Jacques Feyder

Biography: life and films

Jacques Feyder was born Jacques Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, on 21st July 1885. Despite his cosy bourgeois background, he decided early on that he would pursue an artistic career and left home when he was in his late teens to find work as an actor in Paris. He began appearing on the stage from 1908 and in 1912 he made his screen debut in one of George Méliès' short films, Cendrillon ou la pantoufle mystérieuse. The experience of working with Méliès, one of the leading pioneers of cinema, persuaded Feyder to forge a career in cinema. Between 1912 and 1916, he appeared in around a dozen films, including Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires (1915). During this time, he became acquainted with the film director Gaston Ravel, under whom he served an apprenticeship as an assistant director. This led him to direct a series of short films for Gaumont. In 1917, he met an aspiring young actress named Françoise Rosay, whom he would later marry and cast in many of his most important sound films.

Jacques Feyder's filmmaking career began in earnest in 1921 when he directed his first full-length film, L'Atlantide. An ambitious visualisation of a popular novel by Pierre Benoît, the film required a gruelling eight-month location shoot in North Africa owing to Feyder's dogged insistence on authenticity. This three hour long epic proved to be enormously popular and established Feyder as one of the foremost filmmakers working in France at the time. In his editing techniques, he was greatly influenced by the films of D.W. Griffith and Abel Gance. Feyder's naturalistic style of filmmaking continued to find favour with critics and audiences, evidenced by the success of Crainquebille (1922) and Visages d'enfants (1925), his first masterpiece. Another important film Feyder made around this time was his 1926 version of Carmen, possibly cinema's grandest adaptation of Prosper Mérimée's famous novel. In 1928, now settled in France, Feyder acquired French citizenship.

After the success of Thérèse Raquin (1928), a reputedly magnificent adaptation of Émile Zola's novel which sadly no longer exists, Feyder was offered a ticket to Hollywood to direct MGM's last silent film, The Kiss (1928), with Greta Garbo in her final silent role. In the rush to sound, following the release of Warner Brothers' game-changer The Jazz Singer (1927), Feyder was tasked with adding a synchronised soundtrack to the film before its release. He directed Garbo once more, in the German language version of Anna Christie (1931), and then MGM star Ramon Novarro in Daybreak (1931) and Son of India (1931). After this last film, Feyder decided he had had enough of Hollywood and made his way back to France.

This was the beginning of Jacques Feyder's most celebrated period as a filmmaker. He followed his two poetic realist masterpieces, Le Grand Jeu (1934) and Pension Mimosas (1935), with his best-known and most lauded film, La Kermesse héroïque (1935), a controversial portrayal of Spain's occupation of Belgium in the 17th century which won him the Best Director award at the 1936 Venice Film Festival. He then directed Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat in the adventure yarn Knight Without Armour (1937), the only film he made in Great Britain. This was followed by La Loi du Nord (1939), which showcased rising star Michèle Morgan. He then travelled to Switzerland to make what would be his last film, Une femme disparaît (1942). As his health deteriorated, Jacques Feyder was forced to give up filmmaking, although he acted as a supervisor on Sigfrit Steiner's Matura-Reise (1947). He died on 24th May 1948 in Prangins, Switzerland, aged 62.

Filmography

Click here to view complete list of films...