Lajos Koltai
Encyclopedia
Lajos Koltai, ASC, HSC, (born 2 April 1946 in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

) is a Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 cinematographer
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

 and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 best known for his work with legendary Hungarian director Istvan Szabo
István Szabó
István Szabó is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director.Szabó is the most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working in the tradition of European, auteurist art cinema, he has made films that represent many of the psychological and political...

, and Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore
Giuseppe Tornatore
-Life and career:Born in Bagheria near Palermo, Tornatore developed an interest in acting and the theatre from at least the age of 16 and put on works by Luigi Pirandello and Eduardo De Filippo.He worked initially as a freelance photographer...

. He was nominated for an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 in 2000 for his work on the film Malèna
Malèna
Malèna is a 2000 Italian romantic drama film starring Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. It was directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni.-Plot:...

.

Early years and career

Born at the beginning of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, he became interested in film at a very young age, though in Hungary at the time, film containing subversive content was heavily censored. He shot his first short on a Super 8 film camera at the age of 14 and began to draft short scripts and turn them into movies starring friends and family. One year he won first and second prizes at a local amateur film festival, and coincidentally another young filmmaker, István Szabó
István Szabó
István Szabó is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director.Szabó is the most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working in the tradition of European, auteurist art cinema, he has made films that represent many of the psychological and political...

, was the head of the jury. Koltai graduated from the School of Drama and Film in Budapest, a school known for nurturing such legends as Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond
Vilmos Zsigmond, A.S.C. is a Hungarian-American cinematographer.In 2003, a survey conducted by the International Cinematographers Guild placed Zsigmond among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.-Biography:...

 and László Kovács
László Kovács (cinematographer)
László Kovács, A.S.C. was a Hungarian cinematographer who was influential in the development of American New Wave films. Most famous for his award-winning work on Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, Kovács was the recipient of numerous awards, including three Lifetime Achievement Awards...

.

Collaboration with István Szabó

Still early in his career he gained international recognition during his collaborations with Szabó, namely his film Mephisto
Mephisto (1981 film)
Mephisto is the title of a 1981 film adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel of the same name, directed by István Szabó, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Höfgen...

, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the cult political classic "Angi Vera
Angi Vera
Angi Vera is a Hungarian film directed by Pál Gábor. It got released in 1978.Vera Angi is an employee of a hospital in post-WWII Hungary. She complains to her superiors about the unsanitary conditions in the hospital, and gets sent to a re-education camp...

" by Pal Gabor. At this point the international film community was starting to take notice of these Eastern European films. While Hollywood was at the peak of creativity a decade before after several decades of turning out films that didn't face the same restrictions as in these parts of the world, the Hungarian artistic spirit was beginning to find its place in the world, and many Hungarian directors were confronting truths about their country's tainted Nazi-affiliated history . What followed was several artistic and political masterpieces, the teen-oriented Time Stands Still (1982), a film many considered to be well ahead of its time, Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 winner Colonel Redl (1985), which garnered yet another Oscar nomination, and Hanussen, another political drama loosely based on the rise of Hitler.

Work in Hollywood

Around this time Koltai decided to make the move to the United States, a dramatic departure for any European filmmaker, let alone cinematographer, though clearly many opportunities lied in the Hollywood playing field. So he joined the American Society of Cinematographers
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers is an educational, cultural, and professional organization. It is not a labor union, and it is not a guild. Membership is by invitation and is extended only to directors of photography and special effects experts with distinguished credits in the film...

 (ASC) and began to compile an impressive body of work, notably Luis Mandoki
Luis Mandoki
Luis Mandoki is a Mexican film director working in Mexico and Hollywood.Luis Mandoki studied Fine Arts in Mexico and at the San Francisco Art Institute, the London College of Printing, and the London International Film School...

's White Palace, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway is a 1993 drama-romance film directed by Randa Haines and written by Steve Conrad, starring Richard Harris, Robert Duvall, Sandra Bullock, Shirley MacLaine, and Piper Laurie.-Plot:...

, Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...

, When a Man Loves a Woman
When a Man Loves a Woman (film)
When a Man Loves a Woman is a 1994 American romantic drama film written by Al Franken and Ronald Bass, starring Andy García, Meg Ryan, Tina Majorino, Mae Whitman, Ellen Burstyn, Lauren Tom and Philip Seymour Hoffman....

, Just Cause
Just Cause (film)
Just Cause is a 1995 film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.-Plot:...

, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....

's directorial debut Home for the Holidays
Home for the Holidays (film)
Home for the Holidays is a 1995 comedy-drama film directed by Jodie Foster and produced by Peggy Rajski and Jodie Foster. The screenplay was by W. D. Richter based on the short story by Chris Radant...

