- Born
- Died
- Jirí Menzel was born on February 23, 1938 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor and director, known for Trains étroitement surveillés (1966), Moi qui ai servi le roi d'Angleterre (2006) and Alouettes, le fil à la patte (1969). He was married to Olga Menzelová-Kelymanová. He died on September 5, 2020 in Prague, Czech Republic.
- SpouseOlga Menzelová-Kelymanová(October 2004 - September 5, 2020) (his death, 1 child)
- His debut feature Trains étroitement surveillés (1966) (Closely Watched Trains) was the 2nd Czechoslovakian feature to win the Academy Award for 'Best Foreign Language Film' after Le miroir aux alouettes (1965). Menzel was later nominated again for Mon cher petit village (1985).
- Studied at the Prague Film Faculty and first worked as assistant to the director Vera Chytilova in 1961.
- Worked as an actor as well as a film director.
- Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival in 1995.
- He was awarded a IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
- [on censorship] Censorship was not invented by the communists. Through all cultural history there is censorship. Of course, if you are not adult enough, your parents tell you what you can do or what you can say, and when you are an adult, you know for yourself and you don't need parents to tell you. Censorship is the parents. Now, unfortunately society is not adult enough, and that's a problem. We lose our adults too early. Every one of us has their own censorship because censorship is another name for respect for other people. Or responsibility.
- [on comedy] Good comedy should be about serious things. If you start to talk about serious things too seriously, you end up being ridiculous.
- [on writer Bohumil Hrabal] I always admired in Hrabal the ability to look at people and see them as they truly are, with a truly uncompromising perspective, but he still loved people. He wasn't a misanthrope after all that. I would contrast with this the perspective of more recent Czech writers - and world literature in general - where I see a strong misanthropic tendency which is not there in Hrabal's work, where that love for people is really present.
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