Daniel was the subject of a well-deserved tribute day at the 51st Karlovy Vary IFF, running through 9 July 2016, on the 90th anniversary of Daniel’s birth, which began with a film analysis session and continued on through a panel and presentation of his 1963 film, This Year in September / Letos v Zari. Pavel Jech, the outgoing Dean of FAMU, told FNE that the film should be recognised as an early Czech New Wave film, or at least a precursor of the style that put Czechoslovak filmmaking on the map. Daniel’s students at FAMU included a who’s who of great Czechoslovak filmmakers, and his 1963 film (one of 17 films the Daniel made before he emigrated) proves that this was one gifted man who could “do” as well as teach.
Michal Bregant, another former FAMU Dean and current head of the Czech National Film Archives (which provided the copy of the film shown at the festival), told FNE, “He was a huge inspiration for generations of filmmakers,” adding, “He symbolises the continuity between the European cinema here and the American film industry.”
Daniel left Czechoslovakia in 1969, following the Russian invasion that extinguished the Prague Spring. His first stop was California where he established the American Film Institute and where his first class included David Lynch and Terrence Malick. Daniel fought for Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead, to the point where he left AFI. As Ted Braun put it, Daniel had “a moral compass, a resistance to bullying.” Daniel went on to head up the Sundance Institute and to join Milos Foreman (his former student) as the co-head of Columbia University’s film school, along the way being credited with formulating the eight sequence approach of filmmaking that is widely used today. Jech, who learned the Daniel method of film script analysis, has brought Daniel full circle by making his training method central to FAMU once more.
The new Frank Daniel Institute, under the direction of Alex Nibley (who met Daniel on his first day as an intern at Sundance) at Utah Valley University, along with Daniel’s son Martin, was inspired by the goal of making Frank Daniel’s work more accessible to people. “At the core will be a website where you can access materials and lectures,” Martin Daniel told FNE.
Nibley added, “We’re developing a rich library of Frank Daniel’s work.” Nibley already has over 100 hours of Daniel’s teaching on film, which is being digitalised for online learning. Nibley said, “He was the best film educator ever” and a teacher of teachers, which ensures his ongoing influence.
Summing up the Daniel’s impact, Jech said, “Frank Daniel left a remarkable legacy. He took theory from Russia and Prague, through the Czech New Wave, and brought it to the U.S.” At the Karlovy Vary festival, which seems this year to be vigorously re-embracing its Central and East European roots, the Daniel name and imprint are a reminder of the very best of the Czech cinema legacy.