, and Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...

 and Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

's last film together Out to Sea
Out to Sea
Out to Sea is a 1997 romantic comedy film starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Rue McClanahan, Dyan Cannon and Brent Spiner. The film was directed by Martha Coolidge, with a screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs...

. While none of these films had a particularly signature or even beautiful style (save perhaps Mandoki's White Palace), due to the cookie-cutter industry standards Hollywood notoriously places over artistic license, it was around this time that another fateful collaboration took place, and that would be with Giuseppe Tornatore, the legendary director of Cinema Paradiso. The Legend of 1900
The Legend of 1900
The Legend of 1900 is a 1998 film directed by the Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore, starring Tim Roth. This is Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by a theater monologue, Novecento, by Alessandro Baricco...

would be their first film together, a story about a piano player who was born and raised on a steam boat. Tornatore brought out some of Koltai's best work by allowing an actual creative collaboration to take place on set, instead of the cinematographer just taking orders from the director, and the result is what many (including Koltai himself) consider to be his most beautiful work. This led to a career high for any cinematographer, being nominated for an Academy Award for Tornatore's sweeping love story Malèna
Malèna
Malèna is a 2000 Italian romantic drama film starring Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. It was directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni.-Plot:...

in 2000.

Fateless

In 2004 Koltai directed his first film, the Holocaust drama, Fateless
Fateless (film)
Fateless is a film directed by Lajos Koltai, released in 2005. It was based on the semi-autobiographical novel Fatelessness by the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who wrote the screenplay. It is the story of a teenage boy who is sent to concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz.Its...

(Sorstalanság), based on the novel by the same name, by Nobel Prize winning writer Imre Kertész
Imre Kertész
Imre Kertész is a Hungarian Jewish author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002 "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history"....

 . It was released in Hungary in February 2005 with moderate success and it was released in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in the fall of 2005. It has had much exposure and success on the film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

 circuit premiering at the Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....

, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary , Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival gained worldwide recognition over the past years and has become one of Europe's major film events....

, Chicago Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times is an event held annually in June in downtown Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Film Festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single...

, the Washington Jewish Film Festival
Washington Jewish Film Festival
The Washington Jewish Film Festival is a film festival that features films that represent the great diversity of Jewish experiences. It is held at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Washington, D.C., Jewish Community Center and other cinemas in Washington and suburban Maryland and Virginia....

, the The Boston Jewish Film Festival
The Boston Jewish Film Festival
The Boston Jewish Film Festival is a non-competitive annual festival that screens the best contemporary films on Jewish themes from around the world...

, the Toronto Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival
Woodstock Film Festival
The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was begun in 1999. The festival was first conceived as a part of the Woodstock '99 Music and Arts Festival, with movies being screened as part of that event.-History:...

, the Berlinale, or Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for the prestigious Golden Berlin Bear, and countless others. It was also nominated for Best Score (Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...

) and Best Cinematography (Gyula Pados
Gyula Pados
Gyula Pados is an award-winning Hungarian cinematographer and director. He is notable about working together with Terence Gross, Lajos Koltai and Nimród Antal in the movies like Fateless, Aline & Wolfe, Evening, Kontroll, Basic Instinct 2 or Predators.-Cinematographic career:In 1990 he attended to...

) at the European Film Awards, and Hungary nominated it for the 2006 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

, but out of the list of 58 countries as potential nominees for Best Foreign Film, it didn't make it to the final five.

Recent work

As of 15 February 2006: Koltai finalized his first American directing deal for Focus Features, on the film Evening
Evening (film)
Evening is a 2007 German-American drama film directed by Lajos Koltai. The screenplay by Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot.-Plot:...

, scripted by Susan Minot
Susan Minot
Susan Minot is a prize-winning American novelist and short story writer.Minot was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Concord Academy and then attended Brown University, where she studied writing and painting; in 1983 she graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts with...

 (Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz...

) and Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is an American writer, best known for his 1998 novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.-Early life and education:...

 (The Hours
The Hours (novel)
The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.-Plot introduction:The book...

). Shooting took place summer 2006 in Rhode Island. Actresses Claire Danes
Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...

, Toni Collette
Toni Collette
Antonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish....

, Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...

 and Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

 star in the movie.

Koltai's next projects are Aline & Wolfe, and Spider Dance. The former, which is scheduled to commence principal photography in 2009, tells the story of American writer Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938, Look Homeward, Angel) and his tumultuous affair with the much older and married arts patron and Broadway set designer Aline Bernstein, who is credited with inspiring Wolfe's writing career. Spider Dance is based upon the life of Lola Montez; focusing on her travels in Australia and is set for release in Christmas 2010.

