Golden Sixties or Diaries of Pavel J.

„I witnessed scenes that would make every judge condemn us for being a moral hazard.“

Pavel Juráček, a director, screenwriter, and signatory of the Charter 77 anti-Communist petition was a key figure of the cinema of the 1960s. His diary captures the rise and fall of a talented artist struggling with the social and cultural circumstances of his era as well as with his own bohemian personality. The diary not only offers an extraordinary insight into Juráček’s character, into his perception of the world and the people surrounding him, but also into the atmosphere of the ‘golden age of our cinema’ as it is reviewed by one of the key figures of the New Wave. Pavel Juráček’s diaries represent a work of great literature with hypnotic impressiveness, a very open documentary about the highlights and demons of artistic creation. The book won The Book of the Year 2004 in the public survey of the Lidové Noviny Journal and it also received a Magnesia Litera 2004 Award for Publishing Achievement.

August 16, 1964 … Friday
A Man doesn’t belong in the World, he is nature’s mistake and his acting is senseless. It seems to me that happiness is a state of stupidity, smart men can’t be happy – these two things exclude each other. Intellect is against us, intellect is an enemy, intellect is a brain tumour, unnatural growth of thoughts and doubts rising from some error in nature. With whom shall I talk about it? I don’t have anyone. The older I am, the lonelier I become and the only certainty is the fact that I will die one day. And until then I will stagger onwards further away from birth, closer to death and I will do things rendered ridiculous by the imment arrival of sure death. Because the one thing a man can know about his life with absolute certainty, is that it will end.

warning: cigarettes