Marcel L'Herbier
Encyclopedia
Marcel L'Herbier, Légion d'honneur
, (23 April 1888 – 26 November 1979) was a French film-maker, who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
(IDHEC).
school and then the Lycée Voltaire, followed by the École des Hautes Études Sociales in Paris. He worked hard at his education and by 1910 he had obtained his licence en droit, a qualification to practice law. He went on to study literature, and in his spare time he learned harmony and counterpoint with Xavier Leroux
, with the ambition of becoming a composer. Another ambition was to join the diplomatic service.
An early romance with the future dancer Marcelle Rahna ended in sensational publicity when she fired a revolver at him and then at herself. Both survived, but L'Herbier lost the use of a finger. In 1912 he met Georgette Leblanc
, the companion of Maurice Maeterlinck
, and under her influence he started to write plays, poetry and criticism, and made many contacts in literature and the theatre. His idols were Wilde
, Claudel
and Debussy
.
The outbreak of war in 1914 changed L'Herbier's world. He withdrew from social life, and being unable to join the army immediately because of his injured hand, he went to work in a factory making military uniforms. He went on to serve with various auxiliary units of the armed forces and towards the end of the war in 1917-1918 he was by chance transferred to the Section Cinématographique de l'Armée, where he received his first technical training in film-making. His intellectual conversion to the medium of film had only recently occurred, firstly through a friendship with the actress Musidora
(he recalled that she took him to Cecil B. deMille's The Cheat which awakened him to the artistic possibilities of silent film) and subsequently through encounters with the critics Louis Delluc
and Émile Vuillermoz who were developing their own theories of the new art form.
. He produced Rose-France (1918), a highly original and poetic film using many experimental camera techniques, which proved too fanciful for many but which established his reputation as a talented innovator. After making another more commercial film for Gaumont, Le Bercail (1919), he was offered a two-year contract with the company which gave him the means to choose more ambitious projects. On Le Bercail, he worked for the first time with the actress Marcelle Pradot
who subsequently appeared in most of his silent films and whom he married in 1923.
Between 1919 and 1922 L'Herbier made six films for Gaumont, several in their Série Pax, and three of these stood out as major achievements of his period in silent films. In 1920 he adapted a story by Balzac
for L'Homme du large, set and filmed on the Brittany coast. More ambitious was El Dorado
(1921), a grand and visually spectacular melodrama filmed on location in Andalusia; it was noted for its visual experiments with dissolves and blurred images ("flous" in French). In 1922 tensions between L'Herbier and Gaumont were resolved into the project Don Juan et Faust, also filmed partly in Spain; but when the film went over-budget L'Herbier was unable to complete it as planned, and the resulting work was appreciated more for its technical mastery than for its intellectual confrontation of two literary archetypes. After this, L'Herbier felt the need to seek his creative independence and he founded his own production company, Cinégraphic, which produced his next six films.
L'Herbier's first production with his own company, in 1923, was an adaptation of Tolstoy's Resurrection
, but filming met a series of setbacks and the project was abandoned when L'Herbier contracted typhoid and was critically ill for several weeks. Later in 1923 L'Herbier was persuaded by Georgette Leblanc-Maeterlinck
to consider a project in which she would star, and which would also attract some American finance; this developed into L'Inhumaine
(1924), one of the most ambitious films of L'Herbier's career, in which he collaborated with leading figures from other art forms, including Fernand Léger
, Robert Mallet-Stevens
and Darius Milhaud
. A striking visual spectacle was built around a fanciful plot, and the result proved highly controversial among audiences and critics alike.
L'Herbier had discovered the work of Luigi Pirandello
in 1923 and was eager to introduce his ideas to the cinema. He chose the novel Il fu Mattia Pascal
, and was delighted when Pirandello's mistrust of filmmakers was overcome and he agreed for the first time to the filming of one of his works,. The film Feu Mathias Pascal
(1925) featured the expatriate Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine
in the leading role, and it became successful with critics and the public.
In spite of his successes, Cinégraphic was steadily losing money, and for his next film L'Herbier chose a more popular and straightforward subject, Le Vertige
(1926), filmed in the south of France, and he was rewarded with a commercial success. This was followed by Le Diable au coeur, a maritime drama set in the fishing port of Honfleur, and featuring the English actress Betty Balfour
; this was the first French feature to be shot on panchromatic film.
