- After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after becoming involved with the multimedium productions of Prague's Lanterna Magika Theatre. He began making short films in 1964, and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years, when he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make a feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (Alice (1988)). He has also exhibited his drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. He has been a card-carrying member of the Prague Surrealist Group since 1969.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
- SpouseEva Svankmajerová(1960 - October 20, 2005) (her death)
- Father of Václav Svankmajer.
- His name is pronounced "Yahn Schwank-my-ehr".
- [on main theme of his films] The film Lunacy (2005), but also The Garden (1968) and Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), is mainly about freedom. It seems to me that the way civilization is evolving, the theme of freedom is becoming the only theme for which it still makes sense to sit down and create art. Though, I prefer the word "freeing" to the word "freedom" because it is a never-ending process.
- [on surrealism] André Breton would not say "Surrealistic painting", he would say "Surrealism in painting". In the same way, I speak of Surrealism in film. Surrealism is psychology, it is philosophy, it is a spiritual way, but it is not an aesthetic. Surrealism is not interested in actually creating any kind of aesthetic.
- [on Surviving Life (2010)] The collage technique I used in the film was essentially necessitated by economic problems. I thought that by using animated photos of actors, we could save money, both on the actors' fees and the transportation and set rental fees, because the entire process of filming could be moved into the studio. When the producer found the necessary funds for a normal actors' film, I was already fully captivated by this original makeshift solution because I realized that using the photos in a collage introduced yet another creative, fantastical, symbolical level to the film.f
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