Maurice Tourneur
Maurice Tourneur ( born February 2, 1873 in Paris; † August 4, 1961 ) was an important French film director who belongs in his native country and the United States among the pioneers of film directing.
Life
The son of a jeweler was born Maurice Thomas in the Parisian district of Belleville. First, he began training as a graphic designer and illustrator, served in the French artillery in Northern Africa and worked briefly as an assistant to Auguste Rodin and Puvis de Chavanne, before he like his siblings turned to the theater.
Under the stage name Maurice Tourneur, he began his career as a supporting actor performer and toured occasionally by England and South America with Gabrielle Réjanes theater company. 1911, after over 400 stage productions, he decided to go to the movie, first as assistant director. He quickly became a director and worked with leading French stars.
1914 sent Tourneur's employer, the production company Éclair him to the lucrative American market. He worked at the first " Hollywood", the studios in Fort Lee (New Jersey). Tourneur after a year on World Pictures and became the most renowned director of the company ( one of his colleagues was Josef von Sternberg, who was then still working as a cutter).
Tourneur quickly gained a reputation as one of the most innovative film directors in America, who turned using the then most modern film technology and critic and audience celebrated successes. His specialty was to give films through the intelligent use of buildings and lighting style ( his team was Clarence Brown as an assistant director and editor ). He turned against the incipient star system because he felt it distract too much from a well-told story from.
Maurice Tourneur in 1918 founded his own company and turned demanding melodrame with the actresses Mary Pickford and Elsie Ferguson. Two projects, particularly to his heart, the extremely designed by Films The Bluebird ( 1918) were (a precursor of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ) and Prunella. However, both films had no financial success. Disappointed Tourneur was on his idea that film did contribute primarily to the formation of the masses.
In 1922, he read the signs of the times and went to Hollywood, but the growing influence of the producers on the content and style of the films Tourneur moved after some time to leave the U.S. and return to France. The French initially met him with hostility because he had not fought in the First World War for his native country. 1929 turned Tourneur in Germany The ship of the lost people with the emerging Marlene Dietrich.
Tourneur made numerous other films, despite his contempt for the Nazis under the Vichy regime. 1949 ended a car accident his film work. He worked until his death as a painter and translator of detective novels from English into French. Maurice Tourneur is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His son Jacques Tourneur succeeded his father in the film industry.
Maurice Tourneur's films The Poor Little Rich Girl of 1917 and Last of the Mohicans ( The Last of the Mohicans ) of 1920 were included in the Library of Congress as " culturally significant ".
In 1945 he was honored by the Directors Guild of America with the honorary membership for life. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is reminiscent of Maurice Tourneur.