I recently spoke with someone who worked with him - he sounded like a marvelous, gregarious character, one who apparently loved cigars. Loves of a Blonde will always be my favorite of his films. R.I.P.

And director of the masterpiece Taking Off. I remember hearing rumors of Criterion having the rights to it, but it hasn’t had a US release. Along with Tokyo Drifter, it’s one of the films I have seen on 35mm every chance I’ve gotten.

I would have to echo that as well, Fireman’s Ball is not far behind. I always really dug Black Peter too.

Not to be that guy, but One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus are also brilliant. Also on the DGA podcast there is a long talk with Forman regarding his career, Czech film school and early career and his escape to the US. It's a very interesting listen

I always assumed Amadeus wasn't a fashionable film to still revere - much like many of those huge Oscar winners of the 80s - but it really is superb.

Just had to recheck, and while I think Rain Man and Platoon are decent enough, it is striking to see what an awful decade of winner the 80s was. Amadeus is really the standout. And I still think it's superb.
I still need to catch up with the rest of his 80s and 90s output, but I should also throw a word for Hair, which I still like even if it's far from perfect. What a versatile director he was

And don't forget his autobiography, Turnaround: A Memoir, which is a highly entertaining
read and actually quite revealing.

His Americans films aren't bad at all, but compared to his Czech films, they seem to have much less personality. He still did fine work on them, particularly with the actors, but even the better ones can seem a bit ordinary and the flaws inherent in the scripts were bigger liabilities. (I think this would include Amadeus and even moreso with later biopics like the lazily conceived Man on the Moon). The excellent work he wrote and directed himself with Ivan Passer as his co-writer holds up much better to me.

Hair is really a personal favourite of mine. Always really enjoy revisiting it.

Screenwriter Larry Karaszewski told me on Twitter last year that Taking Off hasn't been given a US release because they can't track down everyone to clear the music rights for all the original work performed by the different hippie characters during the first part of the film. It's a shame. Taking Off is one of the unsung treasures of the 1970s.

Echoing the love for Loves of a Blonde--one of my favorite films of the Czech New Wave--and agreeing that Amadeus holds up as a splendidly entertaining film, much more than a piece of Oscar-bait. It's a fiendish black comedy driven by a truly extraordinary performance by F. Murray Abraham who right won Best Actor that year. Not as good as Forman's early films perhaps but still very much deserving of its status as a classic.

Just curious, but how was it able to be released in the UK?

The UK release of Taking Off seems to be OOP, but I see that there's also a French and a German release. Are these English-friendly? And has anyone seen either the French or Spanish BD of Valmont?

Forman's imdb filmography has two entries post-Goya's Ghosts: Semafor: Greatest Hits 2 (2007) and A Walk Worthwhile (2009). It's a bit unclear to me what these things are. The latter looks like it might be a filmed play, and the title of the former makes me wonder if it's a collection of music videos. Does anyone here have any more info?

Taking Off is fantastic, and I admit that it's probably the last Forman film I love. Its failure caused him to retrench—he never again worked in the semi-improvisational fashion as that and his Czech films. Though I would never begrudge Forman his deserved success, I think the other American films, despite varying widely in quality, all lack the exploratory qualities of those early pictures. Amadeus is pretty involving—it's a good script, and the few minutes of Forman's staging of Don Giovanni are stunning—but still kind of decorous and self-regarding. (Hair is nobody's idea of a masterpiece, and I mostly hate the music, but it probably is the most inventive of his post-Taking Off films.)

I would second the recommendation of Turnaround. It's very good, and (as you might expect) funny, especially on the Czech years. There's also an out-of-print (but easily obtainable) "souvenir" book from Taking Off that has a great essay by Forman that recounts how the film came together.

MichaelB has written a nice obituary for Sight and Sound.