The next and final Cinégraphic production (in collaboration with Cinéromans) was another large-scale project, L'Argent
, an adaptation of Zola's novel
of the same name, transposed from the 1860s to the present day (i.e. 1928). With an international cast, art deco design, and some spectacular location filming in the Paris Bourse
, L'Argent was a substantial and durable work which effectively marked the end of silent film-making for L'Herbier. He had been responsible for some of the period's most innovative developments in his own films, and he also provided support to other film-makers such as Louis Delluc
, whose final film L'Inondation (1923) was financed by Cinégraphic. He also gathered around him a group of regular collaborators, including Claude Autant-Lara
, Philippe Hériat
, and Jaque Catelain
(who became his lifelong friend and appeared in twenty of his films).
, (Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1930) and Le Parfum de la dame en noir (1931), he withdrew from film-making for two years and returned to writing. In 1933, fearing that he was losing touch with the film business, he returned to make several more versions of stage plays, L'Épervier
, Le Scandale
and L'Aventurier
, all of which enjoyed commercial popularity but gave little scope for the kind of cinematic invention that he sought.
L'Herbier's most successful film of the 1930s was Le Bonheur
(1934), ("a miraculous conjunction of talents"), adapted from a play by Henri Bernstein
, with Charles Boyer
and Gaby Morlay
in the leading roles. During filming, L'Herbier was injured when a camera fell on him, and he consequently lost the sight of one eye. He began a court action against the producers Pathé
, claiming their civil responsibility, and the eventual judgment of the case (1938) in his favour recognised for the first time in French law the right of the director to be considered as an author of his film, rather than merely as an employee of the company. This marked an important stage in L'Herbier's lifelong battle for greater recognition of film-makers as creative artists.
Between 1935 and 1937, L'Herbier directed seven features, including a trio which were characterised by their patriotic spirit, Veille d'armes (1935) (depicting the French navy), Les Hommes nouveaux
(1936) (Maréchal Lyautey
's pacification of Morocco), and La Porte du large (1936) (the navy again). Made during a period of intense political conflict between the left and the right in France, these films, by L'Herbier's own admission, represented a split in his own politics, which set his socialist sympathies against his impatience with the anti-militarism of the Front Populaire
.
After trying to revive his own production company, this time under the name Cinéphonic, to produce some short documentaries, l'Herbier tried to develop more satisfactory material for himself in a series of dramatised histories which he called "chroniques filmées". The three which he completed before the outbreak of World War II were La Tragédie impériale (1938), about Tsar Nicholas II and Rasputin, Adrienne Lecouvreur (1938), filmed at UFA studios in Berlin, and Entente cordiale
(1939), which used the life of Edward VII to demonstrate the affinities between France and Britain; (its première in April 1939 took place in the wake of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia).
The outbreak of war in 1939 did not immediately interrupt L'Herbier's film-making, and in the spring of 1940 he was at the Scalera studios in Rome shooting a long-cherished project, La Comédie du bonheur, but the imminent entry of Italy into the war alongside Germany forced him to return to France before the film was fully completed (though it was subsequently released).
After the German occupation of France in 1940, L'Herbier worked with other film-makers to salvage the French film industry and to protect the jobs of its technicians. He went on to direct four films before the Liberation, the most successful of which was La Nuit fantastique
(1942). This "realistic fairy tale" was very different from the prevailing style of French film production, and it allowed him to return to the style of visual experimentation which had characterised his silent films - to which he could now add innovative uses of the soundtrack. It did much to restore his critical reputation at least temporarily.
In the post-war period, L'Herbier made one further return to the "chronique filmée" with L'Affaire du collier de la Reine (1946), but otherwise his remaining films as director were fairly conventional literary adaptations, and his creative career in the cinema concluded with Les Derniers Jours de Pompei (1950) and Le Père de mademoiselle (1953). In the 35 years since his début in 1918, he completed 14 silent and 30 sound feature films.
In the years 1952-1969, L'Herbier produced over 200 television broadcasts on cultural subjects, acting as presenter of most of them. Although he devoted some programmes to classical music and historical biography, most of his work explored aspects of the cinema. He presented eight series of programmes which combined critical discussion and interviews about cinema with extracts from films, and sometimes the transmission of a complete film that had been featured in the discussion. He also directed five television plays which were mainly transmitted live. He was the first established film-maker to work in French television, and he brought to the task an evident seriousness of purpose and concern for its educational possibilities.
During the Occupation, L'Herbier was among those who accepted the reality of the German victory and set about creating the best conditions for the continuity of French life and French cinema. In this role he became almost a spokesman for the Vichy government on matters relating to the cinema, contributing an article on "Cinématographe" to a quasi-official publication on the state of France and its future in 1941.
In March 1941, L'Herbier was elected president of the Cinémathèque française
, but his plans for major reorganisation soon brought him into conflict with its secretary and founder Henri Langlois
. Langlois found L'Herbier too autocratic and L'Herbier found Langlois too disorganised. L'Herbier continued as president until 1944, when he was finally out-manoeuvred by Langlois, and he was replaced by Jean Grémillon
.
L'Herbier's major contribution to the reshaping of the French film industry was the establishment of a French national film school, something which he had been arguing for over many years. In the wartime conditions, he found that there was government support for the project, and in 1943 the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
(IDHEC) was established in Paris. L'Herbier became its first president in 1944 and held the position until 1969. IDHEC offered training for directors and producers, cameramen, sound technicians, editors, art directors and costume designers. It became highly influential, and many prominent film-makers, including some from outside France, received their training there.
.
Before his film career began, L'Herbier published a volume of poetry: ...au jardin des jeux secrets (Paris: Edward Sansot, 1914); and a play: L'Enfantement du mort: miracle en pourpre noir et or (Paris: Georges Clès, 1917).
In his final year, he published an autobiography, La Tête qui tourne (Paris: Belfond, 1979); [the title translates as "the head that spins/shoots a film"].
Marcel L'Herbier died in Paris on 26 November 1979 at the age of 91.
, Germaine Dulac
and Louis Delluc
as part of a "first avant-garde" in French cinema, the first generation to think spontaneously in animated images.
The acclaim which he earned in the 1920s contrasts markedly with the relative neglect of his later work. Even in the silent period, there were those who found his work mannered and marred by an aestheticism unlinked to the subjects of his films. In the 1930s and 1940s, his public roles and sometimes his political associations were interpreted to his disadvantage by some. However, in France his continued presence in so many aspects of the film industry until the 1960s ensured that he was not forgotten. More recently there have been re-issues and re-evaluations of both his silent and sound films and a growth in critical attention to his work.
In the English-speaking world, at the start of the 21st century, L'Herbier remains a largely unknown figure. Screenings of his films have been rare, as have DVD re-issues, and very little of the critical literature about him has been available in English. Standard film histories however confirm the lasting significance of his contributions to silent cinema, particularly in El Dorado
, L'Inhumaine
, and L'Argent
.
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
, (23 April 1888 – 26 November 1979) was a French film-maker, who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
L'Institut des hautes études cinématographiques is a French film school, founded during World War II under the leadership of Marcel L'Herbier who was its president from 1944 to 1969. IDHEC offered training for directors and producers, cameramen, sound technicians, editors, art directors and...
(IDHEC).
Early life
Marcel L'Herbier was born in Paris on 23 April 1888 into a professional and intellectual family, and as he grew up he demonstrated a multi-talented disposition for sports, dancing, debating and the arts. He attended a MaristSociety of Mary (Marists)
The Society of Mary , is a Roman Catholic religious congregation or order, founded by Father Jean-Claude Colin and a group of other seminarians in France in 1816...
school and then the Lycée Voltaire, followed by the École des Hautes Études Sociales in Paris. He worked hard at his education and by 1910 he had obtained his licence en droit, a qualification to practice law. He went on to study literature, and in his spare time he learned harmony and counterpoint with Xavier Leroux
Xavier Leroux
Xavier Henry Napoleón Leroux was a French composer.Leroux was the son of a military bandleader. He studied at the Paris Conservatory under Jules Massenet and Théodore Dubois, and won the Prix de Rome in 1885 with the cantata Endymion...
, with the ambition of becoming a composer. Another ambition was to join the diplomatic service.
