Milos Forman and Colleague Michael Hausman Highlight Columbia Film Festival

May 12, 2011

Since its founding in 1966, the MFA Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts has been shaped in large part by the guiding principles of two-time Academy Award-winning director Milos Forman. Originally from the former Czechoslovakia, Forman was a leading figure in his home country’s New Wave cinema movement, then moved to the United States in 1968. He joined Columbia’s School of the Arts as a professor in 1978 and served as the film program’s first chair. Starting in 1978, he was chair or co-chair of the department every year until 1994 (except 1988-89), and has served as professor emeritus since 1996.

Forman returned to Columbia’s campus on May 3 for a film screening and a discussion at Miller Theatre with his longtime collaborator Michael Hausman, who is a film program adjunct professor and producer. The event was part of the 2011 Columbia University Film Festival. Forman and Hausman have made films together for over 40 years and in the process created such iconic works as Taking Off (1971), Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981),Amadeus (1984), Valmont (1989), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), Man on the Moon (1999) and Goya’s Ghosts (2006). The films they made together have garnered 12 Academy Awards.

The work chosen for the screening was the rarely shown Taking Off, Forman’s first American film and the duo’s first collaboration. With cameos from noted entertainers, including Tina Turner and Kathy Bates, the film tells the comedic tale of parents who rediscover their youth while searching for their children, who have run away from home. Forman was inspired to make the film after witnessing the congregation of young people in New York’s East Village in the 1970s. To gather material, the director interviewed and recorded conversations with young people on the streets and in cafes of the East Village. The script was written by Forman with the help of French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere and Tony Award-winning playwright John Guare.

After the screening, Forman and Hausman were joined on stage by Ira Deutchman, professor in the film program and head of the creative producing program at School of the Arts. Deutchman traced Forman and Hausman’s career together, beginning with a discussion about Taking Off and what it was like making his first film in America.

“I was trying to make the film the only way I knew how to make it, like I did in Czechoslovakia,” said Forman. The director admitted that he did not understand English when Taking Off was filmed, which complicated the improvisational directing style he favored. “Problem was,” he said, “when they started shooting I did not understand a word.”

Hausman helped out in these situations, calling to reshoot the scene or move forward as needed. Hausman also helped to get the movie made in spite of a low budget allotted by Universal Pictures. Forman had approached several other producers about the film, but Hausman was the only one to say yes. Part of the producer’s cost saving measures including casting his father and his next-door neighbor.

During the conversation, Deutchman made his way through each film the duo made together, singling outHair as one of his favorite movies of all time.

“I watch it at least once a year,” said Deutchman. “The amazing thing about it was that everyone thought it was way too late, that too many years had passed since the time it was depicting.” Then turning to Forman and Hausman he added, “What you did with it is just unbelievable in terms of making it contemporary and making the film actually have a plot, which the play never did.”

The 2011 Columbia University Film Festival, now in its 24th year, celebrates the film work of the graduate students in the School of the Arts. Each year, the festival showcases short films, feature screenplays and teleplays at the IFC Film Center and various screening locations around New York City. The Columbia Film Festival also awards the Andrew Sarris Award to a distinguished alumnus every year. This year’s recipient is Greg Mottola (SoA’91), director of Superbad, Adventureland and most recently Paul. The 2011 Film Festival ran in New York from April 25 to May 12, and will run in Los Angeles from June 8 to 10.

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