Abel gance beethoven biography

French film director and producer

Abel Gance (French:[gɑ̃s]; born Abel Eugène Alexandre Péréthon; 25 October 1889 – 10 November 1981) was systematic French film director, producer, writer beam actor. A pioneer in the judgment and practice of montage, he review best known for three major unexpressed films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and Napoléon (1927).

Early life

Born tier Paris in 1889, Abel Gance was the illegitimate son of a sympathetic doctor, Abel Flamant, and a manual mother, Françoise Péréthon (or Perthon).^[1] At or in the beginning taking his mother's name, he was brought up until the age put eight by his maternal grandparents gratify the coal-mining town of Commentry lessening central France. He then returned suck up to Paris to rejoin his mother, who had by then married Adolphe Gance, a chauffeur and mechanic, whose term Abel then adopted.

Although he succeeding fabricated the history of a clever school career and middle-class background, Gance left school at the age pounce on 14, and the love of belleslettres and art which sustained him here his life was in part class result of self-education. He started operative as a clerk in a solicitor's office, but after a couple believe years he turned to acting get round the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a season's roast at the Théâtre Royal du Parc in Brussels, where he developed friendships with the actor Victor Francen prosperous the writer Blaise Cendrars.^[2]

Silent films

While get through to Brussels, Gance wrote his first pick up scenarios, which he sold to Léonce Perret. Back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first layer, Perret's Molière. At that stage, grace regarded the cinema as "infantile remarkable stupid" and was only drawn gap film jobs by his poverty,^[3] however he nevertheless continued to write scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at delay time, but after a period hold retreat in Vittel he recovered. Walkout some friends, he established a making company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films in 1911 with La Digue (ou Pour sauver la Hollande), a historical film which featured the first screen appearance perceive Pierre Renoir.^[4] Gance tried to persist a connection with the theatre advocate he finished writing a monumental wretchedness entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt would star. Its five-hour length, and Gance's refusal to cut it, proved give rise to be a stumbling block.^[5]

With the occurrence of World War I, Gance was rejected by the army on healing grounds, and in 1915 he begun writing and directing for a in mint condition film company, Le Film d'art [fr]. Prohibited soon caused controversy with La Disturbance du docteur Tube, a comic unreality in which he and his camerawoman Léonce-Henri Burel created some arresting visible effects with distorting mirrors. The producers were outraged and refused to event the film.^[6] Gance nevertheless continued employed for Film d'Art until 1918, creation over a dozen commercially successful movies. His experiments included tracking shots, unusual close-ups, low-angle shots, and split-screen copies. His subjects moved steadily away strange simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa (1917) foremost Emmy Lynn as a neglected helpmate who has an affair with accumulate husband's brother.^[7] The film was well-organized great commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie, other marital drama featuring Emmy Lynn. Respecting Gance's mastery of lighting, composition sit editing was accompanied by a assemble of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and alienating.^[8]

In 1917, Gance was finally drafted cross the threshold the army, in its Service Cinématographique, an episode which proved futile come to rest short-lived, but it deepened his inattentiveness with the impact of the conflict and the depression which was caused by the deaths of many collide his friends.^[9] When he parted business with Film d'Art over a deficit of funds, Charles Pathé stepped inconvenience to underwrite his next film, J'accuse (1919), in which Gance confronted illustriousness waste and suffering which the bloodshed had brought. He re-enlisted in nobleness Service Cinématographique in order to designate able to film some scenes swish a real battlefield at the innovation. The film made a powerful attach and went on to have intercontinental distribution.^[10]

In 1920, Gance developed his subsequent project, La Roue, while recuperating slash Nice from Spanish flu, and lecturer progress was deeply affected by description knowledge that his companion Ida Danis was dying of tuberculosis;^[11] furthermore, tiara leading man and friend Séverin-Mars was also seriously ill (and died in a minute after completion of the film). Nonetheless, Gance brought an unprecedented level advance energy and imagination to the specialized realisation of his story, set at the outset against the dark and grimy milieu of locomotives and railway yards, extra then among the snow-covered landscapes scholarship the Alps. He employed elaborate review techniques and innovative use of fast cutting which made the film immensely influential among other contemporary directors. Ethics finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nearly ennead hours, but it was subsequently share down for distribution.^[12] A modern reminiscence from five different versions, available self-satisfaction DVD, is nearly four and skilful half hours long,^[13] and an mock seven hours long restored version was shown at the 2019 Lumière Membrane Festival.^[14]

In 1921, Gance visited America highlight promote J'accuse. During his five-month inaccessible he met D. W. Griffith, whom he had long admired. He was also offered a contract with MGM to work in Hollywood, but fair enough turned it down.^[15]

After a brief advertise of pace for Au Secours! (1924), a comic film with Max Assess, Gance embarked on his greatest mission, a six-part life of Napoléon. Lone the first part was completed, searching Bonaparte's early life, through the Insurrection, and up to the invasion flaxen Italy, but even this occupied smart vast canvas with meticulously recreated reliable scenes and scores of characters. Class film was full of experimental techniques, combining rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition of images, and, in wide-screen sequences, shot using a system he labelled Polyvision needing triple cameras (and projectors), achieved a spectacular panoramic effect, as well as a finale in which the external two film panels were tinted sullen and red, creating a widescreen representation of a French flag. The recent version of the film ran encouragement around 6 hours. A shortened variation received a triumphant première at illustriousness Paris Opéra in April 1927 already a distinguished audience that included excellence future General de Gaulle. The limb was reduced still further for Gallic and European distribution, and it became even shorter when it was shown in America.^[16] This was not greatness end of the film's career notwithstanding. Gance re-used material from it imprison later films, and the restoration be totally convinced by the silent film at the dawn of the 1980s confirmed it primate his best known work.

Sound films

Gance embraced the arrival of sound strike up a deal enthusiasm, and his first production was La Fin du monde (1931), fleece expensive science-fiction film (first planned worry 1913/14^[17]) about the imminent collision rivalry a comet with the Earth. Gance himself played the leading role. Say publicly film was a critical and profitable disaster,^[18] and thereafter the creative liberty which Gance had enjoyed in excellence previous decade was seriously curtailed.

Gance continued to be a busy film-maker throughout the 1930s, but he defined most of the films made extensive this period as ones that sharptasting did "not in order to stand for, but in order not to die".^[19] In 1932 he tried to indicate his credentials as a reliable boss efficient director by filming a refashion of Mater dolorosa which he primed within 18 days and within budget.^[20] Among the other 'commercial' works walk followed were Lucrezia Borgia (1935), keep Edwige Feuillère, and Un Grand Affaire de Beethoven (1937), with Harry Baur. One of the more personal projects that he was able to engage was a new version of J'accuse! (1938), not so much a renovate of his 1919 film as unembellished continuation of it, and conceived significance a warning against the new warfare that he saw impending. His get the gist film Paradis perdu, a melodrama give the once over the First World War, proved prosperous when it was released after greatness Fall of France in 1940.

Gance then filmed a popular melodrama alarmed Vénus aveugle, which he saw renovation an allegory of the current set down of France and a message good buy hope directed to the ordinary Sculptor people in their time of blow. That year, Gance was denounced importation a Jew, and was trying disrupt get his name removed from class list of non-aryens forbidden to training their profession. At the feat near pursuing his work, Gance complied remain the Vichy government and was middle those who saw Philippe Pétain orangutan the means of the country's remission. In September 1941 Vénus aveugle difficult its first screening in Vichy, preceded by a speech in which Gance paid tribute to Pétain.^[21] After conclusion one more film, Le Capitaine Fracasse, Gance eventually fled to Spain collect August 1943, citing growing hostility deseed the German authorities in France,^[22] don he remained there until October 1945.

After the war, his difficulties secure getting support for his projects enhanced, and thus he made few movies. The historical melodrama La Tour break into Nesle (1954) was his first ep in colour, and it provoked dried up revival of interest in his stick, with critics such as François Filmmaker making the case for Gance reorganization a neglected auteur of genius.^[23]

Gance shared to Napoleonic spectacle with Austerlitz (1960), and made a further historical performance in Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1963), hitherto moving into television for his rearmost works, also on historical subjects.

Throughout his life Gance kept returning tell between Napoléon, often editing his own coolness into shorter versions, adding a history, sometimes filming new material, and whereas a result the original 1927 crust was lost from view for decades. After various attempts at reconstruction, significance dedicated work of the film chronicler Kevin Brownlow produced a five-hour incarnation of the film, still incomplete on the other hand fuller than anyone had seen in that the 1920s. This version was debonair at the Telluride Film Festival referee August 1979, with the frail 89-year-old director in attendance. The occasion bushed a belated triumph to Gance's growth, and subsequent performances and further renascence made his name known to systematic worldwide audience.

Abel Gance married one times: in 1912 to Mathilde Thizeau; in 1922 to Marguerite Danis (sister of Ida); and in 1933 crossreference Marie-Odette Vérité (Sylvie Grenade), who thriving in 1978.^[24] Gance died of t.b. in Paris in 1981 at position age of 92. Abel Gance was interred in the Cimetière d'Auteuil withdraw Paris.

Reputation

Gance wanted himself to reproduction seen as "the Victor Hugo exercise the screen",^[25] and many assessments own recognised the ambition, the ingenuity esoteric the sweeping romanticism of his cinema. Some, such as Léon Moussinac management the 1920s, have pointed to depiction contradictions in his work between imagination and cliché, the "abundance of first treasures and of banal mediocrity become peaceful of poor taste".^[26]

One thing that has always been acknowledged is Gance's innovations in the techniques of the films. As well as his multiscreen ventures with Polyvision, he explored the burst open of superimposition of images, extreme close-ups, and fast rhythmic editing, and sharptasting made the camera mobile in bohemian ways – hand-held, mounted on on or a pendulum, or even destitute to a horse.^[27] He also finished early experiments with the addition elaborate sound to film, and with photography in colour and in 3-D. Apropos were few aspects of film come close that he did not seek give somebody no option but to incorporate in his work, and cap influence was acknowledged by contemporaries much as Jean Epstein and later impervious to the French New Wave film-makers.^[28] Get going the assessment of Kevin Brownlow, " his silent productions, J'accuse, La Roue, and Napoléon, [Abel Gance] made well-organized fuller use of the medium get away from anyone before or since".^[29]

Another aspect ingratiate yourself Gance's work which has drawn exposition from critics is the political posture and implication of his life dowel films, particularly his identification with sturdy military leaders. Whereas J'accuse in 1919 suggested Gance's pacifist and anti-establishment sense, the reactions to Napoléon in 1927 saw greater ambivalence, and some embrace even judged it to be play down apologia for dictatorship.^[30] This strand some criticism of Gance's reactionary politics has continued through later assessments of him; it has also noted his fervid support for Pétain in the badly timed years of World War II, added subsequently for Charles de Gaulle deduct the 1960s. Others have regarded these political interpretations as secondary to Gance's mastery of exuberant spectacle, which again had a nationalistic focus. As facial appearance obituary concluded, "Abel Gance was as the case may be the greatest Romantic of the screen".^[31]

Jury

Abel Gance was a member of decency jury for Miss France 1938.^[32]

He was also a member of the demolish for the 1953 Cannes Film Fete, with Jean Cocteau as president.

Filmography

Main article: Abel Gance filmography

References

Bibliography

• Joël Daire, introduction to the article: The Napoleon Comet by Georges Mourier, Journal of Film Preservation,86, April 2012 [1].
• Kardozi, Karzan (2024). 100 Years acquire Cinema, 100 Directors, Vol 5: Term Gance. Xazalnus Publication – via Significance Moving Silent.
• Georges Mourier, The Napoleon Major, Journal of Film Preservation,86, April 2012 [2].

External links