Jiří Menzel was a Czech film and theatre director, actor and writer. He was born on 23 February 1938 in Prague and died there on 5 September 2020.
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Jiří Menzel was a Czech film and theatre actor, director and writer. He was born on 23 February 1938 in Prague and died there on 5 September 2020 [1].
Film
He completed his studies in directing at FAMU in Prague under Otakar Vávra in 1962. His first feature film, Closely Watched Trains of 1966, was based on a work by Bohumil Hrabal and won him an Oscar for best foreign-language film. Menzel thus became one of the founders of the so-called Czechoslovak New Wave [1]. According to the encyclopedia of Prague 2, he directed roughly twenty films, often based on Hrabal's works, and frequently acted as well. He combined directing and acting in 1968 in the film Capricious Summer, made after a novella by Vladislav Vančura. He directed it and played the magician Arnoštek in it [1].
Restrictions after 1968 and the Anti-Charter
Czech Radio states that from 1968 Menzel was banned from creative work. He himself said that after the Russians arrived he was not allowed to work, but after some time he gradually got back to work and then it looked as if he would lose it again [2]. Recalling the fortieth anniversary of the campaign against Charter 77 in the programme Pro a proti, he remembered that at the time the so-called Anti-Charter was being signed he was chased and hid. He related that he was invited to a directorate and told to sign something and he would have peace [2]. According to him, an Anti-Charter is signed even today, for example in a company where things do not work but people are afraid to talk about it [2].
Jára Cimrman Theatre
Menzel joined the ensemble of the Jára Cimrman Theatre in 1976 and worked there until 1979. Closer acquaintance with Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak came to him through his work on the film Seclusion Near a Forest. In the theatre he took over from his predecessor the roles of Grandpa Vševěd and Majer, and later played the doctor in Bobš. By his own words he remembered his time there fondly and regretted that it came to nothing, because he worked in the theatre elsewhere and could not be in the regular programme [3].
Grave at Vyšehrad
Menzel is buried in Vyšehrad Cemetery in grave number 13-11, next to the grave of the architect Jan Kaplický. The tombstone was designed by the architect David Vávra and realised by the brothers Petr and Tomáš Váňa together with David Beneš. It is made of white marble from the island of Brač and contains a glass inlay with the figure of the magician Arnoštek on a tightrope against a dark blue background. The slab changes colour depending on the angle of view and the lighting. The installation took place in 2022 [1].