“Movie stars were greeted by a real movie star”: Steven Gaydos remembers Jiří Bartoška
Among the many warm tributes to Jiří Bartoška, who passed away last week at 78, has been one published by Variety from journalist Steven Gaydos. The Czech actor took the reins at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1994 and that was also the first edition for Gaydos, who subsequently watched Bartoška and his team turn a moribund event into the vibrant, internationally renowned celebration of cinema it is today.
You first attended the Karlovy Vary festival in 1994. What led you to go to the 29th edition?
“In 1994 I had just started my 32-year run at Variety.
“There were some folks in Los Angeles who were of Czech descent and knew the people at the festival and knew that they were trying to get attention in Hollywood – and they thought it was a good idea to invite a Los Angeles, Variety-based journalist.”
That was just a few years after the end of communism and in those days Karlovy Vary was in a period of transition. What was it actually like then?
“[Laughs] That is such a great question, because when I wrote the article about the sad passing of Jiří Bartoška, one thing that I didn’t put in the article was what it was like in year one.
“By 1997 it had changed completely, but in 1994 the theatres were almost completely empty.
“There were a lot of nice guests, they brought in a lot of nice VIPs, but there was nobody in the theatres to speak of.
“By 1997 it had changed completely, but in 1994 the theatres were almost completely empty.”
“I think the ceremonies were fairly well attended, but the hordes of students that became the hallmark of Karlovy Vary were nowhere in sight.
“This is another accomplishment of Jiří Bartoška and his team, that they transformed this festival that basically no-one was going to into this vibrant, lively gathering.”
What’s your sense of how he achieved? Obviously with [the late] Eva Zaoralova, the artistic director.
“You know, I think in those first two or three years [Slovak producer] Rudi [Rudolf] Biermann was working with them. He was a very hard-charging, creative guy. And the team, the three of them, were very dynamic and ambitious.
“One of the many accomplishments of Jiří is he transitioned away from having a partner, and then when Eva retired he transitioned away from having a known person running the programming.
“He really recruited these young people. [Executive director] Kryštof Mucha told me he was a 22-year-old student when he started; I remember, they were like children.
“He must have been an astonishingly good leader and collaborator and he must have directed and listened and collaborated, because that team has really been in place for decades, with Tatiana Deloftson [International Festival Representative in LA] helping bringing these stellar names over to the festival.
“Nobody outshone Jiří. He had movie-star swagger, without being pretentious or a jerk.”
“And as I said in my article, when you saw the limo pull up with Sharon Stone or some movie star in front of the [Hotel] Pupp, movie stars were greeted by a real movie star. It was fantastic.”
I remember when Richard Gere came seeing photos of the two of them and frankly Bartoška looked better than Richard Gere.
“[Laughs] Nobody outshone Jiří. And if you look at those early photographs you see at the beginning of his career he was a good-looking kid and he grew into a great-looking man.
“He had movie-star swagger, without being pretentious or a jerk.”
We’ve seen many tributes to him, but how did you find him at the personal level?
“You know, he didn’t bother to learn English, so there was always something a little off, because he wasn’t glad-handing and reaching over the water to speak in the language. But he had people who were very able translating.
“He was always very warm. Another word I didn’t really use in my article in Variety was debonair.
“Also I think there was an Eastern European charm. You have to forgive me, I am an American and I have grown up on movies – and if you have an ideal in your mind of that Eastern European, old world charm, a kind of patrician elegance while all the time being very friendly…
“And of course he loved to golf and half of the people who come to Karlovy Vary share that love. I don’t [laughs], so I wasn’t able to share the love of golf, but I saw with my own eyes all the people who came with him.”
I saw a photo from 1994 of Václav Havel, Max von Sydow and Jiří Bartoška – and in the background was you. Who were some of the people that you met, either at the first edition you went to or at later ones?
“Over 10, 15, 20 years some of the greatest nights of my life and festival life… I’ve been attending festivals since the ‘80s, or even earlier: I was attending a thing called Film X in Los Angeles in the ‘70s.
“I don’t know how much went into the article; I put in a lot of anecdotes.
“One of my favourite is that there was a security detail around Lauren Bacall – who was a genuine ‘golden era’ star, Humphrey Bogart’s wife – and my brother Frank was there with me.
“He went over politely and asked if he could dance with Ms. Bacall to this wonderful Czech swing band, and of course they told him to get lost.
