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# Czech director Jiří Menzel (1938-2020) on censorship:
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/cheshskii-rezhisser-irzhi-mentsel-1938-2020-o-tsenzure/
- Published: 2026-02-24T10:48:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:26:53.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Interviews, Cinema, People

*\- In one of your interviews you said that cinema always faces some form of censorship. Yet it seems that in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s this apparatus gave artists a different "impulse" from the one the state or the system gives them today…*

\- Magnificent films were made under censorship, even in the United States, for example, when kissing was not allowed on screen. Freedom has one unpleasant side effect: when everything is possible, you lose purpose and direction. Creativity always needs restrictions. If you are writing a book, composing a song or directing a film, you have to do it. Creativity is born of conflict. If you have no boundaries, you will talk nonsense.

Of course, there are different kinds of restriction: even money is one of them. Every director, whatever the budget, has to adjust his vision to fit it. Or you have a vision that cannot be realised on screen the way you imagined it. It is all about conflict. Finally, there is ideology, which runs through the whole of history like a red thread. There were taboos, rules handed down by the church. Now that people are free, that freedom is problematic. It is like a boy who was not allowed to smoke or play cards leaving home: he will think that freedom consists in smoking and playing cards. That is wrong. Until you grow up, your parents should not allow you to smoke or play cards.

*\- One can set rules and restrictions artificially, as, for example, in the Dogme movement.*

\- Yes, but that is a formality. It is a restriction that provokes and inspires, because you have to find ways of getting round it, but it concerns language, not content. The main thing is to think about the effect you will have on the viewer. Many Dogme films are rather depressing.

*\- Can't filmmakers in the modern world also "grow up" and recognise the limits of their freedom?*

\- That is another question: who will watch it? In Czech cinema, those who succeed are the ones who are always trying to discredit others. I think we are now making honest documentary films. That is our strength and our future, even if the audience is limited at present. Feature films have various formal parameters, but documentaries are very simple. It is easy to find the motivation to make feature films: you travel the festivals and receive a great deal of attention, but with documentaries it is otherwise. Many documentaries are made because they need to be made.

*Interview of Jiří Menzel with Konstantin Kuzma in the Eastern European Cinema Herald, June 2013*