Marcel Carné
1906-1996
Marcel Carné, (born August 18, 1906, Paris, France—died October 31, 1996, Clamart, near Paris), motion-picture director noted for the poetic realism of his pessimistic dramas. He led the French cinema revival of the late 1930s. After holding various jobs, Carné joined the director Jacques Feyder as an assistant in 1928, and he also assisted René Clair on the popular comedy Sous les toits de Paris (1930; “Under the Roofs of Paris”). Carné’s first picture was a short documentary, Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche (1929; Nogent, Sunday’s Eldorado). Later the success of his film Jenny (1936) ensured his position as a leading director. The screenplay for Jenny was by the poet Jacques Prévert, who would write the scripts for all but one of Carné’s finest films. Carné’s next picture, the comic crime fantasy Drôle de drame (1937; Bizarre, Bizarre), had sets designed by Alexandre Trauner, and both he and the composer Joseph Kosma also became regular collaborators on Carné’s films. Quai des brumes (1938; Port of Shadows) and Le Jour se lève (1939; Daybreak) established Carné as the preeminent director of the revival. In these films, whose fatalism was typical of the French cinema of the late 1…
Films