Liviu Ciulei
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Liviu Ciulei (; 7 July 1923 – 24 October 2011) was a Romanian theater and film director, film writer, actor, architect, educator,
costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...
and
set designer Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly train ...
. During a career spanning over 50 years, he was described by ''
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'' as "one of the boldest and most challenging figures on the international scene".''Theater History'' at the Guthrie Theater site
Ciulei is known for winning the Best Director Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for his film ''
Forest of the Hanged ''Forest of the Hanged'' ( ro, Pădurea spânzuraților) is a 1964 Romanian drama film directed by Liviu Ciulei, and based on the eponymous novel by Liviu Rebreanu. Ciulei won the award for Best Director at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. ''Fo ...
''. In 1992 he was elected corresponding member of the
Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its byl ...
. He received a star on the Romanian Walk of Fame in
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
on 13 December 2012.


Biography

Born in Bucharest to Liviu Ciulley ic a lawyer and constructor, he studied at the Gheorghe Lazăr High School. Ciulei then 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 ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...
''. Soon after, he joined the theater company known as ''Teatrul Municipal din București'', later renamed
Teatrul Bulandra The Bulandra Theatre ( ro, Teatrul Bulandra) in Bucharest, Romania was founded in 1947 as Teatrul Municipal; its first director was Lucia Sturdza-Bulandra, one of the leading Romanian stage actresses of her generation. Liviu Ciulei was director b ...
, and directed his first stage production in 1957 – '' The Rainmaker''. In 1961, Ciulei gained an overall recognition for his version of Shakespeare's ''
As You Like It ''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
''. In the same year, he was a member of the jury at the
2nd Moscow International Film Festival The 2nd Moscow International Film Festival was held from 9 to 23 July 1961. The Grand Prix was shared between the Japanese film ''The Naked Island'' directed by Kaneto Shindo and the Soviet film '' Clear Skies'' directed by Grigori Chukhrai. Jur ...
. He was the recipient of the Directors' Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for ''
Forest of the Hanged ''Forest of the Hanged'' ( ro, Pădurea spânzuraților) is a 1964 Romanian drama film directed by Liviu Ciulei, and based on the eponymous novel by Liviu Rebreanu. Ciulei won the award for Best Director at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. ''Fo ...
'', the film version of
Liviu Rebreanu Liviu Rebreanu (; November 27, 1885 – September 1, 1944) was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist. Life Born in Felsőilosva (now Târlișua, Bistrița-Năsăud County, Transylvania), then part of the Kingd ...
's eponymous novel, where he also starred in the role of Otto Klapka. In the 1980s, he was marginalized by the
Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
and transferred to work at the 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
Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в;  – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
's "The Lower Depths" and "The Children of the Sun",
Georg Büchner Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchn ...
's "Danton's Death" and "Leonce and Lena", and
Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
's "Threepenny Opera". His productions of American classics include
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
' "A Streetcar Named Desire",
William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''The ...
's "The Time of Your Life", and
Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...
'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 Arena Stage is a not-for-profit regional theater based in Southwest, Washington, D.C. Established in 1950, it was the first racially integrated theater in Washington, D.C. and its founders helped start the U.S. regional theater movement. It is ...
in
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, as director and designer with "
Leonce and Lena ''Leonce and Lena'' (german: Leonce und Lena) is a play by German dramatist Georg Büchner (1813–1837) which is considered a comedy, but is actually a satire veiled in humor. It was written in the spring of 1836 for a competition 'for the best ...
". In 1980 he directed and created sets for
Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throug ...
's opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at the
Spoleto Festival The ''Festival dei Due Mondi'' (Festival of the Two Worlds) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. It features a vast array of conce ...
in Italy: and in May 1982, he redirected the same opera for the
Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria ...
. Between 1980 and 1985, he was the artistic director of the
Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gut ...
in
Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
. 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 to 1990, Ciulei taught theater direction at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in New York, in the MFA program in theatre arts. Later,
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
made him a better offer to teach graduate acting, and he accepted an appointment at the university from 1991 to 1995. After the
Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred i ...
of 1989, back in his native Romania, Ciulei directed a series of stage productions that were 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 the Bulandra Theatre.


Family

He was first married to actress , and then to scenographer Ioana Gǎrdescu. He remarried, to German journalist Helga Reiter, whose son from a previous marriage (Thomas Ciulei, now a film director) he adopted.


Death

Ciulei died on 24 October 2011 in a hospital in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, 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 Sergiu Florin Nicolaescu (; 13 April 1930 – 3 January 2013) was a Romanian film director, actor and politician. He was best known for his historical films, such as ''Mihai Viteazul'' (1970, released in English both under the equivalent titl ...
's cremation in 2013 as to how the act of cremation is not sanctioned by the
Romanian Orthodox Church The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; ro, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, ), or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches, and one of ...
.


Filmography

* '' În sat la noi'' (1951) as Dumitru * '' Mitrea Cocor'' (1951, writer) * '' Nepoții gornistului'' (1953, writer) as Bulldogul * '' Răsare soarele'' (1954, writer) as Bulldogul * '' Alarmă în munți'' (1955) * ''Pasărea furtunii'' (1957, writer) * ' (1957, director) * ' (1960, director) as Mihai * ' (1960) as Bogdan * ' (1962) * '' Pădurea spânzuraților'' (1965, director) as Captain Otto Klapka * ' (1971) as Old pilot Barcan * ' (1971, writer) as Manicatide * ' (1972) * ''Ceața'' (1973) as Comisarul șef * ' (1973) * ' (1975) as Leibnitz * ' (1975) as Vogoride * ''
O scrisoare pierdută ''O scrisoare pierdută'' (Romanian for "A Lost Letter") is a play by Ion Luca Caragiale. It premiered in 1884, and arguably represents the high point of his career.Vianu, Vol. II, p.180 It was adapted into a 1953 film ''A Lost Letter''. Characte ...
'' (1977, writer/director) * ' (1979) as Dinicu Golescu (final film role)


References


Sources

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


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ciulei, Liviu 1923 births 2011 deaths Architects from Bucharest Romanian male film actors Romanian film directors Romanian costume designers Romanian scenic designers Romanian theatre directors Romanian theatre managers and producers Theatre people from Bucharest Gheorghe Lazăr National College (Bucharest) alumni Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winners Grand Officers of the Order of the Star of Romania National University of Music Bucharest alumni Corresponding members of the Romanian Academy