Marcel L'Herbier

Paris, France - 26.11.1979, Paris, France

 

Director
L'Herbier was a French director, screenwriter and producer. He made his biggest contribution to the history of film when he founded the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris in 1943, which became an important film school later finished by Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Costa-Gavras. L'Herbier studied law and before starting to work on film he wrote dramas, essays and poetry. During WW I he worked as a cinematographer for the army and in the 1920s he played an important role in the development of French avant-garde film. In 1922, he founded his production house Cinégraphic, and his experimental films influenced the work of Albert Cavalcanti and Claude Autant-Lara with whom he later collaborated. When he started making sound films their quality lessened and in 1952 he began to work on television. His most important films include his first silent feature film Rose-France (1918), L' homme du large (Man of the Sea, 1920) and Eldorado (1921). In 1924 he made the ambitious L' inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman), in 1925 Feu Mathias Pascal (The Living Dead Man), in 1928 the French-German co-production L' argent. His other films are his first sound film L'enfant de l'amour (Illegitimate Child, 1930), Le bonheur (1934) and La nuit fantastique (Fantastic Night, 1942).

Filmography


Films by this director

Fantastic Night

(La nuit fantastique, 1942)

Directed by: Marcel L'Herbier
PHOTOGRAPHY: Pierre Montazel
Synopsis:

Fernand Gravey plays a student who finds the girl of his dreams (literally) as she follows him on the border of dreams and reality. Denis studies for his exams all day long and at night works on a flower market. Every time he manages to close his eyes, he is haunted by a mysterious girl in white. One night he follows her and has an adventure in the Parisian night; he goes to a restaurant, a night club, the Louvre, a hospital...

b/w, 35mm, 103 min

The Inhuman Woman

(L'inhumaine, France, 1924)

Directed by: Marcel L'Herbier
PHOTOGRAPHY: Roche, Georges Specht
Synopsis:

Slavnoj pariškoj pjevačici Claire Lescot, koja živi na rubu grada, udvaraju mnogi muškarci, uključujući maharadžu Djoraha de Nopura i mladog švedskog znanstvenika Einara Norsena. Na svojim raskošnim zabavama ona uživa u njihovoj ljubavnoj naklonosti, ali ostaje distancirana, a uz to im se i podsmjehuje. Najavljuje da se sprema na put oko svijeta, a kad joj priopće da se Norsen ubio zbog nje, ne pokazuje nikakve osjećaje. Na sljedećem koncertu publika je izviždi zbog t...

b/w, silent, 123'
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