An early romance with the future dancer Marcelle Rahna ended in sensational publicity when she fired a revolver at him and then at herself. Both survived, but L'Herbier lost the use of a finger. In 1912 he met Georgette Leblanc
Georgette Leblanc
Georgette Leblanc was a French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet's Carmen...
, the companion of Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Maeterlinck
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
, and under her influence he started to write plays, poetry and criticism, and made many contacts in literature and the theatre. His idols were Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, Claudel
Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
and Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
.
The outbreak of war in 1914 changed L'Herbier's world. He withdrew from social life, and being unable to join the army immediately because of his injured hand, he went to work in a factory making military uniforms. He went on to serve with various auxiliary units of the armed forces and towards the end of the war in 1917-1918 he was by chance transferred to the Section Cinématographique de l'Armée, where he received his first technical training in film-making. His intellectual conversion to the medium of film had only recently occurred, firstly through a friendship with the actress Musidora
Musidora
Musidora was the stage name of Jeanne Roques, a popular French silent film actress. She became famous for her vamp roles in such film serials as Les Vampires and Judex, in which she developed a persona comparable to that of Theda Bara...
(he recalled that she took him to Cecil B. deMille's The Cheat which awakened him to the artistic possibilities of silent film) and subsequently through encounters with the critics Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc was a French film director, screen writer and film critic, many of whose late 1910s film writings for French newspapers were collected in the volume Cinema et cie...
and Émile Vuillermoz who were developing their own theories of the new art form.
Silent films
While still in the army, L'Herbier wrote two film scenarios for other directors, and then accepted an official commission to make a propaganda film about the image of France, which was funded by Léon GaumontLéon Gaumont
Léon Gaumont was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry....
. He produced Rose-France (1918), a highly original and poetic film using many experimental camera techniques, which proved too fanciful for many but which established his reputation as a talented innovator. After making another more commercial film for Gaumont, Le Bercail (1919), he was offered a two-year contract with the company which gave him the means to choose more ambitious projects. On Le Bercail, he worked for the first time with the actress Marcelle Pradot
Marcelle Pradot
Marcelle Pradot was a French actress who worked principally in silent films. She was born at Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, near Paris. At the age of 18 while she was taking classes in dancing and singing in Paris, she was asked by Marcel L'Herbier to appear in his film Le Bercail...
who subsequently appeared in most of his silent films and whom he married in 1923.
Between 1919 and 1922 L'Herbier made six films for Gaumont, several in their Série Pax, and three of these stood out as major achievements of his period in silent films. In 1920 he adapted a story by Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
for L'Homme du large, set and filmed on the Brittany coast. More ambitious was El Dorado
El Dorado (1921 film)
El Dorado is a French silent film directed in 1921 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was notable for integrating a number of technical innovations into its narrative of a "cinematic melodrama"...
(1921), a grand and visually spectacular melodrama filmed on location in Andalusia; it was noted for its visual experiments with dissolves and blurred images ("flous" in French). In 1922 tensions between L'Herbier and Gaumont were resolved into the project Don Juan et Faust, also filmed partly in Spain; but when the film went over-budget L'Herbier was unable to complete it as planned, and the resulting work was appreciated more for its technical mastery than for its intellectual confrontation of two literary archetypes. After this, L'Herbier felt the need to seek his creative independence and he founded his own production company, Cinégraphic, which produced his next six films.
L'Herbier's first production with his own company, in 1923, was an adaptation of Tolstoy's Resurrection
Resurrection (novel)
Resurrection , first published in 1899, was the last novel written by Leo Tolstoy. The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime . Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church...
, but filming met a series of setbacks and the project was abandoned when L'Herbier contracted typhoid and was critically ill for several weeks. Later in 1923 L'Herbier was persuaded by Georgette Leblanc-Maeterlinck
Georgette Leblanc
Georgette Leblanc was a French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet's Carmen...
to consider a project in which she would star, and which would also attract some American finance; this developed into L'Inhumaine
L'Inhumaine
L'Inhumaine is a 1924 French drama-science fiction film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was notable for its experimental techniques and for the collaboration of many leading practitioners in the decorative arts, architecture and music...
(1924), one of the most ambitious films of L'Herbier's career, in which he collaborated with leading figures from other art forms, including Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens was a French architect and designer. Along with Le Corbusier he is widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars....
and Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
. A striking visual spectacle was built around a fanciful plot, and the result proved highly controversial among audiences and critics alike.
L'Herbier had discovered the work of Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
in 1923 and was eager to introduce his ideas to the cinema. He chose the novel Il fu Mattia Pascal
The Late Mattia Pascal
The Late Mattia Pascal is a novel by Luigi Pirandello. The novel, among Pirandello's most successful, was written in 1904.-Plot summary:...
, and was delighted when Pirandello's mistrust of filmmakers was overcome and he agreed for the first time to the filming of one of his works,. The film Feu Mathias Pascal
Feu Mathias Pascal
Feu Mathias Pascal is a 1925 French silent film written and directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was the first film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's novel Il fu Mattia Pascal.-Background:...
(1925) featured the expatriate Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine
Ivan Mozzhukhin
Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin (Russian: Иван Ильич Мозжухин was a Russian silent film actor.-Career in Russia:Mozzhukhin was born in Penza, Russia and studied law at Moscow State University. In 1910 he left academic life to join a troupe of traveling actors...
in the leading role, and it became successful with critics and the public.
In spite of his successes, Cinégraphic was steadily losing money, and for his next film L'Herbier chose a more popular and straightforward subject, Le Vertige
Le Vertige
-Production:Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Robert Mallet-Stevens contributed to the set and costume design for the film.-External links:...
(1926), filmed in the south of France, and he was rewarded with a commercial success. This was followed by Le Diable au coeur, a maritime drama set in the fishing port of Honfleur, and featuring the English actress Betty Balfour
Betty Balfour
Betty Balfour was an English screen actress, popular during the silent era, and known as the "British Mary Pickford" and "Britain's Queen of Happiness"...
; this was the first French feature to be shot on panchromatic film.
The next and final Cinégraphic production (in collaboration with Cinéromans) was another large-scale project, L'Argent
L'Argent (1928 film)
L'Argent is a French silent film directed in 1928 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, and it portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.-Background:...
, an adaptation of Zola's novel
L'Argent
L'Argent is the eighteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in the periodical Gil Blas beginning in November 1890 before being published in novel form by Charpentier et Fasquelle in March 1891. It was translated into English by Benjamin Tucker in 1891 and by...
of the same name, transposed from the 1860s to the present day (i.e. 1928). With an international cast, art deco design, and some spectacular location filming in the Paris Bourse
Paris Bourse
The Paris Bourse is the historical Paris stock exchange, known as Euronext Paris from 2000 onwards.-History and functioning:...
, L'Argent was a substantial and durable work which effectively marked the end of silent film-making for L'Herbier. He had been responsible for some of the period's most innovative developments in his own films, and he also provided support to other film-makers such as Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc was a French film director, screen writer and film critic, many of whose late 1910s film writings for French newspapers were collected in the volume Cinema et cie...
, whose final film L'Inondation (1923) was financed by Cinégraphic. He also gathered around him a group of regular collaborators, including Claude Autant-Lara
Claude Autant-Lara
Claude Autant-Lara , was a French film director and later Member of the European Parliament .-Biography:...
, Philippe Hériat
Philippe Hériat
Philippe Hériat was a multi-talented French novelist, playwright and actor.-Biography:Born Raymond Gérard Payelle, he studied with film director René Clair and in 1920 made his debut in silent film...
, and Jaque Catelain
Jaque Catelain
Jaque Catelain was a French actor who came to prominence in silent films of the 1920s, and who continued acting in films and on stage until the 1950s. He also wrote and directed two silent films himself, and he was a capable artist and musician. He had a close association with the director Marcel...
(who became his lifelong friend and appeared in twenty of his films).