“Being a blue-collar kid like me who doesn’t take no for an answer he just waited till they left, went straight to Ms. Bacall and said, Would you like to dance? And she said, I would love to.
“And that’s the greatest night of his life. On my list is hanging out with Morgan Freeman and singing Coasters songs. And talking movies with Gus Van Sant and Abbas Kiarostami.
“There were so many intimate dinners. I’m a huge fan of the Pythons and to be there with Terry Jones one year and to be hanging out for an entire week with John Cleese – these are my comedy heroes.
“There’s an intimacy and a casual quality to these encounters in Karlovy Vary.
“Cannes is frantic, high-level, security, everything bureaucratic you can imagine. It’s very tough. Maybe if you’re Leonardo DiCaprio it all works, but I’m not.
“At Karlovy Vary it’s always seemed like you’re going to be sitting next to someone like Richard Gere or Jude Law and just chatting casually, and nobody seems to have their guard up.
“It’s been fantastic.”
And you met DiCaprio when he was famously there as a teenager with his German grandparents [in 1994]?
“Well I love the fact that Variety… we had written an article about that wonderful photographer [Miloš Fikejz] who did those photos over the years, and so when I tell the story that Leo was there as a teenager with his German grandparents, kind of in their laps, we have the black and white photo of Leo, who looks about 12, with his grandparents on a bench in Karlovy Vary.
“I ran into Leonardo DiCaprio with his mother Irmelin and she said, Hey, you know Leo, that was our first film festival.”
“What a great memory and just funny, wonderful times.
“And I ran into him later with his mother Irmelin, who’s a wonderful lady, and she said, Hey, you know Leo, that was our first film festival.
“So Karlovy Vary was the first film festival that Leonardo DiCaprio ever attended.”
Another good friend of the festival was Miloš Forman. Do you think Forman and Havel were a kind of asset to the festival in terms of drawing names?
“Yes. Inestimable. Because Václav Havel was one of the heroes of democracy and politics and literature of the 20th century – he was a giant.
“He didn’t behave like a giant. I watched football with him and Jiří one year. I believe the Czechs didn’t go through, but we all sat around in a wonderful little room watching football and he couldn’t have been a more genuine, down to earth person.
“But he was a magnet, because the idea that you could shake hands with one of the towering figures of the century… And of course Miloš was that in the world of cinema. He was one of the great figures of 20th century cinema.”
Didn’t Variety have some kind of section at the festival?
“Yes, the festival did something innovative that Cannes, Berlin or Venice would never dare to do: They put our critics and reporters and writers in charge of a section.
“Variety was really essential to the rise of Karlovy Vary’s international profile and reputation.”
“For 15 or 20 years we programmed something called Europe Now and I met the whole new generation in the ‘90s of great, emerging filmmakers.
“Those screenings were always packed, always sold out. It was a big deal for the filmmakers, who were new and emerging, and we did parties with them together and had wonderful times.
“Variety was really essential to the rise of Karlovy Vary’s international profile and reputation, because we were partnering with them, engaged with them, writing about them.
“We had so many fantastic critics who would review these movies. We gave it its due – we didn’t do something extra special, we just gave it what it deserved, because we’re the bible of show business from 1905.
“I found an article [from Variety] about filming near Karlovy Vary in, like, 1917, so we’ve been covering the territory a long time.”
Getting back to Jiří Bartoška, what are the qualities that he brought to being the president of the festival that will be lost now, that won’t be there from the upcoming edition on?
“I think the hole is that this ‘Robert Redford’ – like you said, every bit the equal of a Richard Gere or a Jude Law – this movie star ambassador for the festival, this person who was a larger than life, wonderful warm character, is gone.
“But the continuity of his team: his artistic director, Karel Och, and his executive director, Kryštof Mucha, and Tatiana [Deloftson] continues working with them on the Academy films and the stars and the filmmakers from Los Angeles…
“There’s a fantastic continuity so I have no sense that the festival misses a beat in terms of its infrastructure and its sponsors and its grandeur.”
“So there’s a fantastic continuity so I have no sense that the festival misses a beat in terms of its infrastructure and its sponsors and its grandeur.
“It loses a little bit of lustre and grandeur because their hero has passed away.”
So as far as you’re concerned no reason at all for pessimism?
