Marcel L'Herbier

Director, Writer, Producer, Editor

April 23, 1888 — November 26, 1979 (91 years)
Marcel L'Herbier (1888-1979) was a French filmmaker who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the French film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC).

In 1921, only three years after his first film, Marcel L'Herbier was voted by readers of a French film magazine as the best French director. In the following year, the critic Léon Moussinac marked him as one of the filmmakers whose work was most important for the future of cinema. In this period, L'Herbier was linked with filmmakers such as Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Louis Delluc as part of a "first avant-garde" (Impressionism) in French cinema, the first generation to think spontaneously in animated images.

Known For

  • L'Argent
    L'Argent1928
  • The Inhuman Woman
    The Inhuman Woman1924
  • Eldorado
    Eldorado1921
  • Fantastic Night
    Fantastic Night1942
  • Le bonheur
    Le bonheur1934
  • The Man of the Sea
    The Man of the Sea1920
  • The Cheat
    The Cheat1937
  • The Last Days of Pompeii
    The Last Days of Pompeii1950
  • Queen's Necklace
    Queen's Necklace1946
  • Little Devil May Care
    Little Devil May Care1928
  • The Bohemian Life
    The Bohemian Life1945
  • Rasputin
    Rasputin1938
  • The Adventurer
    The Adventurer1934
  • Happy Go Lucky
    Happy Go Lucky1946
  • The New Men
    The New Men1936
  • Sacrifice of Honor
    Sacrifice of Honor1935

Filmography

2013
Natan · as Self
1964

1943
L'honorable Catherine · as Adaptation
1942
Fantastic Night · as Adaptation
1939
Terra di fuoco · as Adaptation
1935
The Imperial Road · as Scenario Writer
1934
L'aventurier · as Scenario
1930
The Mystery of the Yellow Room · as Scenario Writer
1930
Illegitimate Child · as Scenario
1924
L'inhumaine · as Scenario Writer
1924
La galerie des monstres · as Art Direction
1924
The Flood · as Art Direction