Milos Forman (1932-2018)

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Milos Forman has passed away at age 86. A legendary, Czech-born director that had an incredible streak of Hollywood flms from 1975 to 1999.
His adaptation of  Ken Kesey’s "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" will forever be known as his masterpiece. A time-capsule film that, no doubt, represented one of the peaks of '70s maverick cinema. Not too far behind it would be his triumphant "Amadeus," a beautifully-rendered Best Picture winner about the rivarly between Mozart and Salieri. The film was, of course, driven by F. Murray Abraham‘s Oscar-winning performance as Salieri. Forman also won Best Director.
I "like" 1979's "Hair," a light, breezy film that took advantage of Warren Beatty's star-power and charisma. The film, was critically acclaimed but a box-office failure. His adaptation of  "Ragtime" in 1981 was no doubt honorable in its wild ambitions and it was a film that felt like it should have been made in the '70s instead and would have, no doubt, had more creative freedom in the process. The E.L. Doctorow book was a hard cinematic adaptation to pull of, but I found Forman did a decent job of conveying some of the episodic nature of it. Especially the story of Coalhouse Walker (Howard Rollings, Jr.) and the racially-provoked standoff he had with authorities. [Ava DuVernay seems to have been gravely affected by the film. ]

Although not as celebrated as his peak years of 1975-1984, the '90s were nevertheless quite fruitful for the director. "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and "Man on the Moon" are both films that have aged like fine wine over the years. The former using Hustler magazine bigwig Larry Flynt's story as the backdrop for censorship and freedom of speech in American society and the the latter which used Jim Carrey's impeccable turn as Andy Kaufman to become a thoughtful rumination on reality and fiction, a topic that is no-doubt even more relevant today than it was back in the day, what with the on-going spike of fake news. Forman's dissection of truths being twisted into lies and lies being twisted into truth, until you just don't know which is which anymore, will likely only heighten his legacy in the years to come.
Ever since "Man on the Moon" he's been on a sort of hiatus, only coming back for 2006's "Goya's Ghosts," which would sadly be the last film he ever made.