Charles Métain
Charles Métain (born December 22, 1900 in Bordeaux , France ) was a French director , screenwriter , cameraman , film producer and sound engineer . He was the older brother of René Métain .
Life
At the age of 22, Métain's film career began with his own directorial work for the silent film Lausbubengeschichten , for which he hired the cameraman Eduardo Lamberti . In the same year he began to direct the camera himself, initially together with Werner Graeff under the direction of Hans Richter for his abstract avant-garde film Rhythmus 23 . When it continued Rhythmus 25 , Métain was already leading the camera alone. In 1928 he directed the camera for Richter's experimental film Inflation . The particular challenge of this collage of documentary images and animated digits was to make visible processes that are generally invisible, such as the increase and devaluation of money, through filmic means.
In 1927 Métain was one of the cameramen of Arnold Fanck's atypical mountain film comedy The Big Jump, together with Sepp Allgeier , Richard Angst , Albert Benitz , Kurt Neubert and Hans Schneeberger . The camera captured fast-paced scenes on the ski slopes that remind today's viewers of corresponding stunts in various James Bond films.
Under Carl Froelich , Métain and Reimar Kuntze directed the camera for the film The Night Belongs to Us (1929) with Hans Albers , Otto Wallburg , Ida Wüst and Lucie Englisch . In the same year he directed the musical film I never believe in a woman again with Richard Tauber , Paul Hörbiger and Gustaf Gründgens under Max Reichmann . The journalist and film theorist Siegfried Kracauer found the tone of the film to be pure and meticulous in nuances.
For the film Lui et moi (1930), he worked in the direction with his younger brother René and Harry Piel . Together with Erwin Scharf, he probably dedicated himself to sound for the first time.
As a result, Métain constructed special clay booms with a swivel function to ensure that the dialogues of all the characters involved in a scene could be understood equally.
In 1930 he was the sound engineer for the feature film 1914 - The Last Days Before the World Fire with Heinrich George , directed by Richard Oswald . In the same year he worked under Georg Wilhelm Pabst alongside Fritz Arno Wagner as cameraman for the anti-war film Western Front 1918 - Four of the Infantry . Siegfried Kracauer noted at the time: “I cannot remember that the war, namely the positional war in its last, most terrible phase, was ever portrayed so realistically in the film. […]… Under the direction of GW Pabst [has] a piece of wartime reality that no one has dared to reconstruct before. [...] During the performance - the film is running in the Capitol - many viewers fled the bar. "It's unbearable," came the sound from behind me; and: "How can you offer us something like that!" Would you like to explain, even in the worst case, that it is unbearable and that you can no longer accept something like this. But just as they shy away from the sight of war, so they usually also flee the knowledge whose realization could prevent it. "
The film, shot on the Bavaria studio premises with replica trenches, was one of the first to be banned by the National Socialists in 1933.
Until 1933 Métain was mainly engaged as a sound engineer, in 1932 he worked on Robert Siodmak's feature film Burning Secret with Willi Forst and the two child stars Hans Joachim Schaufuß and Hans Richter .
In contrast to his younger brother, who was born in Potsdam, Charles Métain left Germany after the cession of power to the National Socialists and returned to France.
Filmography
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Video
- Western Front 1918 , 1:28:48 hours, on: goethe.de
Web links
- Charles Métain in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Charles Métain at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inflation , on: filmportal.de
- ↑ 33rd Regensburg Silent Film Week 2015 . