Karel Kachyňa

Abstract

KAREL KACHYŇA: FOUR DECADES OF A GREAT CZECH DIRECTORDecade One: The BeginningsIt is difficult to give a foreign viewer a satisfactory picture of Karel Kachyňa," a director who lets the viewer experience humour, grief, joy and education from such simple things as a tree, a cloud or plain earth in such a limited number of his films. Kachyna made his first film in 1950 for his final work at the Prague Film Academy when he was 26 years old. He was born in 1924 into a Moravian family from the small town of Vyskov. In this part of Moravia almost everybody paints and sculpts.(1) All the houses are beautifully decorated and every village has its experts on painting Easter eggs. As he was growing up, Kachyna painted and photographed more and more eagerly. He always finished every work he started. But when one is 16...