The Cremator

The Cremator (1969)

Spalovač mrtvol

NO ONE WILL SUFFER.

In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.

Date of release
1969-03-14
TMDB
7.8 / 10 (282)
Runtime
1h 41m
Genres
Horror, Drama, Crime, Comedy
Director
Juraj Herz

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Cremator
  • Filmed in: Prague, Pardubice, Plzeň, and Crematorium Pardubice
  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 1. Including: Sitges Film Festival Best Feature-Length Film award

The Cremator is a 1969 Czechoslovak dark comedy horror film directed by Juraj Herz, based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks. The screenplay was written by Herz and Fuks. The film was selected as the Czechoslovak entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 42nd Academy Awards, but was not nominated. In 1972, it won the Festival de Cine de Sitges Best Film award, where it also received awards for its star Rudolf Hrušínský and cinematographer Stanislav Milota.

Production

The Cremator was Herz's second feature film. The film is based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks Spalovač mrtvol (lit. 'Burner of the dead (dead people/dead bodies'). The main character is played by Rudolf Hrušínský, an actor previously known for his comedic main role as the soldier Josef Švejk in Dobrý voják Švejk and Poslušně hlásím.

Herz wrote the script first and then filmed exactly by the script. He was very pleased with the original script and mentioned that he had left extra space for empty pages in the back of the book for anything else that might come to mind, but those pages were never used.

There were multiple shooting locations: Kopfrkingl's "Temple of Death" was shot at three different crematoria. The first one was a crematorium in Prague in which Mr. Dvorak's suicide, the murder of Mili and the attempted murder of Zina were shot. The actors were well-prepared for these scenes and always ended on time at 3 PM because they did not want to be around the coffins with dead bodies inside.

None of the actors had much trouble shooting in the crematoria besides Menzel. Vlasta Chramostová would rehearse each scene to herself to prepare while Hrušínský just wanted the first shot. Hrušínský did not like to prepare at all for his roles; he preferred to do all the acting on the stage and screen. This acting method probably originated from his stage origins.

Olga Dimitrovová was responsible for the costume design while Frantisek Straka designed the sets and chose the crematoria to use.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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