MUCHA: THE STORY OF AN ARTIST WHO CREATED A STYLE

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MUCHA: THE STORY OF AN ARTIST WHO CREATED A STYLE

SVĚT PODLE MUCH

By Roman VÁVRA

MAXIM FILM - as PROD

Art - Culture - Completed 2020

At the end of the 19th century, the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) ranked among the pioneers of the Art Nouveau movement. Virtually overnight, he became famous in Paris thanks to his posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt. But at the height of his fame, Mucha left Paris to realise his lifetime project “The Slav Epic”. He worked on the monumental cycle of paintings for 18 years – only to meet fierce criticism upon completion.

Festivals
& Awards

Finale Plzen 2020

Filmfest Bremen 2021

Newport Beach Film Festival 2021

- Year of production
- 2020
- Genres
- Art - Culture, Biography, Documentary
- Countries
- CZECH REPUBLIC, GERMANY
- Duration
- 95 mn
- Director(s)
- Roman VÁVRA
- Cast
- Martin STRÁNSKÝ, Tomaš KONARIK, Antonin NOVÝ
- Producer(s)
- Ondřej BERÁNEK (Punk Film), Jakub PINKAVA (Punk Film)
- Synopsis
- The feature documentary tells the story of Alphonse Mucha from the perspective of his son, the writer and bon-vivant Jiří Mucha, with an abundance of re-enactments, animations, archive footage as well as paintings and photos.
  
  Alphonse Mucha’s artistic legacy has two faces: the global, popularised one in the form of posters and decorative creations from the field of applied art, and the one only known in the Czech Republic in the form of the painful dispute about the fate of the Slav Epic. The cause of the dispute and of the two artistic faces of Alphonse Mucha is encoded in his life journey, in Mucha himself. The documentary presents the fate of one of the most famous Czech artists as an artist’s journey in search of his artistic identity and the desire of an individual to give his life purpose.
  
  Mucha’s art and Mucha as an artist survived thanks to posters and design. This is a great paradox, as Mucha wanted to achieve a different artistic ideal: he wanted to be the painter of large canvasses after the fashion of the masters of academic painting. And as one of the most famous creators of the last international style, he saw fulfilment and artistic ideal in creating something for the nation. These contradictions laid the groundwork for conflicts in his life. One such specific conflict experienced by Mucha was his desire to establish himself in Czech society and in the field of art. The latter in particular were slated to failure because contemporary painters did not accept Mucha and a dispute erupted between him and the members of the Manes Union of Fine Arts.
  
  Rejection and willfulness are the leitmotifs that Alphonse Mucha often had to come to terms with often during his life. Even his artistic career began by being rejected by the Academy in Prague, which, however, made him more entrenched in his pursuit of his calling to be a painter. Prague rejected him a second time with his Slav Epic. Twenty years later, Mucha, in a country occupied by the Wehrmacht, died believing that the Czech nation would eventually appreciate his artistic gift.