Marcel Carné
Encyclopedia
Biography
Born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
as a camera assistant with director Jacques Feyder
Jacques Feyder
Jacques Feyder was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the USA, Britain and Germany. He was a leading director of silent films during the 1920s, and in the 1930s he became associated with the style of poetic realism in French cinema...
. By age 25, Carné had already directed his first short film, Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche (1929). He assisted Feyder (and René Clair
René Clair
René Clair born René-Lucien Chomette, was a French filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Paris and grew up in the Les Halles quarter. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver. After the war, he started a career as a journalist...
) on several films through to La kermesse héroïque (1935).
Feyder accepted an invitation to work in England for Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
, for whom he made Knight Without Armour
Knight Without Armour
Knight Without Armour is a 1937 British historical drama film made by London Films and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by Jacques Feyder and produced by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Lajos Biró adapted by Frances Marion from the novel by James Hilton. The music score was by...
(1937), but made it possible for Carné to take over his project, Jenny (1936), as its director. The film marked the beginning of a successful collaboration with surrealist poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
. This collaborative relationship lasted for more than a dozen years, during which Carné and Prévert created their best remembered films. Together, they were involved in the poetic realism
Poetic realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s and through the war years. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel...
film movement of fatalistic tragedies.
Under the German occupation of France during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Carné worked in the Vichy zone
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
where he subverted the regime's attempts to control art; several of his team were Jewish, including Joseph Kosma
Joseph Kosma
Joseph Kosma was a Hungarian-French composer, of Jewish background.-Biography:Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Akos. A maternal relative was the photographer László Moholy-Nagy, and another relative was the conductor Georg...
and set designer Alexandre Trauner
Alexandre Trauner
Alexandre Trauner was a set designer.After studying painting at l'École des beaux-arts de Budapest, he emigrated to Paris in 1929, where he became the assistant of set designer Lazare Meerson, working on such films as À nous la liberté in 1932 and La Kermesse héroïque in 1935)...
. Under difficult conditions they made Carné's most highly regarded film Les Enfants du paradis
Children of Paradise
Les Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 French film by French director Marcel Carné, made during the German occupation of France during World War II...
(Children of Paradise, 1945) released after the Liberation of France. In the late 1990s, the film was voted "Best French Film of the Century" in a poll of 600 French critics and professionals. Post war, he and Prévert followed this triumph with what at the time was the most expensive production ever undertaken in the history of French film. But the result, titled Les Portes de la nuit, was panned by the critics and a box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
failure and was their last completed film.
By the 1950s, Carné's reputation was in eclipse. The critics of Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du cinéma
Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...
, who became the film makers of the New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
, dismissed him and placed his film's merits solely with Prévert. Other than his 1958 hit Les Tricheurs, Carné's postwar films met with only uneven success and many were greeted by an almost unrelenting negative criticism from the press and within members of the film industry. In 1958, Carné was the Head of the Jury at the 6th Berlin International Film Festival
6th Berlin International Film Festival
-Jury:* Marcel Carné* Bill Luckwell* Giuseppe Vittorio Sampieri* Koichi Kawakita* Leo J. Horster* Ilse Urbach* Ludwig Berger-Films in competition:* ...erwachsen sein dagegen sehr by Wolf Hart* Autumn Leaves by Robert Aldrich...
. Carné made his last film in 1976.
Carné was gay and made little secret about it. Several of his later films contain references to male homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
or bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
. His one-time partner was Roland Lesaffre who appeared in many of his films.
In 1989 a book was published by Edward Baron Turk as part of the Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
Film Studies that told his story under the title Child of Paradise: Marcel Carné and the Golden Age of French Cinema.
Marcel Carné died in 1996 in Clamart
Clamart
Clamart is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.The town is divided into two parts, separated by a forest: bas Clamart, the historical centre, and petit Clamart with urbanization developed in the 1960s replacing pea fields. The canton of...
, Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
.
Partial filmography as director
- Jenny (1936)
- Drôle de drame (1936)
- Le Quai des brumes (1938)
- Hôtel du NordHôtel du NordHôtel du Nord is a 1938 French drama film directed by Marcel Carné and starring Annabella.- Cast :* Annabella - Renée* Jean-Pierre Aumont - Pierre* Louis Jouvet - Monsieur Edmond* Arletty - Raymonde* Paulette Dubost - Ginette* Andrex - Kenel...
(1938) - Le Jour se lèveLe Jour se lèveLe Jour se lève is a 1939 French film directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, based on a story by Jacques Viot. It is considered one of the principal examples of the French film movement known as poetic realism....
(1939) - Les Visiteurs du soirLes Visiteurs du soirThe Devil's Envoys is a 1942 film by French film director Marcel Carné, famous for his romantic tragedy, Children of Paradise...
(1942) - Les Enfants du paradisChildren of ParadiseLes Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 French film by French director Marcel Carné, made during the German occupation of France during World War II...
(1945) - Les Portes de la nuit (1946)
- La Marie du portLa Marie du portLa Marie du port is a 1950 French romantic drama film directed by Marcel Carné. The screenplay was written by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Jacques Prévert, based on a novel by Georges Simenon. The music score is by Joseph Kosma and the cinematography by Henri Alekan...
(1949) - Juliette ou La clef des songes (1951)
- Thérèse Raquin (1953)
- L'Air de Paris (1954)
- Les Tricheurs (1958)
- Terrain vague (1960)
- Trois chambres à Manhattan (1965)
- Les Jeunes loups (1968)
- Les Assassins de l'ordre (1971)
- La Merveilleuse visite (1973)
- La Bible (1976)