Václav Bedřich (1918-2009)

Václav Bedřich was born in Příbram in Ondrákova Street No. 85 on 28 August 1918 as the third of five children of Antonín Bedřich, a financial guard, and his wife Marie. He attended grammar school in his hometown and graduated in June 1938. Afterwards, he began his studies at the Faculty of Law of Charles University. Shortly after the occupation of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939, he left the faculty. He took a course in advertising and fashion drawing at the specialised private Rotter School, founded by Vilém Rotter, the owner of Prague's most important graphic design and advertising studio. In the following period, he worked in various professions: he painted puppets in Vacov in Šumava and worked as a designer for an advertising company.

As he was a skilled draughtsman from childhood, in 1942 he got the opportunity to illustrate the fairy tale book The Princess of the Windy Gully and then two other children's books. On the basis of this work, he was hired as an animator at the Atelier of Film Tricks (AFIT), where the occupation administration under Richard Dillenz made cartoons. Behind the German administration's back, a Czech creative group was formed in the studio, which in 1944 made the first Czech animated film Wedding in the Coral Sea. It was successfully screened at home and abroad after the war and is considered a landmark in the history of Czech animation.

As early as May 1945, Jiří Trnka became the head of the newly established first animation studio Brothers in Trick. Václav Bedřich participated in Trnka's films as an animator, and his first directorial efforts date back to 1948. Initially, these were short advertising and educational films, but he worked with artistic shorthand, rhythm and gags.

From the beginning of the 1950s onwards, Bedřich's directorial collaborations with prominent personalities date back. He worked with the artist Cyril Boudou, the author of the music Jan F. Fischer and animators including Zdeněk Smetana, Josef Kábrt and Jaroslav Doubrava on the fairy tale Mug Cook, which won an award at the 1956 Venice IFF. In the 1955 film Čert a Káča he set in motion the drawings of Josef Lada published in books. Lada's simple drawings brought humour to the film. This became a characteristic part of the director's entire subsequent output.

From 1959, Václav Bedřich collaborated with the American Oscar-winning director Gene Deitch. For Rembrandt Films, together at the Brothers in Trick studio, they made a series of short films released under the collective title Alice of Wonderland in Paris. He also animated several episodes of the American series Tom and Jerry, and directed the film Samson and Delilah, based on a script by Deitch.

In the 1960s he brought Adolf Born to work with animation. He made several promotional films with him, and in 1967, based on his own script, the Nordic ballad The Treasure of Mr. Arno. Experts rank his animated grotesques among Bedřich's significant creative achievements. Based on his own theme and script, he made a short film 40 Grandfathers, in collaboration with the artist Miroslav Štěpánek and composers Ferdinand Havlík and Jiří Kolafa a three-part series about Kamenáč Bill, which was repeatedly awarded not only at Czech festivals, but also in Zagreb and Adelaide, Australia. The seven-part series of horror parodies Smrtící aromně (Deadly Scent) also entered the golden fund of Czech animated cinema. The designer of two of the films was František Braun, a collaborator of Jiří Trnka, from Nepomuk u Rožmitálu. The series also includes Purgatory Bath. The director was attracted by the distinctive artistic expression of Jaroslav Vožniak and offered him cooperation. In 1973, the film won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

A significant milestone in the work of Václav Bedřich was 1965, when the theme song to Večerníček, directed by him, first appeared on Czechoslovak television. Radek Pilař, the creator of the series about the robber Rumcajs, and also a founding figure of Czech video art, was the author of the character that greets children at the popular programme day after day. The first series of fairy tales About the TV Scarecrow was launched with the theme song. The director Bedřich collaborated on it with graphic designer Bohumil Šiška, scriptwriter Ljuba Štíplová and actor Vlastimil Brodský. A year later, Fairy Tales of a Sheep Grandmother was shown, accompanied by the voice of Jiřina Bohdalová. The short film Jonah and the Whale was made in collaboration with Miloš Macourek, designer Vratislav Hlavaty, actor Jiří Suchý and others. This was followed by collaboration with Zdeněk Smetana and composer Jaroslav Celba on dozens of episodes of the series about Štaflík and Špagetek, then the series Fairy Tales from Paper.

