They say that directing is not just a profession, but a way of life. This statement is one hundred percent correct in relation to Emil Lotyanu. Biography, personal life, films that he made will be analyzed in this short essay.
Among those living in the Soviet Union there is hardly a person who has not seen the work of the great director. This and “Tabor goes to heaven”, and “My gentle and gentle beast”, and “Lautaras”. But Lotyanu also wrote scripts for all his films, and for some more poems! The director’s star shone for 15 years.
He was awarded many cinema prizes, and also awarded the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. Lotyanu lived a long and interesting life, not without difficulties. And we invite you to familiarize yourself with its major milestones.
Emil Loteanu: biography. early years
In the veins of the director flowed Ukrainian blood. The real name of his father, the son of the miller, who was originally from Bukovina, is Lototsky. Emil was the oldest child in the family. He was born in 1936 on November 6 in the Bessarabian village of Klokushna.
Now this settlement is part of Moldova, but then it was the territory of the Kingdom of Romania. The parents of the future director were teachers. Father Vladimir taught physics. Mother Tatyana was a teacher of the Romanian language.
When Soviet troops entered Bukovina and Bessarabia, the family fled to Bucharest. But Emil’s parents soon parted. The boy stayed with his father. He graduated from a gymnasium in Bucharest, and in the same place released his first collection of poems - "Contemporary". Even as a teenager, he watched the American Western Stagecoach and has since become addicted to cinema.
Emil lost his father early. Since the parents broke up in a very bad relationship and did not maintain ties with each other, the boy could not find his mother. Then in 1953 he decided to move to the USSR - first to Chisinau, and then to Moscow.
Professional education
Everything in the image of Emil Lotean was betrayed by him as a “Western” person. He was fashionably dressed, and most importantly, he behaved relaxedly and freely. First of all, he conquered new friends with his poetry. But Lotyanu raved about cinema.
Arriving in Moscow, he immediately applied for the acting department of the Moscow Art Theater School. Imagine his surprise when the ticket, which he pulled out at the entrance exam, was about the film "Stagecoach". Emil saw this as a sign from above.
Before entering the Moscow Art Theater School (and have the right to a hostel), Lotyanu slept in warehouses and even on the street. But after studying acting for two years, Emil realized that this profession was not for him.
He transferred to the directing department at VGIK. His teachers were such celebrities as Yuri Genika and Grigory Roshal. At the beginning of his acting education, Loteanu performed on the stage of the Pushkin Drama Theater. In 1962, he successfully graduated from the directing department of VGIK.
The beginning of professional activity
According to the distribution of the graduate, Emil Loteanu was sent to Chisinau to the Moldova-Film Studio. There, the young director begins filming the heroic and pathetic picture "Wait for us at dawn" (1963).
The script about the activities of the communist revolutionaries was frankly boring, and neither the interesting director's decision, nor the international team of actors helped the film (V. Panarin, I. Gutsu, D. Karachoban, I. Shchera took part in the shootings).
But already the next work of Lotyanu, “Red Glades” (1966), aroused the interest of the mass audience. Indeed, against the background of socialist reality and collective farm workdays, a love melodrama unfolded.
The director for a long time was looking for the right type for the main character - the beautiful Joanna. And suddenly he found him ... at a trolleybus stop. Svetlana Andreevna Fomicheva was waiting for a car to go to apply for law at Chisinau University. Lotyanu invited her to act in films. He specially went to Balti, where the parents of a minor girl lived, charming them and persuaded them to agree that their daughter become an actress. So he gave way to the movie Svetlana Tom (pseudonym Fomicheva).
Lautars
"Red Glades" were awarded several prizes of the Soviet republics. But in his subsequent films, Emil Lotyanu crossed the line and entered the international arena of cinema. In the late 60s, the director took up a difficult topic, deciding to talk about the fate of Moldovan wandering musicians.
The film "Lautara", released in 1971, many critics called the movie poem. And this is no coincidence. Loteanu was one of the first to first create a phonogram of the film, inviting for this Moldavian composer Eugene Dogu.
The soundtrack was written specifically for the script. The director was not afraid of excessive national identity (which at that time could easily be re-qualified as nationalism, as happened with Parajanov). The film "Lautaras" received recognition not only in the USSR, but also abroad.
He received the Silver Sink, Silver Nymph awards in Naples, a special jury award at the San Sebastian Film Festival and a diploma from the Orvieto Film Festival.
"Tabor goes to heaven"
At that time, promising "national cadres" immediately moved to live in the capital of the country. As soon as the photos of Emil Lotyanu appeared among the winners of international film festivals, the director was invited to work on the main Soviet film set - Mosfilm.
