Production
Based on Bohumil Hrabal's 1965 novel Closely Watched Trains, Barrandov Studios first offered the film project to three of its experienced directors, who all declined, before offering it to Jiří Menzel as his feature-film debut. Menzel's first choice for the main role, Miloš, was Vladimír Pucholt, who however was occupied filming Jiří Krejčík's Svatba jako řemen. At one point Menzel considered playing the role himself, but concluded he was too old. Eventually Menzel's wife discovered Václav Neckář who was cast. Menzel did also cast himself in the film, in the role of the doctor. Filming began in late February and lasted until the end of April 1966. Locations were used in and around the station building in Loděnice.
Read more about this topic: Closely Watched Trains
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)
“The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)