Ben Carré

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Sosthène "Ben" Carré (born December 5, 1883 in Paris , France , † May 28, 1978 in Santa Monica , California , United States ) was a French-American film architect , set painter and pioneer of American cinema.

Live and act

Sosthène, called "Ben", Carré trained as a painter at the Atelier Amable in his hometown Paris. He was then employed as a set designer and backdrop painter on the most important stages of the French capital, the Comédie-Française and the Paris Opera . As early as 1906, Sosthène Carré made his first contact with cinematography, which was hardly developed at the time. Both Gaumont and Pathé , the most important production companies of the time, hired him as an outfitter.

In 1912 Carré emigrated to the USA and exchanged his first name Sosthène for the first name “Ben”, which is easier for American tongues to pronounce. Ben Carré designed an abundance of entertainment productions for the French Éclair Studios in New Jersey , mostly under the direction of his compatriot Maurice Tourneur . In 1919 Carré became an American citizen. At the same time his collaboration with Tourneur ended. Now based in Hollywood , Carré achieved his greatest successes in the 1920s. With films like Rupert Julian's horror classic “ The Phantom of the Opera ” and the costume fabrics “ Don Juan ” (with John Barrymore ) and “ The Iron Mask ” (with Douglas Fairbanks ), Carré experienced the heyday of his filmmaking in the 1920s. In 1927 he was also given the officially first sound film in cinema history (“ The Jazz Singer ”) .

Despite his important achievements in central film productions in the late silent film era, Ben Carré's career collapsed with the dawn of the talky-about-film era. In 1937 he ended his career as a film architect and from then on only worked as a painter. In this capacity he delivered some notable large-scale paintings for MGM musical classics, including “ The Magic Land ” (1939), “ Homesickness for St. Louis ” (1944) and “ An American in Paris ” (1950).

Carré's son Lucien Carré , who had stayed in France, also worked there as a film architect.

Filmography

  • 1907: La course aux potirons
  • 1909: Le Huguenot
  • 1909: La mort de Mozart
  • 1910: Le festin de Balthazar
  • 1911: Aux lions les chrétiens
  • 1912: The Dollar Mark
  • 1914: Mother
  • 1914: The Pit
  • 1915: aka Jimmy Valentine
  • 1915: The Cub
  • 1915: Camille
  • 1915: trilby
  • 1915: La vie de Bohème
  • 1916: The Hand of Peril
  • 1916: The Closed Road
  • 1916: The Rail Rider
  • 1916: The Velvet Paw
  • 1917: The Whip
  • 1917: Exile
  • 1917: The Pride of the Claw
  • 1917: Barbary Sheep
  • 1917: The Poor Little Rich Girl
  • 1918: Rose of the World
  • 1918: The Blue Bird
  • 1918: Prunella
  • 1918: Woman
  • 1918: Sporting Life
  • 1919: The Life Line
  • 1919: The Broken Butterfly
  • 1919: Victory
  • 1920: My Lady's Garter
  • 1921: Bob Hampton of Placer
  • 1922: The Light in the Dark
  • 1922: What Men Fools Are
  • 1923: Wife in Name Only
  • 1924: The Red Lily ( The Red Lily )
  • 1924: A girl from a good family ( Tarnish )
  • 1925: The Phantom of the Opera ( The Phantom of the Opera )
  • 1925: The collar of Tsarina ( The Masked Bride )
  • 1925: The Victim of Stella Dallas ( Stella Dallas )
  • 1926: Mare Nostrum
  • 1926: Don Juan
  • 1927: Soft Cushions
  • 1927: The Last Days of San Francisco ( Old San Francisco )
  • 1927: The Jazz Singer ( The Jazz Singer )
  • 1928: The Red Dancer of Moscow ( The Red Dance )
  • 1929: The Iron Mask ( The Iron Mask )
  • 1929: Our daily bread ( City Girl )
  • 1929: Gamecocks of Love ( The Cock-Eyed World )
  • 1929: Help main hit! ( Hot For Paris )
  • 1931: Women of All Nations
  • 1931: Charlie Chan - Death is a Black Camel ( The Black Camel )
  • 1931: Knight of the vast desert ( Riders of the Purple Sage )
  • 1933: Let's Sing Luck
  • 1935: The Ship of Satan ( Dante's Inferno )
  • 1935: The Marx Brothers in the Opera ( A Night at the Opera )
  • 1936: The Mine With the Iron Door
  • 1936: Great Guy
  • 1937: 23½ hours leave

literature

  • Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 1: A - C. Erik Aaes - Jack Carson. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 690.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Carré, Ben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carré, Sosthène
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French-American film architect and set painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1978
Place of death Santa Monica , California , United States