Jiří Menzel () (23 February 1938 – 5 September 2020) was a Czech

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

, actor, and

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

. His films often combine a

humanistic Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

view of the world with sarcasm and provocative

cinematography Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...

. Some of these films are adapted from works by Czech writers such as Bohumil Hrabal and Vladislav Vančura.

Early life

Menzel was born in Prague in 1938 to Josef Menzel and Božena Jindřichová. His father Josef was a journalist, translator and children's book writer. Menzel studied directing at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in Prague. His teachers at the academy included Czech Director Otakar Vávra.

Career

Menzel was a member of the Czech New Wave cinema in the 1960s. His first feature film, '' Closely Watched Trains'', won the

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

in 1967. The film was a

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

drama based on a book by Bohumil Hrabal. His film '' Larks on a String'' was filmed in 1969, but was banned by the government censors. It was finally released in 1990 after the fall of the

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

regime. The film won the

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival in 1990. The film was also based on a book by Bohumil Hrabal, and spoke about life in a re-education camp in

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

under the communist rule in the 1950s. Menzel was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film again in 1986 with his dark comedy '' My Sweet Little Village''. In 1987, he was a member of the jury at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1989 he was a member of the jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1995 he was a member of the jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival. He was awarded an IIFA Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2013. He was also awarded the French title of Knight of Arts and Letters and the Czech Lion for lifetime artistic contribution. In the 1980s he was offered by a West German television studio to make a television series version of The Good Soldier Švejk with Rudolf Hrušínský. He didn't get the permission from the Czechoslovak government however. His last appearance in a feature film was in the 2018 Slovak film, '' The Interpreter'', which was based on the story of a man's interactions with an SS soldier who had executed his parents. The film was

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

's official entry to the Oscars.

Death

Menzel died on 5 September 2020, aged 82, after battling a prolonged illness. He had undergone a brain surgery earlier in 2017. He is survived by his wife Olga Menzelová, and daughters, Anna Karolina and Eva Maria. Menzel's wife confirmed on 9 November 2020 that Menzel died as a result of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pneumonia.

Filmography

Sources:

As a director

As an actor

* Strop (Short film) (1962) * Place in the Crowd (1964) * Obžalovaný (1964) * Courage for Every Day (1964) * If a Thousand Clarinets (1965) * Pension pro svobodné pány (TV Movie) (1965) * Pearls of the Deep (1965) * Nobody Will Laugh (1965) * Searching (1966) * Volejte Martina (1966) * Closely Watched Trains (1966) * Flám (1966) * Return of the Prodigal Son (1967) * Hotel for Strangers (1967) * Private Hurricane (1967) * Dita Saxová (1968) * Capricious Summer (1968) * Crime in a Music Hall (1968) * The Cremator (1969) * Larks on a String (1969) * Nevěsta (1970) * Straw Hat (1972) * (1972, voiced by Eberhard Esche) * Thirty Maidens and Pythagoras (1973) * The Apple Game (1976) * Modrá planeta (1977) * The Woman Across the Way (1978) * Those Wonderful Movie Cranks (1979) * Every Wednesday (1979) * Hra na telo (1979) * Koportos (1980) * (1981) * Tale of the Little Quarter (TV Movie)(1981) * Szívzür (1982) * Ferat Vampire (1982) * Švédská zápalka (TV Movie) (1982) * Babička se zbláznila (TV Movie) (1982) * Srdečný pozdrav ze zeměkoule (1983) * Fandy, ó Fandy (1983) * Sedm křížků (TV Movie)(1983) * Felhöjáték (1984) * Albert (TV Movie) (1985) * Run, He Is Coming! (1987) * Dámská jízda (TV Movie) (1988) * Stvoření světa (TV Movie) (1989) * Zvláštní bytosti (1990) * (1990) * Martha and I (1990) * Zvonokosy (TV Movie)(1990) * Pražský student (TV Mini-Series)(1990) *

The Elementary School ''The Elementary School'' () is a 1991 Czechoslovak comedy-drama film directed by Jan Svěrák. The screenplay comes from the pen of his father Zdeněk Svěrák. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in ...

(1991) * Das lange Gespräch mit dem Vogel (TV Movie)(1992) * The Little Apocalypse (1993) * Všetko čo mám rád (1993) * Joint Venture (1994) * Revenge (1995) * (1995) * Too Loud a Solitude (1996) * Truck Stop (1996) * Drákulův švagr (TV Mini-Series) (1996) * Franciska vasárnapjai (1997) * Hospoda (TV Series) (1996-1997) * All My Loved Ones (1999) * Zimní víla (TV Movie) (1999) * When Grandpa Loved Rita Hayworth (2000) * The Sunken Cemetery (2002) * (2002) * (2004) * Rokonok (2006) *

Teddy Bear A teddy bear, or simply a teddy, is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. The teddy bear was named by Morris Michtom after the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt; it was developed apparently simultaneously in the first deca ...

(2007) * A bárány utolsó megkísértése (TV Movie) (2008) * Setkání v Praze, s vraždou (TV Movie) (2009) * Operation Dunaj (2009) * (TV Series) (2009) * The Door (2012) * (TV Series) (2012–14) * The Interpreter (2018)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Menzel, Jiri 1938 births 2020 deaths Czech theatre directors Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alumni Czechoslovak film directors German-language film directors Directors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners Directors of Golden Bear winners Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Film directors from Prague Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres