Karel Reisz
| Karel Reisz | |
|---|---|
Left to right: Frank Beyer, Karel Reisz and Antonín Brousil at the 14th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 7 July 1964
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| Born |
21 July 1926 Ostrava, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | 25 November 2002 (aged 76) Camden, London, England |
| Spouse(s) | Julia Coppard (divorced; 3 children) Betsy Blair (1963–2002; his death) |
Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a British filmmaker who was active in post–World War II Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.
Reisz was born in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, of Jewish extraction. He was a refugee, one of the 669 rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. His father was a lawyer. He came to England in 1938, speaking almost no English, but eradicated his foreign accent as quickly as possible. After attending Leighton Park School, he joined the Royal Air Force towards the end of the war; his parents died at Auschwitz. Following his war service, he read Natural Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and began to write for film journals, including Sight and Sound. He co-founded Sequence with Lindsay Anderson and Gavin Lambert in 1947.
Reisz was a founder member of the Free Cinema documentary film movement. His first short film, Momma Don't Allow (1955), co-directed with Tony Richardson, was included in the first Free Cinema programme shown at the National Film Theatre in February 1956. His film We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) was a naturalistic depiction of the members of a South London boys' club, which was unusual in showing the leisure life of working-class teenagers as it was, with skiffle music and cigarettes, cricket, drawing and discussion groups. The film represented Britain at the Venice Film Festival. The BBC made two follow-up films about the same people and youth club, broadcast in 1985.
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