Miroslav Ondříček

Miroslav Ondříček

Birth : 1934-11-04, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]

Death : 2015-03-28

History

Miroslav Ondříček (4 November 1934 – 28 March 2015) was a Czech cinematographer who worked on over 40 films, including Amadeus, Ragtime and If..... Miroslav Ondříček was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Prague, Czech Republic). He studied filmmaking at the Barrandov Studio Training School and began making movies during the Czech New Wave. His first feature film work was on Miloš Forman's Talent Competition. He continued his long working relationship with Forman in the US on such films as Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981) and Amadeus (1984). He also collaborated with the British film director Lindsay Anderson on two films: If.... (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973). Ondříček died in Prague at the age of 80. Description above from the Wikipedia article Miroslav Ondříček, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Profile

Miroslav Ondříček

Movies

Cast & Crew: If....
Self - Interviewee
Episode of the BBC Scotland television series focusing on Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film "If...", featuring interviews with star Malcolm McDowell, cinematographer Miroslav Ondříček, assistant editor Ian Rakoff, director’s assistant Stephen Frears, producer Michael Medwin, and screenwriter David Sherwin
Riding in Cars with Boys
Director of Photography
In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.
The Preacher's Wife
Cinematography
Good natured Reverend Henry Biggs finds that his marriage to choir mistress Julia is flagging, due to his constant absence caring for the deprived neighborhood they live in. On top of all this, his church is coming under threat from property developer Joe Hamilton. In desperation, Rev. Biggs prays to God for help - and help arrives in the form of an angel named Dudley.
A League of Their Own
Director of Photography
As America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey. Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan on their way to fame.
Awakenings
Director of Photography
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
Valmont
Director of Photography
Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love. Based on the same novel as "Dangerous Liaisons."
Funny Farm
Director of Photography
Sportswriter Andy Farmer moves with his schoolteacher wife Elizabeth to the country in order to write a novel in relative seclusion. Of course, seclusion is the last thing the Farmers find in the small, eccentric town, where disaster awaits them at every turn.
F/X
Director of Photography
A movies special effects man is hired by a government agency to help stage the assassination of a well known gangster. When the agency double cross him, he uses his special effects to trap the gangster and the corrupt agents.
Heaven Help Us
Director of Photography
Sixteen-year-old Michael Dunn arrives at St. Basil's Catholic Boys School in Brooklyn circa 1965. There, he befriends all of the misfits in his class as they collide with the repressive faculty and discover the opposite sex as they come of age.
Amadeus
Director of Photography
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.
Silkwood
Director of Photography
The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant who was purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing blatant worker safety violations at the plant.
The World According to Garp
Director of Photography
A struggling young writer finds his life and work dominated by his unfaithful wife and his radical feminist mother, whose best-selling manifesto turns her into a cultural icon.
Ragtime
Director of Photography
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Dark Sun
Director of Photography
A remake of Vávra's 1948 atomic age thriller Krakatit.
The Divine Emma
Camera Supervisor
The opera lady singer Ema Destinnová is in all her splendor at the American stages. But in Europe there rages war and she decides to return home to Bohemia.
Red, White, and Zero
Director of Photography
Composed of three shorts – Ride of the Valkyrie, The White Bus, and Red and Blue – from three of Britain’s most-celebrated directors - Lindsay Anderson, Peter Brook, and Tony Richardson. Comic legend Zero Mostel stars as an opera singer (in full costume) navigating the London transport network as he attempts to reach Covent Garden in 'Ride of the Valkyrie'. Scripted by Shelagh Delaney, 'The White Bus' blends realism, drama, and poetry as a despondent young woman travels home to the North of England. And Vanessa Redgrave stars in Tony Richardson’s romantic reverie and musical featurette 'Red and Blue'. Produced in 1967, but ultimately shelved.
Hair
Director of Photography
Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.
Nechci nic slyšet
Director of Photography
A Story of Love and Honor
Director of Photography
A story of love and honor that takes place during the mid-nineteenth century during revolutions, as well as economic, political, and social hypocrisy. Two extraordinary but lonely artists share a passionate love, as evidenced by the preserved letters that they exchanged.
Jacob
Director of Photography
The 11-year old Jakub is living in a children's home, when he is picked up by his father. The father has been "away" for four years, the boys mother doesn't want the child. Jakub gradually finds out, that his father is hiding a secret from him. But they gradually manage to build a warm relationship and a promising new life in the city.
Konečně si rozumíme
Director of Photography
Najvzdialenejšia hviezda na nebi
Director of Photography
Hřiště
Director of Photography
Hotel Pacific
Director of Photography
Set in the early 1930s, a young man finds a job as a dishwasher in a hotel and quickly works his way up the ladder. Loosely based on the novel by Henryk Worcell.
My Dear Aunt and Me
Director of Photography
Two kind but foolish sisters live together in their villa in a small town in South Bohemia. Fany (Natasa Gollová) has never married and Andelka (Eva Svobodová) is a widow. In the morning, the two sisters go into town. They need to buy fuel oil, put money in the bank and give plums to the teller. In the meantime an smallish orange Skoda MB car parks at their house, with Hermínka (Iva Janzurová), the old ladies' niece, and her fiancé Michal (Jirí Hrzán) in it. Michal has forgotten to bring flowers and has to go into town to fetch them. At the bank, Fany wants to deposit money but the minute the teller opens the safe, a thief arrives. He knocks the teller and Fany unconscious and runs away with the money. When Fany comes to her senses again, she sees Michal and accuses him of being the thief.
