Liviu Ciulei

Liviu Ciulei (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈlivju t͡ʃjuˈlej]; 7 July 1923 – 24 October 2011[1]) was a Romanian theater and film director, film writer, actor, architect, educator, costume and set designer. During a career spanning over 50 years, he was described by Newsweek as "one of the boldest and most challenging figures on the international scene".[2] Ciulei is known for winning the Best Director prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for his film Forest of the Hanged. He received a star on the Romanian Walk of Fame in Bucharest on 13 December 2012.

Biography

Born in Bucharest to Liviu Ciulley [sic], a lawyer and constructor, Ciulei studied architecture and theater at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Theatre. He made his theater debut in 1946, as Puck in an Odeon Theatre production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Soon after, he joined the theater company known as Teatrul Municipal din Bucureşti, later renamed Teatrul Bulandra, and directed his first stage production in 1957 – The Rainmaker.

Ciulei acting for film in 1960

In 1961, Ciulei gained an overall recognition for his version of Shakespeare's As You Like It. In the same year, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.[3] He was the recipient of the Directors' Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for The Forest of the Hanged,[4] the film version of the Liviu Rebreanu's eponymous novel (where he also starred in the role of Klapka). In the 1980s, he was marginalized by the regime and transferred to work at Sahia film studio, as documentary filmmaker.

Ciulei was the artistic director of Teatrul Bulandra for more than a decade. During his tenure at the Bulandra he staged a wide range of classics. His Shakespeare productions include "As You Like it" "Macbeth" and "The Tempest", which was awarded Romania's Critics' Prize for Best Production of 1979. Also at the Bulandra, he staged such European classics as Gorki's "The Lower Depths" and "The Children of the Sun", Buchner's "Danton's Death" and "Leonce and Lena", and Brecht's "Threepenny Opera". His productions of American classics include Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life", and O'Neill's "Long Day Journey into Night". Ciulei was a guest director in many theaters around the world: in West Berlin, Paris, Göttingen, Düsseldorf, Munich and Vancouver. In Sydney, he won the 1977 Australian Critics'Award for his production of "The Lower Depths". In 1974 he made his American debut at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., as director and designer with "Leonce and Lena". In 1980 he directed and created sets for the Shostakovich opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at the Spoleto Festival in Italy: and in May 1982, he redirected the same opera for the Lyric Opera in Chicago. Between 1980–85, he was the artistic director of Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the Guthrie he directed "The Tempest", "Eve of Retirement", "As You Like it", "Requiem for a Nun", "Peer Gynt", "The Threepenny Opera", "Three Sisters", "Twelfth Night", and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", among others.

From 1986–1990, Liviu Ciulei taught theater direction at Columbia University[5] in the City of New York in the MFA program in theatre arts.[6] Later, NYU made him a richer offer to teach graduate acting, and he accepted an appointment at the university[7] from 1991–1995.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, back in his native Romania, Ciulei directed a series of stage productions that have been both publicly and critically acclaimed. He was named Honorary Director of the theater he has always loved the most, Bulandra. Besides being the costume and set designer of the majority of his own productions, Ciulei, as an architect, contributed to the rebuilding of the auditorium of Bulandra Theatre.

Family

He was first married to actress Clody Bertola.[8] He remarried, to journalist Helga Reiter-Ciulei. His son by the second marriage is film director Thomas Ciulei.

Death

Ciulei died on 24 October 2011 in a hospital in Munich, aged 88; he had been suffering from multiple illnesses; his body was cremated and the subject was brought up in television debates regarding Sergiu Nicolaescu's cremation in 2013 as to how the act of cremation is not sanctioned by the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Filmography
  • În sat la noi (1951) as Dumitru
  • Mitrea Cocor (1951, writer)
  • Nepoţii gornistului (1953, writer) as Bulldogul
  • Răsare soarele (1954, writer) as Bulldogul
  • Alarmă în munţi (1955)
  • Pasărea furtunii (1957, writer)
  • Erupţia (1957, director)
  • Valurile Dunării (1960, director) as Mihai
  • Soldaţi fără uniformă (1960) as Bogdan
  • Cerul n-are gratii (1962)
  • Pădurea spânzuraţilor (1965, director) as Captain Klapka
  • Decolarea (1971) as Old pilot Barcan
  • Facerea lumii (1971, writer) as Manicatide
  • Dragostea începe vineri (1972)
  • Ceaţa (1973) as Comisarul sef
  • Dimitrie Cantemir (1973)
  • Dragostea începe vineri (1974)
  • Muschetarul român (1975) as Leibnitz
  • Mastodontul (1975) as Vogoride
  • O scrisoare pierdută (1977, writer / director)
  • Falansterul (1979) as Dinicu Golescu (final film role)
gollark: Sounds like a you problem.
gollark: Yes, it just works if you ignore it not working.
gollark: Tell you what, I'll join soon™ and fix them.
gollark: Our reactors are not hugely reliable, sorry.
gollark: Mine is left powered on until it needs a ĸernel update.

References
  1. http://www.antena3.ro/life-show/cultura/a-murit-liviu-ciulei-141380.html
  2. Theater History at the Guthrie Theater site Archived 6 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "2nd Moscow International Film Festival (1961)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2012.
  4. "Festival de Cannes: Forest of the Hanged". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  5. "Liviu Ciulei, a Daring Theater Director, Dies at 88". 26 October 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  6. "LIVIU CIULEI FILLS THE EMPTY SPACE". 15 January 2010. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  7. "Liviu Ciulei, a Daring Theater Director, Dies at 88". 25 October 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  8. Marriage to Clody Bertola Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine

Sources
  • Miruna Runcan, Teatralizarea si reteatralizarea teatrului in Romania. 1920–1960, Cluj, Editura Eik0n, seria Bibilioteca teatrul Imposibil, 2003
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