RIP Jiří Machání

 

Cameraman Jiří Machání died at the age of 82

 

CESKE NOVINY

1/21/2023

 

Prague - At the age of 82, cameraman Jiří Machání died on Friday. He has participated in the creation of more than 50 films, including Funeral Party, Day for My Love, The Virgin and the Monster, The Black Barons and The Shadow of the Vanished. His daughter Martina Macháňová informed the Czech News Agency about his death.

Machna's work also involved in series such as The Visitors, The Necklace and Commissioner Maigret. He has worked with Juraj Herz, František Vláčil, Karel Kachyňa, František Filip, Jan Němec and Jan Schmidt. He also worked for many years as a teacher at Prague's FAMU, where he significantly contributed to the formation of the Department of Cinematography.

In 2015, the Association of Czech Cinematographers awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award. Machání considered his collaboration with Juraj Herz to be the most important part of his work. "We made about 15 movies together, if you add television. We also filmed in Germany or for the French," he told the Czech News Agency during the award ceremony in 2016. According to him, this director had a great vision, they didn't have to talk much and they understood each other. "I just understood his imagination – I hope he was happy too," he added.

Jiří Machání was born in 1940 and twenty-four years later he graduated from the profession of cinematography. At first he worked in the Czechoslovak Army Film and as a second cameraman he participated in Jan Schmidt's gloomy vision The End of August in the Ozon Hotel and in Kachyňa's disillusioning fresco Long Live the Republic. He began his independent work as a cameraman with Schmidt's film The Lanfieri Colony, shot in the Soviet Union during the August invasion of Czechoslovakia. His Funeral Celebration directed by Zdeněk Sirový giving a true picture of the village in the 50s and 60s ended up in the vault, it was not performed until 1990.

MACHANI, Jirí

Born: 12/27/1940, Nové Mesto nad Metují, Czechoslovakia

Died: 1/20/23. Prague, Czech Republic

 

Jiří Machání westerns – cinematographer:

The Claim at Deaf Creek – 1972

David Sandel’s Last Shot – 1972