Sound films
After a transitional film, Nuits de Prince, shot as a silent picture but given a complete soundtrack of music, songs and sound-effects, L'Herbier undertook L'Enfant de l'amour (1929), which, like many other early ventures in sound film, was an adaptation of a stage play. This was the first fully talking picture to be made in a French studio. In addition to the technical problems presented by the heavy new sound cameras, L'Herbier was also required to make the film simultaneously in three different language versions (French, English and German) which meant that several actors had to be used in some of the roles. The film was sufficiently successful to attract other similar offers, but L'Herbier felt the loss of his independence of action, and after making two detective films based on books by Gaston LerouxGaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
, (Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1930) and Le Parfum de la dame en noir (1931), he withdrew from film-making for two years and returned to writing. In 1933, fearing that he was losing touch with the film business, he returned to make several more versions of stage plays, L'Épervier
L'Épervier
L'Épervier , is a French drama film from 1933, directed and written by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Charles Boyer and Jean Marais. The film was based on novel of Francis de Croisset...
, Le Scandale
Le Scandale (1934 film)
Le Scandale is a French romance drama film from 1934, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, written by Henry Bataille, starring Gaby Morlay and Jean Marais...
and L'Aventurier
L'Aventurier (1934 film)
L'Aventurier is a French drama film from 1934, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, written by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Victor Francen and Jean Marais.- Cast :* Victor Francen : Étienne Ranson or Pierre Stols* Blanche Montel : Marthe...
, all of which enjoyed commercial popularity but gave little scope for the kind of cinematic invention that he sought.
L'Herbier's most successful film of the 1930s was Le Bonheur
Le Bonheur (1934 film)
Le Bonheur is a 1934 French film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was adapted from Henry Bernstein's play Le Bonheur, which Bernstein had staged in Paris in March 1933 with Charles Boyer and Michel Simon in leading roles; Boyer and Simon took the same parts in the film.-Background:In 1934 Marcel...
(1934), ("a miraculous conjunction of talents"), adapted from a play by Henri Bernstein
Henri Bernstein
Henri-Léon-Gustave-Charles Bernstein was a French playwright associated with Boulevard theatre.The far-right royalist Camelots du Roi youth organization of the Action française organized an anti-Semitic riot against a production of one of his plays in 1911...
, with Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found success in movies during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised romantic dramas,...
and Gaby Morlay
Gaby Morlay
Gaby Morlay was a French film actress. She played Queen Victoria in the 1939 historical film Entente cordiale.-Selected filmography:* When Love Is Over * Le Scandale * Nuits de feu...
in the leading roles. During filming, L'Herbier was injured when a camera fell on him, and he consequently lost the sight of one eye. He began a court action against the producers Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
, claiming their civil responsibility, and the eventual judgment of the case (1938) in his favour recognised for the first time in French law the right of the director to be considered as an author of his film, rather than merely as an employee of the company. This marked an important stage in L'Herbier's lifelong battle for greater recognition of film-makers as creative artists.
Between 1935 and 1937, L'Herbier directed seven features, including a trio which were characterised by their patriotic spirit, Veille d'armes (1935) (depicting the French navy), Les Hommes nouveaux
Les Hommes nouveaux
Les Hommes nouveaux is a French drama film from 1936, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, written by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Harry Baur and Jean Marais...
(1936) (Maréchal Lyautey
Hubert Lyautey
Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey was a French Army general, the first Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925 and from 1921 Marshal of France.-Early life:...
's pacification of Morocco), and La Porte du large (1936) (the navy again). Made during a period of intense political conflict between the left and the right in France, these films, by L'Herbier's own admission, represented a split in his own politics, which set his socialist sympathies against his impatience with the anti-militarism of the Front Populaire
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
.
After trying to revive his own production company, this time under the name Cinéphonic, to produce some short documentaries, l'Herbier tried to develop more satisfactory material for himself in a series of dramatised histories which he called "chroniques filmées". The three which he completed before the outbreak of World War II were La Tragédie impériale (1938), about Tsar Nicholas II and Rasputin, Adrienne Lecouvreur (1938), filmed at UFA studios in Berlin, and Entente cordiale
Entente cordiale (film)
Entente cordiale is a 1939 French drama film directed by Marcel L'Herbier and starring Gaby Morlay, Victor Francen and Pierre Richard-Willm. The film depicts the 1904 signing of the Entente Cordiale creating an alliance between Britain and France and ending their historic rivalry. It was based on...
(1939), which used the life of Edward VII to demonstrate the affinities between France and Britain; (its première in April 1939 took place in the wake of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia).