“Oh, not in the least. I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but there is no transition. These people know each other, they work well together, they’ve been working well together with Jiří and the sponsors.
“There’s a maturity because Kryštof Mucha’s not a 22-year-old student any more. He produces fantastic movies; he’s a very seasoned producer.
“And the relationships with sponsors have only gotten deeper. They have some fantastic new sponsors, that are very esteemed and quality sponsors, helping them.
“The folks at Cannes one year told me, You think it’s easy, but we have to reinvent the wheel every year; we have to find sponsors and replenish the well.
“So it’s not easy for anyone, but Karlovy Vary seems to be doing quite well.”
If I could ask you a couple of questions about yourself, your background is Slovak, is that right? The name must have been Gaydoš.
“It’s Gaydoš. If you meet Hungarians they say that’s silly, it’s not Slovak, it’s Hungarian. Because Slovakia is ethnically [part] Hungarian.
“Gomboš was my grandmother’s name, and we know that’s Hungarian. I visited my family’s villages out east of Michalovce, in a little village, Klokocov.
“So, yes, Eastern Slovakia, near the Ukraine border is where my father’s parents came from, and migrated to America.
“On the other side I’m German and English, so I’m another mutt from Europe landed in America.”
You have an encyclopaedic knowledge of movies – what are some of your favourite Czech or Czechoslovak films?
“I love everything that Ivan Passer did, whether it was in Czechoslovakia or in America. I think Cutter’s Way is the greatest film ever made about Vietnam, and it takes place in Santa Barbara.
“So I would encourage people to see Ivan Passer’s Cutter’s Way, with Jeff Bridges.
“I think Miloš’s early movies. I interviewed him one time and I said, Would you like go back to making those kind of intimate, small movies you made in Czechoslovakia?
“He said, No, I always wanted to make big, Hollywood movies – I just made the films that I had the money to make, so it wasn’t that I was aesthetically drawn to making little movies like The Firemen’s Ball.
“You’ve got to remember, I’m old enough to have known about the Prague Spring. I wrote letters in support of Havel. I knew what was happening to Dubček.
“I’ve talked with Ken Loach about how much the Czech New Wave influenced his work. So there’s a wonderful reservoir.
“There’s a great Slovak director named Dušan Hanák and I showed his movie 35 years ago, called Pictures of the Old World; that’s a fantastic documentary that was banned by the Communists, because it was too honest about the plight of old people in Czechoslovakia.”
Over the years, have you known many Czech or Czechoslovak directors personally?
“I knew Ivan Passer quite well. I met Jan Němec.
“You know I brought Bob Shaye of New Line Cinema over [to Karlovy Vary].
“The whole history of New Line, with Lord of the Rings and the Oscars and the big company that was sold for a billion dollars, that all started with Czech cinema.
“We brought Bob Shaye over and he met Jan Němec, whose film [Martyrs of Love] he had distributed back in 1968.
“So the continuity and the importance and the connectivity between people might be a bit deeper than people realise.”
Do you think it’s a pity that Passer didn’t make more films? I know he made a few after he left Czechoslovakia, but not very many.
“It’s a tragedy, you know. That’s the kind of film buff I am: I wish there were five or 10 more Peckinpah films, five or 10 more Nick Roeg films, five or 10 more films from my partner Monte Hellman; and Monte and Ivan were great friends.
“By the way I met someone the other day who knew Ivan. And before I could say, Was he the greatest personal storyteller you ever met? they said to me, You know, Ivan was the greatest personal storyteller I ever met [laughs].
“The man was born to tell stories, so I wish there were more Ivan Passer films.
“But as someone said at a tribute to Peckinpah, when he passed away, Let’s not talk about what didn’t happen – let’s talk about the ones that happened that are there for us.
“Intimate Lighting, of course, is a must see for everyone who hasn’t seen that Ivan Passer film.
“But I like his little films like Law and Disorder, with Carrol O’Connor and Ernest Borgnine.
“I like Born to Win. I saw it again recently and I think it’s a much bigger and more important film than people realise. De Niro is in it, almost at the very beginning of his career.
“So you’ve got me talking about a guy that I really loved personally and as a filmmaker.”
This interview was conducted before it was announced that Kryštof Mucha would be taking over as head of KVIFF; he will not be festival president as that title has been bestowed on Jiří Bartoška in memoriam.
