The Unbearable Lightness of Being - videos, teasers and stills from filming

All videos, teasers and footage from the filming of the film "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

Timing: 2:51 (171 min)

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All about film

Video 1

Photo 21

Actors and characters

English

2:27

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera, a French writer of Czech origin. Kundera disliked this adaptation so much that he categorically refused to participate in the film's promotional campaign.
The first version of the film was almost two hours long, but it turned out to be incomprehensible. The film's director, Philip Kaufman, was asked to insert scenes he had previously cut. The next day, a version was ready that went into release. It is believed that Kaufman deliberately showed a short and somewhat confusing version so that he would be allowed to release the full version, lasting almost 3 hours.
Miloš Forman (1932-2018) personally offered Philip Kaufman the opportunity to direct this film after learning of the interest major film studios were beginning to show in adapting Milan Kundera's 1982 novel. Forman himself did not dare to direct it because he had family in Czechoslovakia and feared repression, as the country was then under Soviet occupation.
Lena Olin met the lead actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, on the first day of filming. On that very day, they had to appear nude before the camera and perform a love scene.
The scenes depicting the Soviet Army's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 used both documentary footage from that time and footage of a reconstruction of the events. The documentary footage was shot by young people. One of them appears in the film – he is the one being beaten by Soviet soldiers and having his filmed footage confiscated.

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