The outbreak of war in 1939 did not immediately interrupt L'Herbier's film-making, and in the spring of 1940 he was at the Scalera studios in Rome shooting a long-cherished project, La Comédie du bonheur, but the imminent entry of Italy into the war alongside Germany forced him to return to France before the film was fully completed (though it was subsequently released).
After the German occupation of France in 1940, L'Herbier worked with other film-makers to salvage the French film industry and to protect the jobs of its technicians. He went on to direct four films before the Liberation, the most successful of which was La Nuit fantastique
La Nuit fantastique
La Nuit fantastique is a 1942 French fantasy film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It is regarded as one of the most successful films made in France during the German occupation.-Plot:...
(1942). This "realistic fairy tale" was very different from the prevailing style of French film production, and it allowed him to return to the style of visual experimentation which had characterised his silent films - to which he could now add innovative uses of the soundtrack. It did much to restore his critical reputation at least temporarily.
In the post-war period, L'Herbier made one further return to the "chronique filmée" with L'Affaire du collier de la Reine (1946), but otherwise his remaining films as director were fairly conventional literary adaptations, and his creative career in the cinema concluded with Les Derniers Jours de Pompei (1950) and Le Père de mademoiselle (1953). In the 35 years since his début in 1918, he completed 14 silent and 30 sound feature films.
Television
As his career as a director for the cinema faded in the post-war years, Marcel L'Herbier transferred his energies to the relatively new and undeveloped medium of television. He was interested in what made television distinctively different from cinema, and he wrote articles developing the idea that each medium had its own aesthetic. Whereas for L'Herbier the cinema was a creative art-form, television was a medium for recording, for reproducing, for disseminating to a wide audience; television would not kill the cinema - on the contrary it could be the means of deepening the public's understanding of cinema.In the years 1952-1969, L'Herbier produced over 200 television broadcasts on cultural subjects, acting as presenter of most of them. Although he devoted some programmes to classical music and historical biography, most of his work explored aspects of the cinema. He presented eight series of programmes which combined critical discussion and interviews about cinema with extracts from films, and sometimes the transmission of a complete film that had been featured in the discussion. He also directed five television plays which were mainly transmitted live. He was the first established film-maker to work in French television, and he brought to the task an evident seriousness of purpose and concern for its educational possibilities.
Administration
In addition to his creative work, L'Herbier undertook a number of administrative roles in the French film industry. From 1929 he was the secretary general of the Société des auteurs de films which sought to establish greater recognition for the authorial rights of film-makers. In the mid-1930s L'Herbier supported the view that the national film industry needed stronger and more coordinated organisation if it was to defend itself against foreign competition, and he was instrumental in setting up a union for various categories of film employees, the Syndicat général des artisans de film, soon renamed as the Syndicat des techniciens de la production cinématographique, of which he became the secretary in 1937, and subsequently president in 1939. The union achieved improvements in rates of pay, hours of work, and insurance arrangements for accidents at work, as well as press accreditation for film journalists. The union could also speak with one voice for all aspects of the industry. After the war L'Herbier continued his lobbying for French cinema by chairing the Comité de défense du cinéma français.During the Occupation, L'Herbier was among those who accepted the reality of the German victory and set about creating the best conditions for the continuity of French life and French cinema. In this role he became almost a spokesman for the Vichy government on matters relating to the cinema, contributing an article on "Cinématographe" to a quasi-official publication on the state of France and its future in 1941.
In March 1941, L'Herbier was elected president of the Cinémathèque française
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...
, but his plans for major reorganisation soon brought him into conflict with its secretary and founder Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...
. Langlois found L'Herbier too autocratic and L'Herbier found Langlois too disorganised. L'Herbier continued as president until 1944, when he was finally out-manoeuvred by Langlois, and he was replaced by Jean Grémillon
Jean Grémillon
Jean Grémillon was a French film director. After directing a number of documentaries during the 1920s, many now lost, he had his first substantial success with the dramatic feature Maldone in 1928...
.
L'Herbier's major contribution to the reshaping of the French film industry was the establishment of a French national film school, something which he had been arguing for over many years. In the wartime conditions, he found that there was government support for the project, and in 1943 the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
Institut des hautes études cinématographiques
L'Institut des hautes études cinématographiques is a French film school, founded during World War II under the leadership of Marcel L'Herbier who was its president from 1944 to 1969. IDHEC offered training for directors and producers, cameramen, sound technicians, editors, art directors and...
