested in the material while an undergraduate studying with Milan Kundera. Despite a competing project, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Stephen Frears' adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play, the director pushed on. Casting more youthful actors (Annette Bening, Colin Firth, Meg Tilly), Forman helmed a less pungent version of the story. Audiences had embraced Frears' acerbic take and high powered cast (Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer) and all but ignored Forman's. Its disappointing box office was tempered for the director by the democratic revolution in his homeland that saw his old friend, Vaclav Havel become president...

"Much of Forman's attention in the early 90s was occupied with his duties at Columbia University and with developing his first original screenplay, the unproduced Hell Camp, which focused on two Americans attending a school for managers in Japan. Forman was also at one time attached to direct Disclosure (1994), but he left the project in 1993 and was eventually replaced by Barry Levinson. He finally returned to the screen with the biopic, The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Again, Forman's themes of political conflict are baldly played out in this somewhat sanitized depiction of pornographer Flynt's First Amendment lawsuit. Produced by Oliver Stone, the film, which utilizes humor to make social commentary, won critical attention and audiences in big cities, although it failed to attract viewers in the South and Midwest."

Affiliations

• Director, Foundation for a Civil Society
• International Advisory Board, New Atlantic Initiative
• Honorary Member, Club of Budapest: Members