Film

Before becoming the first president of the newly free CzechRepublic in 1989, the late Vaclav Havel was a great playwright. (Joseph Papp premiered all of Havel's plays in the 1960s at the venerable Public Theater.) After leaving office,Havel returned to writing and created this story of a womanizing politico in the 1970s who, ousted from office, enters a phase of his life in which he's no longer the center of attention, protected by his office against a political archrival. This searing satire, based on the play of the same name, is based as much on Shakespeare's King Lear as on Havel's real-life experience in politics.