Louis Feuillade

Louis Feuillade (19 February 1873, Lunel — 25 February 1925, Nice) was a renowned French filmmaker of the silent era, artistic director of Gaumont (1907 to 1918), and grandfather of the French actor, screenwriter, and film director Jacques Champreux (1930—2020). He was best known for crime serials, such as Fantômas (1913-14), Les Vampires (1915), and Judex (1916). Feuillade grew up in Hérault in southern France and was deeply passionate about literature from an early age. In 1902, Louis relocated to Paris to pursue a writing career; he struggled for several years, primarily surviving on freelance jobs as a journalist. Louis Feuillade submitted his first screenplays to Gaumont in early 1905, catching the attention of the studio's artistic director, Alice Guy-Blaché (1873—1968). She bought a few scripts and invited Feuillade to direct them; he declined at first, insecure about giving up his journalistic career, but finally accepted the offer. In 1907, Guy-Blaché moved to Hollywood and suggested Feuillade as her replacement; he served as Gaumont's artistic director for eleven years. Louis was a prolific and versatile filmmaker, working across all genres, from comedies and so-called "trick films" in the style of Georges Méliès to bourgeois dramas, historical and biblical epics, mysteries, and exotic adventures. In 1913, Feuillade launched his five-part mystery drama series, Fantômas, an overwhelming critical and box office success. Many notable directors, from Fritz Lang to Alfred Hitchcock, cited his thrillers as highly inspirational and groundbreaking. By various estimates, Louis completed between 630 and 800 films by the time he died in 1925 (many of them were "shorts," however, typically under 10 minutes — as customary in the early silent film era, before the advancements in projection and camera technology made longer movies feasible.)