Lubomír Beneš interview (1994)

Lubomír Beneš, February 1995 (photo: ČTK)

Lubomír Beneš died in 1995, so there aren't many interviews with him around. However, I was able to find two newspaper articles which feature interviews with Beneš from 1994, a year before his death. They were conducted when seven new Pat & Mat episodes were completed and premiered. My thanks for these articles go to Tereza Hunkařová from the Masaryk University of Brno, who included them in her bachelor thesis titled Večerníček jako dramaturgické specifikum v televizní tvorbě pro děti a mládež, or Večerníček as a dramaturgical specifics in television production for children and youth, which is available at this link. She in turn got the newspaper clippings from Ateliéry Bonton Zlín, so my thanks go to them as well. I've translated the articles from Czech, so if there are any mistakes, feel free to comment on them.

The first article is from Blesk magazín:

“What is: ... and it is!” - Blanka Kubíčková’s interview with Lubomír Beneš

The clumsy, inventive egghead screwball pair: puppet do-it-yourselfers Pat and Mat. But first, a word from director Lubomír Beneš and artist Vladimír Jiránek. In a studio where seven episodes were recently filmed, the two did not want to talk to me. Lubomír Beneš did so for them instead.

When were these two handymen born and how did they get together?

Vladimír Jiránek and I started inventing hijinks in 1976 because we wanted to let off steam from what was happening around us, from totalitarianism. We drew and designed until we came to the look of the two figures. They were a little different than the audience knows them today ― without caps and more plump. The first part was called Kuťáci. We wanted to continue shooting, but Krátký film did not allow us to do so. The reason given was that Kuťáci are just ordinary entertainment and not appropriate for the cultural policy of the time. However, Slovak Television showed interest in further episodes, and in the end we filmed twenty-eight episodes for them.

Why did you invite Vladimír Jiránek to cooperate?

We had known each other before and discovered that we have very similar problems with what was happening around us. We were constantly in some trouble, so we wanted to relax with something that wouldn't be connected with politics. We thought that DIY is the right thing to do. Eventually, we figured out how wrong we had been. They were bothered with ordinary humor.

Maybe they were bothered with something else?

Vladimír Jiránek claimed that the original inspiration for our series was human stupidity and the disorder in everyday society that prevails even nowadays, making Pat and Mat still up to date.

How did the “a je to!” name come about? Why did you choose the names Pat and Mat for the pair?

The name Kuťáci is a Czechism, so it could not be translated into Slovak. When we started filming for the Slovak TV, we eventually came up with the title “… a je to!”. The audience then wrote to us asking why the characters did not have names. When preparing the next six episodes, this time for Krátký film, because the situation had changed, we named them Pat and Mat. We told ourselves that these would be universal names. They can be Patrik and Matyáš, Patlal and Matlal or pat and mat from chess.

That was in 1989 already, and you made 34 episodes in thirteen years. How long does it take to make one story?

Shooting lasts for two and a half months. However, filming is usually preceded by raising the necessary money. One episode costs roughly as three favorites. Since 1990, after the disintegration of Krátký film, we are an independent company AIF, which has already produced 14 new stories about these two companions.

Are Pat and Mat today different than in the first episode?

In the beginning, they were bald. However, we did not like this, neither did Vladimír Jiránek. Creating hair, though, was a problem, so in the end we came to caps. Still, we had major problems with the colors of the sweaters; one was red and the other yellow. The first episodes were also screened abroad and someone from the Czech side apparently objected that it represented a confrontation between the Soviet Union and China. We were forced to give them a change of clothes ― into yellow and gray. When it did not bother anyone anymore, we returned to the original colors. Pat has a yellow and Mat has a red sweater.

What is the nature of these two gentlemen?

They are basically optimists, coming out of every trouble as winners. They are not only comedians; they express a certain attitude to life. Under no circumstances do they panic, they go from nothing to nothing. Whatever nonsense they produce, they are always content with it.

Most of the parts were created during totalitarianism. Did you have problems with any of the episodes?

Not in Slovakia. With us, yes. They saw Obraz, where Pat and Mat pull the plaster off the wall; somebody objected that Slovaks could see the division of the republic in that. Next, teachers complained that Pat and Mat encouraged children to create a mess. Having said that, during conversation the children themselves told me that they knew that this was not the case.

What inspires you for the stories?

Life. Each of us has repaired something at some point. And people recognize themselves in the stories. For example, my friend's uncle was rooting for me, but only until he saw the episode Garage on TV. Pat and Mat are trying to drive their car into the garage and the whole house gets to know about their efforts. The part when they try to park, the entire population watched how they could fit the car into the garage. Since then, they all started greeting him and asking: "It was about you, wasn't it?"

Both handymen never speak a word. Some things, however, can't be said just by the image, so the music speaks for them, right?

In our films, music is equal to the image. It was composed for all the episodes by Petr Skoumal except for the first episode, which was done by Luboš Fišer.

Have you ever considered giving Pat and Mat voices?

We have considered many things. Maybe they could speak or females could also appear with them. We always came across something that didn't suit us. Pat and Mat are a grotesque and grotesques are mostly silent. As soon as we were to add word accompaniment, it would have shifted somewhere else.

Although we could say that Pat and Mat are purely Czech humor, they are also successful abroad. The series was sold to more than 80 countries around the world...

People make jokes everywhere in the world, so they understand the two. For this reason, the series is comprehensible all over the world. Artistically, it was interesting that they took our austere paneláks (prefabricated panel buildings) and junkyards as something fantastic. They were thrilled and we were praised for it. We had only portrayed our reality.

You have made several animated series, such as Lapka and Ťapka, Čertik Lucifúk, Vladimír Jiránek presents, Vyšehrad Codex, Pat and Mat, Jája and Pája. Are there some characters you prefer?

No. As soon as you start working with some characters, everyone on the staff falls in love with them. But during the long time we work with them, we will get bored. That is a normal human emotion, what’s too much is too much.

Are you contemplating a continuation of Pat and Mat?

Not for now. But the ideas are far from exhausted, so the possibility of a new Pat and Mat series is there.

 

The second article contains much more indirect speech and is more of a report from the aiF Studio, but several direct passages from Beneš are included as well. The interview portions are marked in italic.

PAT & MAT

While the animators of the great world studios and their Czech colleagues have lately taken control of the "unlimited" possibilities of computer animation, bringing to life the vastly fantastic vision of Spielberg et al. , Pat and Mat, puppets from popular večerníčeks (bedtime stories) for children and adults, have calmly reached their adulthood.

We could previously watch forty two instances of DIY problems of Pat and Mat in improving their socialist standardized dwellings. Recently, a gala premiere of the seven latest episodes took place and their distribution on videotapes is near. To avoid the terminological confusion about the three variants of the series title (Pat and Mat, ... a je to!, Kuťáci), here's an explanation.

They failed for the first time, in the year 1976. Director Lubomír Beneš together with artist Vladimír Jiránek put them on film for Krátký film. They were called Kuťáci, but they had to wait for another adventure for a long time, and in the end they migrated. “The Communist inquisitors saw in red and yellow sweaters a symbol of the culminating conflict between the Soviet Union and China,” says Lubomír Beneš with a smile. “Vlaďa Jiránek and us had little idea of how vigilant the censors could be. We wanted to have fun, just for ourselves, so we started to think of all sorts of situations that might have happened and we transformed them into the short.”

The film was unusually liked in Slovakia and, thanks to the somewhat more liberal atmosphere there, Kuťáci's ideas initially poured only from Slovak screens. The sweaters were colored gray, which matched the mentality of their wearers well, but it was overly difficult to find a language equivalent of the name, so the series was renamed to ... a je to! Eventually, Slovak Television commisioned four batches of seven sequels.

Over time, the culture leaders changed their minds, so in 1988 Kuťáci returned to Prague, to Krátký film. The audience did not understand why the close friends did not have names. For a simple reason - silent slapstick did not need them. But, the call was met and the names were given: Pat and Mat. The allegory of the normalized figures familar to all was so strong that some people felt personally ridiculed.

Two notorious klutzes are also known abroad. Although they attack mainly Czech diaphragms (remember the famous joke about the light bulb and the cops), the series has been sold to eighty countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Zimbabwe and other exotic places.

 
In May 1990, Vladimír Jiránek, Lubomír Beneš (who had worked in the Bratří v triku studio from 1957 and from 1967 in Trnka), his son Marek Beneš and producer Michal Podhradský founded their own company - Studio aiF. It happened just after all the directors were released from Barandov. 

Today, aiF owns two studios. In Karlín, there is a vertical camera for producing paper films, while puppet films are shot in Ženské domovy. A third space, where a video editing room and technology for computer animation would be accommodated, is in negotiations. “In the future, however, we do not want to focus solely on computer animation, we only intend to gently complement the classic way with the help of a computer,”explains cameraman Ivan Vít.

“We founded the company because we were also a little afraid that the famous tradition of the Czech puppet film will cease to exist in the new situation. Once people who have been employed in animation film studios start to scatter, it is difficult to get together,” Lubomír Beneš adds.

Since 1991, aiF has in its already ten-member line-up produced fourteen episodes of the večerníček about young devil Lucifuk, a seven-episode series Lapka and Ťapka, eight cartoon two-minute films Vladimír Jiránek uvádí, some instructional films and a few weeks ago they began working on thirteen more episodes of Jája and Pája. In order to make authorial films, they also take over contracts for advertising videos and lease the studio. Director Zdeněk Kopáč moved his Vyšehradský kodex to this location, while FAMU students realize their clausura and diploma work here as well.

Pat & Mat remains the most interesting project of the studio. The first seven sequels, already made in Ženské domovy, have been aired on television, while the second seven have just been finished and will soon appear on the videotape market, where you may have noticed older episodes.