Liviu Ciulei

Liviu Ciulei (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈlivju t͡ʃjuˈlej]; July 7, 1923 – October 25, 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]

Biography

Born in Bucharest to Liviu Ciulley, 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 knwon as Teatrul Municipal din Bucureşti, later renamed Teatrul Bulandra, and directed his first stage production in 1957 — The Rainmaker. Between 1956-57, his theatre directing work was also reinforced by a series of consistent essays on directing an stage designing, in the context of a national media debate around the modernisation of the theatrical aesthetics.^{[citation needed]}

In 1961, Ciulei gained an overall recognition for his version of Shakespeare's As You Like It. He was the recipient of the Directors' Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for The Forest of the Hanged,^[3] 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. He left in 1980 Romania with the motor vessel "Polar V" during the conduct of a documentary film about the life of Romanian sailors.^{[citation needed]}

Ciulei was the artistic director of Teatrul Bulandra for more than a decade. After that, he worked in several European countries, as well as in the United States—notably at The Arena Stage in Washington D.C., where he directed Leonce and Lena (in Canada and Australia). Between 1980-85, he was the artistic director of Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After 1986 he taught at Columbia University and at New York University.^{[citation needed]}

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, back in his native Romania, Ciulei has 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. In 1996, UNITER (Uniunea Teatrală din România) awarded its annual prize to Ciulei.^{[citation needed]}

Family

He was first married to actress Clody Bertola.^[4] He remarried, to journalist Helga Reiter-Ciulei. His son is film director Thomas Ciulei.

Death

Ciulei died on October 25, 2011, in a hospital in Munich, aged 88; he had been suffering from multiple illnesses.

Filmography

• În sat la noi (1951), actor
• Mitrea Cocor (1951), writer
• Nepoţii gornistului (1953), actor/writer
• Răsare soarele (1954), writer
• Alarmă în munţi (1955), actor
• Pasărea furtunii (1957), writer
• Erupţia (1957), director
• Valurile Dunării (1959), director and actor
• Soldaţi fără uniformă (1960), actor
• Cerul n-are gratii (1962), actor
• Pădurea spânzuraţilor (1964), actor/director
• Facerea lumii (1971), writer/actor
• Decolarea (1971), actor
• Dragostea începe vineri (1972), actor
• Dimitrie Cantemir (1973), actor
• Ceaţa (1973), actor
• Mastodontul (1975), actor
• O scrisoare pierdută (1977), writer/director
• Falansterul (1979), actor

References

1. ^ http://www.antena3.ro/life-show/cultura/a-murit-liviu-ciulei-141380.html
2. ^ Theater History at the Guthrie Theater site
3. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Forest of the Hanged". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2904/year/1965.html. Retrieved 2009-03-05. 
4. ^ Marriage to Clody Bertola

Sources

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

External links

• Liviu Ciulei at the Internet Movie Database
• Liviu Ciulei at the Internet Broadway Database

Persondata
Name	Ciulei, Liviu
Alternative names
Short description	Romanian architect, stage/film actor and director, costume and scenery designer
Date of birth	July 7, 1923
Place of birth	Bucharest, Romania
Date of death	October 25, 2011
Place of death	Munich, Germany