Televize v Bublicích aneb Bublice v televizi
Director of Photography
O Lucky Man!
Director of Photography
This sprawling, surrealist comedy serves as an allegory for the pitfalls of capitalism, as it follows the adventures of a young coffee salesman in modern Britain.
Homolka and Pocketbook
Director of Photography
The husband and wife Ludva and Hedus Homolkas with their twins Péta and Máta and Ludva's parents - the granny and grandpa - arrive in the snowy Spindleruv Mlýn for a holiday. They promise to each other that they will not spoil the quite expensive holiday by quarrels. If somebody hurts the other one he/she will kneel as a punishment.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Director of Photography
Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.
Taking Off
Director of Photography
Unable to deal with her parents, Jeannie Tyne runs away from home. Larry and Lynn Tyne search for her, and in the process meet other people whose children ran away. With their children gone, the parents are now free to rediscover/enjoy life.
Svatební noc
Director of Photography
Le corps de Diane
Director of Photography
Diane is married to an architect in this situation comedy. The two met in Czechoslovakia before marrying and moving to France. He becomes extremely jealous when he suspects her of having a lesbian affair with a ballet dancer. His incessant questions and insane jealousy make Diane resentful to the point she considers pushing him off a cliff.
if....
Director of Photography
In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. But three Lower Sixth students, leader Mick Travis, Wallace and Johnny decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.
-about 'The White Bus'
Self
Follows the creation of Lindsay Anderson's The White Bus (1968), from pre-production to the shoot and in post.
The Firemen's Ball
Director of Photography
The firemen of a provincial Czechoslovakian town throw a ball in honor of the old chief's retirement. There will be music and dancing, a beauty pageant and a raffle. The whole town will be in attendance. However, the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. Workplace injuries, stolen prizes, a shortage of pretty girls... and fire.
The White Bus
Director of Photography
A despondent young woman travels home to the North of England.
Martyrs of Love
Director of Photography
This three-part ballad, which often uses music to stand in for dialogue, remains the most perfect embodiment of Nemec’s vision of a film world independent of reality. Mounting a defense of timid, inhibited, clumsy, and unsuccessful individuals, the three protagonists are a complete antithesis of the industrious heroes of socialist aesthetics. Martyrs of Love cemented Nemec’s reputation as the kind of unrestrained nonconformist the Communist establishment considered the most dangerous to their ideology.
Intimate Lighting
Director of Photography
Ivan Passer’s film concerns the dreams of two musician friends, one of whom, having left their small hometown to become successful, returns to visit the other who stayed behind to become a local music teacher.
Pearls of the Deep
Camera Operator
A manifesto of sorts for the Czech New Wave, this five-part anthology shows off the breadth of expression and the versatility of the movement’s directors. Based on stories by the legendary writer Bohumil Hrabal, the shorts range from the surreally chilling to the caustically observant to the casually romantic, but all have a cutting, wily view of the world.
Loves of a Blonde
Director of Photography
Andula, an innocent Czech girl from a factory town, is desperately in search of love. She believes she's found it when she beds Milda, a charming young musician visiting from Prague. Milda, however, is only looking for a casual encounter, and leaves town assuming he'll never see Andula again. But when Andula doesn't hear from him, she packs up and heads to Prague, to the surprise of Milda and his parents.
A Boring Afternoon
Camera Operator
Several parties—a prostitute, aging football players, working girls, two men playing pool, and a hedonistic young man—each coalesce in a tavern.
Diamonds of the Night
Camera Operator
A tense, brutal story of two Jewish boys who escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a group of old, armed home-guardists. The film goes beyond the themes of war and anti-Nazism and concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.
Audition
Director of Photography
Two closely related episodes. Youths make problems for two local orchestras about to compete nationally, and in a talent competition a young girl gets stage fright, while another lies to her boss to compete.
The Cry
Camera Operator
While a woman is in the hospital preparing to deliver her child, her husband has all day to reflect upon his wife and their relationship. As he tends to his job as a television repairman, Slavek fondly remembers how he first met Ivana and the days they spent getting to know one another. Slavek also grows increasingly aware of the environment that surrounds him and questions the society his new child will be entering. Loaded with a repeated plea for social change, this is the first feature from Czech writer/director Jaromil Jires.
Kočár nejsvětější svátosti
Assistant Camera
When the Cat Comes
Camera Operator
Some people with a strange cat arrive in a small village. The cat wears glasses, and when someone takes them off, she can color people, according to their nature and mood. The grown-ups of the village consider the cat to be dangerous, but the kids just love her…
Králíci ve vysoké trávě
Camera Operator
Deštivý den
Assistant Camera
Magical Day
Assistant Camera
Little Honzík tries everything he can in order to join the team for Spartakiada Games.
Střevíčky
Camera Operator
The White Dove
Assistant Camera
A poetic film about a dove getting lost on its way to Prague getting shot down by a paralyzed boy. An artist who finds the dove becomes friends with the boy. Together they take care of it bringing it back to recovery.
The Road Back
Assistant Camera
Czechoslovakian crime film
Today for the Last Time
Assistant Camera
Concert master Karel Mašek is a drunk, as well as engineer Danda and other regular guests of the pub U Kroců. Mašek returns from the pub in the morning and promises the woman that he will stop drinking. But he failed again, and the orchestra players refuse to play with him. Danda returns home without a bag and goes to Krocs again in the morning, even though he has an important job at work. He has been degraded to subordinate job position, but he refused to admit it at home.
Zde jsou lvi
Assistant Camera
Snadný život
Assistant Camera
Konec jasnovidce
Camera Operator