He moved to the capital in 1973. But even in Moscow, Lotyanu did not forget his Bessarabian homeland. He proceeded to film adaptation of the story of M. Gorky “Makar Chudra” and created the stunning film “Tabor goes to heaven”, which was included in the golden fund of Soviet cinema. In the film, the director managed to interweave a love story with the mores and everyday life of the Bessarabian Roma of the late 19th century.
The success of the film was due not only to an interesting topic, but also to the scrupulousness of the director. Loteanu traveled all over the Union to recruit simple gypsy extras. And for the performance of authentic songs, he had to get to Transbaikalia, where the Buzylev Roma family lived.
To create the soundtrack, Lotyanu invited the composer E. Dogu, and for the main female role - Svetlana Tom. The film, released in 1976, attracted 65 million viewers and brought awards to the director in Prague, Belgrade and San Sebastian.
"My Sweet and Tender Beast"
For his ten-year work at Mosfilm, Loteanu has shot many paintings that have become famous. Immediately after the release of "Tabor goes to heaven," the director proceeds to another film adaptation, this time by Chekhov's novel "Drama on the Hunt."
For his film “My Affectionate and Tender Beast,” Lotyanu wanted to find a type that would look like the star beauty of those years - fashion model Audrey Hepburn. Following this order, the assistant director traveled the whole Union until she found the required image in the choreographic school of Voronezh.
The beginning ballerina Galina Belyaeva did not even think about a career in the cinema. But Lotyanu with his characteristic charm and perseverance is accepted, as before with Svetlana Tom, to sculpt a star of the screen from the student. She works on the same site with such celebrities as Leonid Markov, Kirill Lavrov and Oleg Yankovsky.
Eugene Dogu glorifies the film even more with his waltz, which has become a classic of modern symphonic music. Galina Belyaeva and Emil Lotyanu on the set of this picture became lovers, and then got married. "My affectionate and gentle beast" was a hit of the late 70's. In 1978, he participated in the IFF competition in Cannes.
Other films
The last work of the director in Moscow, which was universally recognized, was a picture of the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. The main role, of course, was played by the muse and the wife of Emil Lotyanu Galina Belyaeva.
Composer Eugene Dogu specially for the film re-edited various works of Saint-Saens. In 1984, this painting was awarded a special award at Oxford.
Later, the eponymous television biopic of five episodes appeared. In the late 80s, the director decided to return to Chisinau. At the Moldova-Film studio, he is filming a poem by the famous poet Mihai Eminescu “Luchafarul”.
At the same site, he makes the film "Shell" (1993), where his son Emil plays. This is the last known work of the master. In it, he protests against the onset of a new era.
The ruthless city, with its market laws, is advancing on the old quarter, populated by naive artists and beautiful poets. The fragile paradise was destroyed ... Like the director’s health.
End of life
The collapse of the Soviet Union negatively affected the state of Moldovan cinema, and the economy of the independent republic as a whole. Films were no longer made, and Emil Loteanu, in order to earn a living, taught at the Chisinau Institute of Arts for students - future theater actors.
In the mid-90s, the director again moved to Moscow. There he writes the script of the movie “Yar” about the famous restaurant, where famous people of Russia of that era visited the beginning of the XX century. But there were no state funds for the production of the picture, and this topic was not of interest to sponsors. Lotyanu was nervous, which did not add to his health.
In 1998, he decided to move from the set to the stage. In the Moscow Art Theater. M. Gorky, he puts on the play “All Yours, Antosha Chekhonte” based on two stories by Chekhov “The Wedding” and “The Bear”.
Director's death
When funds were found for the filming of Yara, Loteanu went to Bulgaria to search for nature. But at the Sofia airport he suddenly felt ill. In a coma, he was taken to one of the hospitals in Moscow.
For a month, doctors unsuccessfully fought for his life. But Lotyanu discovered cancer in the last stage. The famous director died on April 18, 2003. He is buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow.
Emil Loteanu: personal life
The first muse and life partner of the director was Svetlana Toma. She was 12 years younger than her husband. The couple did not live in a civil marriage for long. Soon, Svetlana went to the young actor O. Lachin.
The second chosen one Lotyanu became Galina Belyaeva. She gave her husband a son, who was named in honor of his father.
Friends noticed that all the wives of Emil Lotyanu were much younger than him. Belyaev was separated from the director's age by as much as 25 years. But that was not the limit. After the actress left Lotyanu, he met his third - and last - love.
Slovak actress Petra Filchakova was exactly half a century younger than him. Lotyanu invited her to shoot "Yara". But the work on the film, which began in early 2003, was not completed.