Born in Paris in 1906, the son of a cabinet maker, Marcel Carné was to become one of the leading figures in French cinema in the 1930s and 1940s.  He began his career as a cameraman and film critic.  He worked with Jacques Feyder and, in 1929, made his first short film, Nogent, eldorado du dimanche.   Impressed by this film, René Clair engaged Carné to work as his assistant on Sous les Toits de Paris in 1930. 

In 1936 Carné directed his first full-length film, Jenny, in which he began his long and fruitful collaboration with the scriptwriter Jacques Prévert.  Over the following decade, the two men were responsible for some of the greatest films in French cinema history.  They developed a style known as poetic realism, a combination of lyrical idealism set in the context of a tragically oppressive environment, which fitted the mood of the time very well.  Their films included Le Quai des brumes , Hôtel du Nord and Les Enfants du paradis, in which starred some great actors, including Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Louis Jouvet and Arletty. 

After the war, Carné’s poetic realism became unfashionable and his association with Prévert ended in 1946 after the failure of Les Portes de la nuit and the cancellation of La Fleur de l'âge.  Carné continued making films, scoring a notable popular success with his 1958 film Les Tricheurs.  However, under the onslaught of negative criticism from the founders of the French New Wave, his filmmaking career soon fell into decline.  His final film, La Mouche, was begun in 1992, but never completed.

To find out more about Marcel Carné, visit:
http://www.marcel-carne.com/