Lion with the White Mane

Director Jaromil Jireš has expressed his love for art, especially for music, through several film and television works. In this poetically delivered film from 1986, Jireš was specifically inspired by his love for an artist, the great composer Leoš Janáček. More than a decade earlier, Jireš had made a documentary about the legendary Moravian master of music (Leoš Janáček, 1973), while more recently in 1979 he had stepped forward with a musical drama for television, Zápisník zmizelého (The Diary of One Who Disappeared), based on Janáček’s eponymous song cycle. The protagonist of A Lion with the White Mane’s narrative is of course the composer, a man who wrestled with his passions for both music and women, as well as with the controversial reception that met his timeless works, compositions in which he strove for earnest expression. Luděk Munzar excels in the leading role of Janáček, while Jana Hlaváčová plays the artist’s wife. Lubor Tokoš appears in the role of another great composer, Antonín Dvořák. In Jireš’s later television film Antonín Dvořák (1990), Tokoš went on to perform the part of Dvořák’s teacher.