As cinematographer (selected titles)

  • Bizalom (Confidence) (1980)
  • Mephisto
    Mephisto (1981 film)
    Mephisto is the title of a 1981 film adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel of the same name, directed by István Szabó, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Höfgen...

    (1981)
  • Megall az ido (Time Stands Still) (1982)
  • Oberst Redl
    Oberst Redl
    Colonel Redl ; ) is a 1985 drama film by Hungarian director István Szabó. It tells the life story of an Austrian Imperial military officer Alfred Redl who was blackmailed into espionage for the Russian secret service to prevent the revelation of his homosexuality...

    (Colonel Redl) (1985)
  • Hanussen (1988)
  • White Palace (1990)
  • Meeting Venus
    Meeting Venus
    Meeting Venus is a 1991 British–American-Japanese film directed by the Hungarian director István Szabó and starring Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Marián Labuda, Victor Poletti, Jay O. Sanders, Maria de Medeiros and Johanna ter Steege...

    (1991)
  • Born Yesterday
    Born Yesterday (1993 film)
    Born Yesterday is a 1993 film based on Born Yesterday, a play by Garson Kanin. The film stars Melanie Griffith, John Goodman and Don Johnson. It was adapted by Douglas McGrath and directed by Luis Mandoki...

    (1993)
  • Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
    Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
    Wrestling Ernest Hemingway is a 1993 drama-romance film directed by Randa Haines and written by Steve Conrad, starring Richard Harris, Robert Duvall, Sandra Bullock, Shirley MacLaine, and Piper Laurie.-Plot:...

    (1993)
  • When a Man Loves a Woman
    When a Man Loves a Woman (film)
    When a Man Loves a Woman is a 1994 American romantic drama film written by Al Franken and Ronald Bass, starring Andy García, Meg Ryan, Tina Majorino, Mae Whitman, Ellen Burstyn, Lauren Tom and Philip Seymour Hoffman....

    (1994)
  • Just Cause
    Just Cause (film)
    Just Cause is a 1995 film directed by Arne Glimcher and starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne. It is based on John Katzenbach's novel of the same name.-Plot:...

    (1995)
  • Home for the Holidays
    Home for the Holidays (film)
    Home for the Holidays is a 1995 comedy-drama film directed by Jodie Foster and produced by Peggy Rajski and Jodie Foster. The screenplay was by W. D. Richter based on the short story by Chris Radant...

    (1995)
  • Out to Sea
    Out to Sea
    Out to Sea is a 1997 romantic comedy film starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Rue McClanahan, Dyan Cannon and Brent Spiner. The film was directed by Martha Coolidge, with a screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs...

    (1997)
  • The Legend of 1900
    The Legend of 1900
    The Legend of 1900 is a 1998 film directed by the Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore, starring Tim Roth. This is Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by a theater monologue, Novecento, by Alessandro Baricco...

    (1998)
  • Sunshine
    Sunshine (1999 film)
    Sunshine is a 1999 historical film written by Israel Horovitz and István Szabó, directed and produced by István Szabó. It follows three generations of a Jewish family during the changes in Hungary from the beginning of the 20th century to the...

    (1999)
  • Malèna
    Malèna
    Malèna is a 2000 Italian romantic drama film starring Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. It was directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni.-Plot:...

    (2000)
  • The Emperor's Club
    The Emperor's Club
    The Emperor's Club is a 2002 drama film that tells the story of a prep school teacher and his students. Based on Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief," the film is directed by Michael Hoffman and stars Kevin Kline. The film is set at a fictional boys' prep school, St. Benedict's Academy,...

    (2002)
  • Max
    Max (film)
    Max is a 2002 British/Hungarian/Canadian fictional drama film, that depicts a friendship between a Jewish art dealer, Max Rothman, and a young Austrian painter, Adolf Hitler...

    (2002)
  • Being Julia
    Being Julia
    Being Julia is a 2004 drama film with comic undertones directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham...

    (2004)

As director

  • Fateless
    Fateless (film)
    Fateless is a film directed by Lajos Koltai, released in 2005. It was based on the semi-autobiographical novel Fatelessness by the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who wrote the screenplay. It is the story of a teenage boy who is sent to concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz.Its...

    (2005)
  • Evening
    Evening (film)
    Evening is a 2007 German-American drama film directed by Lajos Koltai. The screenplay by Susan Minot and Michael Cunningham is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Susan Minot.-Plot:...

    (2007)
  • Spider Dance - in pre-production - (2011)
  • Aline & Wolfe - in pre-production - (2012)
  • The Treehouse - in pre-production - (2012)

External links

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