(IDHEC) was established in Paris. L'Herbier became its first president in 1944 and held the position until 1969. IDHEC offered training for directors and producers, cameramen, sound technicians, editors, art directors and costume designers. It became highly influential, and many prominent film-makers, including some from outside France, received their training there.
Writings
Throughout his career, Marcel L'Herbier was a prolific author on the subject of the cinema. He wrote over 500 articles for magazines and newspapers, some of which were collected in his book Intelligence du cinématographe (Paris: Correa, 1946). One of the themes that he regularly addressed was the concept of authorship in film-making and the need to establish the rights of film authors over their creative work. Another important topic was the distinctive national character of French cinema and the threat to it posed by the unrestricted import of foreign productions. In 1953 he helped to establish the Cinéma section of the newspaper Le MondeLe Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
.
Before his film career began, L'Herbier published a volume of poetry: ...au jardin des jeux secrets (Paris: Edward Sansot, 1914); and a play: L'Enfantement du mort: miracle en pourpre noir et or (Paris: Georges Clès, 1917).
In his final year, he published an autobiography, La Tête qui tourne (Paris: Belfond, 1979); [the title translates as "the head that spins/shoots a film"].
Marcel L'Herbier died in Paris on 26 November 1979 at the age of 91.
Reputation
In 1921, only three years after his first film, Marcel L'Herbier was voted by readers of a French film magazine as the best French director. In the following year, the critic Léon Moussinac marked him as one of the film-makers whose work was most important for the future of cinema. In this period, L'Herbier was linked with film-makers such as Abel GanceAbel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
, Germaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac
Germaine Dulac was a French filmmaker, film theorist, journalist and critic. She was born in Amiens and moved to Paris in early childhood. A few years after her marriage she embarked on a journalistic career in a feminist magazine, and later became interested in film...
and Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc
Louis Delluc was a French film director, screen writer and film critic, many of whose late 1910s film writings for French newspapers were collected in the volume Cinema et cie...
as part of a "first avant-garde" in French cinema, the first generation to think spontaneously in animated images.
The acclaim which he earned in the 1920s contrasts markedly with the relative neglect of his later work. Even in the silent period, there were those who found his work mannered and marred by an aestheticism unlinked to the subjects of his films. In the 1930s and 1940s, his public roles and sometimes his political associations were interpreted to his disadvantage by some. However, in France his continued presence in so many aspects of the film industry until the 1960s ensured that he was not forgotten. More recently there have been re-issues and re-evaluations of both his silent and sound films and a growth in critical attention to his work.
In the English-speaking world, at the start of the 21st century, L'Herbier remains a largely unknown figure. Screenings of his films have been rare, as have DVD re-issues, and very little of the critical literature about him has been available in English. Standard film histories however confirm the lasting significance of his contributions to silent cinema, particularly in El Dorado
El Dorado (1921 film)
El Dorado is a French silent film directed in 1921 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was notable for integrating a number of technical innovations into its narrative of a "cinematic melodrama"...
, L'Inhumaine
L'Inhumaine
L'Inhumaine is a 1924 French drama-science fiction film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was notable for its experimental techniques and for the collaboration of many leading practitioners in the decorative arts, architecture and music...
, and L'Argent
L'Argent (1928 film)
L'Argent is a French silent film directed in 1928 by Marcel L'Herbier. The film was adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, and it portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.-Background:...
.
Further reading
- Burch, Noël. Marcel L'Herbier. Paris: Seghers, 1973. (Cinéma d'aujourd'hui: 78). [In French].
- Catelain, Jaque. Jaque Catelain présente Marcel L'Herbier. Paris: Vautrin, 1950. [In French].
- L'Herbier, Marcel. La Tête qui tourne. Paris: Belfond, 1979. [In French]. ISBN 2714412157
- Véray, Laurent [ed.]. Marcel L'Herbier: l'art du cinéma. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 2007. [Text in French; abstracts in English]. ISBN 2913758735
External links
- Cinémathèque française: Bibliothèque du film
- Les Indépendants du premier siècle
- filmdefrance.com
- filmreference.com
- Moving Image Source "Obscure objects": article by Jonathan Rosenbaum.