Bohemians in 1970s New York City: perspectives on Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer’s films

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Miloš Forman and Ivan Passer began their directing careers during the Czechoslovak New Wave, collaborating on and contributing several prominent films that helped define the movement. Following the 1968 Warsaw Pact troop invasion, Forman and Passer fled from Communist Czechoslovakia to emigrate to the United States. For most of the 1970s, they lived and worked in New York City, whence each directed two films centered largely on the location: Forman’s Taking Off (1971) and Hair (1979) and Passer’s Born to Win (1971) and Law and Disorder (1974). This article aims to understand the ways in which North American film critics interpretated the Czech émigré directors’ depictions of New York City and American mores. The results suggest that critics contributing articles to newspapers, magazines, and specialist film publications generally agreed that Forman exhibited a deeper understanding of New York City and American culture at large than Passer.