The seventies brought Václav Bedřich one success after another. His collaboration with cartoonist and illustrator Vladimír Jiránek resulted in several exceptional short films. The satire Automatic won the Golden Statue at the 1974 IFF in Tehran, Iran, and a year later the Golden Peacock in New Delhi, India. During 1974-75, Beer Across the Street was awarded two prizes at Czechoslovak festivals, winning 1st prize in Zagreb and the Film Critics' Diploma in Tehran. The joint films Dobré jitro and Děkujeme, pánové! Bedřich took home a special prize from the 1975 Berlinale for ŠŠŠ.

This period is also the most prolific for the director in another genre. While in the first years Večerníček was broadcast once a week, by the 1970s it was almost daily. And so the director and scriptwriter concentrated mainly on work for children. Most of the fairy tales that are well known to children and adults today were created during this period. Based on a draft by Václav Čtvrtek and with drawings by Gabriela Dubská, it was the series About the Poppy Maiden, with the award-winning Czech graphic artist Jiří Šalamoun Maxipes Fík, and with illustrator Eva Šediva the series About Sazink. For the popular fairy tales series About Mr. Krbec's Animals, he chose cartoonist and caricaturist Vladimír Renčín. The music of Petr Skoumal and the spoken word of Jiří Abrhám certainly contributed to its success. The proven and successful cooperation with Vladimír Jiránek on satirical films for adults was continued in his work for children. The stories of Bob and Bobek, the rabbits from the hat, brought joy to young and old alike with their specific humour.

Although Václav Bedřich had been drawing all his life, he decided to apply his artistic handwriting only in the series based on the novel by Václav Čtvrtek Říkání o víla Amálce (1975). The unmistakable voice of Jiří Hrzán certainly contributed to the popularity of the series. The fairy tales were dubbed into Japanese many years later and were a great success with Japanese children.

From the prolific seventies to the mid-eighties, the director made almost 150 episodes of the evening cartoons. He also co-wrote some of the series. He chose different performers for each of the series of tales, bringing great variety to the show. He often brought artists to the studio who had no experience with animated films, but he was able to guess how much their distinctive artistic expression would attract viewers (Jaroslav Vožniak, Miroslav Štěpánek, Adolf Born, Vladimír Jiránek, Jiří Šalamoun, Vladimír Renčín and others). For the spoken word, he chose actors with unmistakable vocal expressions (Vlastimil Brodský, Jiřina Bohdalová, Josef Abrhám, Jiří Suchý, Jiří Sovák, Josef Dvořák, Petr Nárožný, Luděk Sobota, ...). He also emphasized impressive music (Luboš Fišer, Petr Skoumal, Jiří Kolafa). His wish was not to follow conventional animation, but to enrich it with new approaches. His entire oeuvre, comprising several hundred short films of various genres, is linked by Bedřich's sense of intelligent humour. He was able to work with exaggeration, to time shortcuts, to keep the rhythm of individual shots. Over the years, he had gone through many professions in his field, from stage designer to animator to directing, scriptwriting and his own artwork, and was therefore able to appreciate the importance of the roles of his other colleagues.

Bedřich's work came to a close in the 1990s with his work on several Rabbits out of a Hat. However, this was preceded by two successful ventures: the psychological film Sredni Vaštar based on a theme by the English writer H. H. Munro Saki, and also the feature-length The Great Cheese Robbery (1986), a family comedy made in co-production with Germany, where it also won the title of best children's film of the year. Václav Bedřich directed the film from his own script, and was a character designer along with Gene Deitch and Milan Klikare.

He was one of the most prolific directors of Czech animation, an admirable filmmaker, a creator of outstanding films, a modest and humble man with excellent knowledge and insight into culture, an excellent studio practitioner, a great professional who made a major contribution to the fact that the fame of the Czech school of animation crossed borders. This is how Václav Bedřich, who died on March 7, 2009 in Prague, remains in the memories of experts and collaborators. His work remains etched in the memories of generations of film viewers. For who among us at this moment does not recall one of the funny stories of the famous heroes of Večerníček?

Elaborated by: Hana Ročňáková