Facerea lumii

Contrary to what has been said, Rãutu has some properly speaking valuable roles in cinema; the one that comes to mind is "Pintea",in Iliu's masterpiece;but there are also others.Rãutu was a good, good, highly gifted actor. A few of his roles stand up in the debacle of the Romanian cinema of his times. Excellently endowed for cinema, he was nonetheless the victim of attempts to make him a Romanian version of Bronson, Palance or another fashionable tough guy and villain. Quite on the contrary,he was an actor of a Gabinian type, meant for low—key, restrained performances (though, of course, he mastered the eccentric roles as well …).Rãutu also attempted to make some career as a singer (in the French line of chansons singers).

Yet on the other hand,Rãutu was obviously superior to what he was allowed to make in cinema. He was much better than his roles.His movie career was,by large,a wasted one,and Rãutu an underused actor. But I want to put up something else here; I have seen a TV interview with Rãutu—and what was almost immediately striking was his intelligence and tact, his finely articulated mind—the fruit of a lifelong experience and of native intelligence. I have found him to be deprived of the antics and histrionics that pollute the public appearances of the majority of the actors. I enjoyed his talk that came from a highly differentiated mind; he said some bitter, painful things about his childhood and adolescence, bitter, bitter things.His words had a depth and a particular ring of truth that spoke of the quality of a very fine mind.