Louis Feuillade

Biography: life and films

Film director and screenwriter Louis Feuillade played an essential part in the development and popularisation of cinema in France in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. His philosophy was that the new medium of film ought to be exploited as entertainment for the masses, not as an obscure art form for an elitist minority. Although this popularist view injured his standing as a serious film director at the time, he is now regarded as one of the key figures in cinema history, a genuine master of the medium, with a remarkable foresight, imagination and artistic flair.

Louis Feuillade was born in 1873 in the small village of Lunel, Hérault, in the South of France, where his family ran a wine making business. From an early age, he showed an interest in literature and he also enjoyed writing poetry. In 1898, he moved to Paris to take up a post as a wine merchant. After the death of his father and the collapse of the family business, Feuillade chose to pursue a career as a journalist, writing articles for the Revue Mondiale. By this time, he was married and had a young daughter, so he was struggling to make a decent living.

In 1905, on the advice of a friend, André Heuzé, Feuillade found employment with Gaumont, the second largest film production company in France (after Pathé). Initially he worked as a screen writer, but in 1907 he took up the position of Artistic Director for the whole of Gaumont's output. In this role, Feuillade was himself obliged to direct films, and over the next twenty years he would make over 700 films (mostly shorts). By 1914, he was directing up to 80 films a year.

Feuillade's cinema was remarkably varied and included realist dramas, such as La Vie telle qu'elle est (1911), and historical epics, such as Prométhée (1908) and L'Agonie de Byzance (1913). However, the films with which is most closely associated, and the ones which brought him greatest celebrity, were his crime serials, the forerunner to the modern thriller. These included the five-part Fantômas series (1913-14), the Les Vampires series (1915-16) and the Judex films (1916-18). With mad-cap chases, strong lead characters, complex plots, and daring use of location filming, the films were years ahead of their time. They proved to be hugely popular during the First World War, and helped to ensure that France maintained its film-making industry in the face of strong competition from abroad.

Feuillade was actively making films for Gaumont right up to his premature death in Paris in 1925. His remarkable talent and productivity not only secured the future of France's film industry, but it also inspired subsequent generations of film makers. Perhaps Feuillade's greatest legacy is the part he played in the exploitation of cinema as a medium of mass entertainment, something which could appeal to all classes of society.

Filmography