Rudolf Adler

Rudolf Adler
Adler (centre) in 2024
Born(1941-05-25)25 May 1941
Brno, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Occupation(s)Film director, pedagogue
Years active1978–present
SpouseJarmila Adler Šlaisová[1]

Rudolf Adler (born May 25, 1941, in Brno, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic)) is a Czech film director, screenwriter and pedagogue.[2][3]

Education

Rudolf Adler studied film directing at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, graduating in 1966. Concomitantly Adler wrote the libretto for composer Zdeněk Pololáník's ballet Mechanismus; their collaborative work premiered at the FX Šalda Theater, Liberec, in 1964.[3]

Career

When Czechoslovakia hosted joint Warsaw Pact military maneuvers in September 1966, Rudolf Adler, then an Army filmmaker, was sent to south South Bohemia to document war games.[4]: 168 

At a time when Czechoslovakia's communist regime sought control of the arts, making it difficult if not impossible for the public to gain access to unofficial ideas and expressions, Adler, alongside colleagues Ivan Balaďa and Vladimír Drha, pushed the borders of the possible—some of their films qualify as avant-garde and/or auteur films.[5]: 157 

He has directed more than 100 films.[6] Among them are Strepy pro Evu (1978), Chlapská dovolenka (1988), and the documentary Masks, Jesters, Demons (2002), in which he and cowriter Ludvík Baran examine historic, ritualistic uses of face masks in the Czech lands and throughout the world.[7] As script editor and supervising editor, he contributed to I, Olga Hepnarová, a 2016 winner of Czech Lion and Czech Film Critics' awards.[8]

FAMU

Since the late 1980s Adler has taught documentary filmmaking at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), serving at different times in capacities of professor and department head.[2]

References

  1. ^ Staff, entry on Adler, Pretty Famous People, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Svatoš, J., "Pedagog Rudolf Adler: Prožitky jsme vyměnili za informace", Xantypa, November, 2016.
  3. ^ a b Rudolf Adler—Životopis / Informace, Filmová databáze.
  4. ^ Lovejoy, A. O., Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015), p. 168.
  5. ^ Karl, L., & Skopal, P., eds., Cinema in Service of the State: Perspectives on Film Culture in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, 1945-1960 (New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), p. 157.
  6. ^ Staff, "Filmař Adler: Do Znojma se jednou vrátím", Deník, October 11, 2007.
  7. ^ "Masks, Jesters, Demons—Masky, šašci, démoni", Česká televize.
  8. ^ Rudolf Adler, IMDb.