Bernard Natan

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Bernard Natan , born: Nuham Tannenzaft , (born July 14, 1886 in Jassy , Romania ; † 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp, German Reich) was a French film director and film producer of Romanian origin. In the interwar period , he founded France's largest film production company, Pathé- Natan, through the merger of two companies . In 1938 Natan was imprisoned as an alleged cheat and in 1942 he was extradited by the Vichy regime to the German occupiers for transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau .

Beginnings as a director and entrepreneur

Bernard Natan left Romania in 1905 and went to France, where he first found work as a projectionist. In 1909 he married Marie-Louise Chatillon, with whom he had two children. In 1910 he founded the company Ciné Actualités with three partners . The Rapid Films film studio and the Rapid Publicité film magazine followed three years later . During the First World War , he fought as a volunteer in the 97e Division d'Infanterie for 13 months until he was wounded in Champagne (double commendation in daily orders) and received the Croix de guerre as an award and, after his dismissal as a sergeant in 1921, French citizenship as a war veteran . His film studio expanded. In 1924 Natan's company was commissioned to report on the Olympic Games in Paris. In 1926 he finally founded Productions Natan with Henri Diamant-Berger and John Maxwell . It is thanks to Natan that the film industry was founded in France. The studios at 6 Rue Francoeur, built in 1926, have housed La Fémis , the largest and most important film school in France , since February 15, 1999 .

The reception of Natan's directorial activity in the twenties was very different. From a single source (Saude) he is referred to as the director of pornographic films in France alongside Dominique , other sources deny exactly this and attribute this reputation to smear campaigns of former business partners and anti-Semitic forces. It is not clear whether some of the productions in his studio in the twenties were pornographic films for an upscale audience or whether they were more “frivolous” films, which, however, were never explicitly presented. In some sources, almost all pornographic films with bisexual, homosexual and masochistic content are attributed to his production company.

Pathé-Natan

In February 1929 he assessed the future success of the sound film differently than the other large film studios and producers in France. He took over the Pathé studio under the name Pathé-Natan .

The new studio produced 70 feature films from 1929 to 1935. The directors who worked for Pathé-Natan included Marcel L'Herbier , Jacques de Baroncelli , René Clair , Jean Grémillon , Jacques Prévert and Maurice and Jacques Tourneur . Among the actors, Jean Gabin and Renée Saint-Cyr deserve special mention. As a Frenchman of Jewish faith, he produced René Clair's film Le dernier milliardaire in 1934 , in which Adolf Hitler was ridiculed, which caused him problems with French National Socialists. In addition, the distribution of the French-language versions of numerous foreign productions - such as Mickey Mouse - was ensured. The company also acquired shares in a radio station and some early patents in cinemascope and television technology.

As a late consequence of the complicated Pathé takeover, but above all as a victim of a xenophobic and anti-Semitic campaign, Natan got into financial difficulties and had to declare insolvency in 1936. A distinction must be made between cinema operations and film production, which had been profitable until the end (the cinema division should also be able to settle its liabilities later, including default interest). Then his brother Emile Natan founded the production company Les Films modern , while Bernard Natan worked in the Paramount studios in Saint-Maurice.

In December 1938, Natan was arrested. In 1939 and again in 1941 he was convicted of fraud and served a prison term. He was still there when the Germans took Paris in 1940. After his release in 1942, he was on 23 September 1942, on the eve of the raid against Romanian Jews in Paris, after withdrawing French citizenship as a stateless person in French. Collection camp Drancy internment in Paris and the next day, September 24, 1942, with the train transport 37 deported to the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz.

Unlike his business partner and later adversary Charles Pathé , Natan therefore had no way of retrospectively presenting his view of things. It is unclear to what extent the image of the director of pornographic films and the bad businessman corresponds to the facts or originated from the aforementioned campaigns.

Filmography (selection)

as producer:

  • 1928: La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d'Arc - fille lorraine. (The wonderful life of Joan of Arc - a daughter of Lorraine.)
  • 1934: Le dernier milliardaire , directed by René Clair
  • 1938: Le Quai des brumes ( Harbor in the Fog ), directed by Marcel Carné

documentary

  • Natan - France's unknown cinematic genius. (OT: Natan. ) Documentary, Ireland, 2013, 66 Min, written and directed. Paul Duane, David Cairns, Production: Reel Art Film, Screen Works, German First broadcast: August 16, 2016 arte: Summary , meetings: Pamela Hutchinson and in the Süddt. Ztg.
    (In it, Serge Klarsfeld criticizes, among others , the unsubstantiated portrayal of Natan as a pornographer as a targeted character assassination during the takeover attempts by the company Pathé-Natan .)

literature

  • Georg Seeßlen : The pornographic film. From the beginning to the present. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-548-35291-X .
  • André Rossel cherries: Pathé-Natan. La véritable histoire. Pilote24 éditions, Périgueux 2004, ISBN 2-912347-40-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
  2. ^ A b André Rossel-Kirschen: Natan biography with filmography in: lips.org (French).
  3. ^ Droit de réponse. Mise au point sur le grand producteur Bernard Natan. In: lips.org
    cf. on the anti-Semitic attacks: Jens Ulff-Möller: Hollywood's film wars with France: film-trade diplomacy and the emergence of the French film quota policy. University Rochester Press, 2001, excerpts from Google Books ;
    see. the anti-Semitic work of Robert Denoël: Les Juifs en France. 1940-41.
  4. ↑ On the cinemascope technique see also Jean-Jacques Meusy: Henri Chrétien, Bernard Natan and the Hypergonar. In: University of Iowa / Film History , volume 15, pp. 11–31, 2003, ISSN  0892-2160 ., (PDF; 2.8 MB)
  5. ↑ Gilles Willems: The origins of Pathé-Natan. ( Memento from February 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Documentation: Natan - France's unknown cinema genius. ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: arte , August 16, 2016, 11:15 p.m.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv
  7. ↑ On Pathé's autobiographical texts see André Rossel-Kirschen: Charles Pathé et son bouc émissaire: Bernard Natan. In: 1895. 55, 2008, pp. 155-168.
  8. ↑ Pamela Hutchinson: In need of rehabilitation: Bernard Natan, the Holocaust victim who saved France's film industry. In: The Guardian , December 14, 2015, with film preview.
personal data
SURNAME Natan, Bernard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pine juice, Nuham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian-French director
DATE OF BIRTH July 14, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Jassy , Romania
DATE OF DEATH 1942
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp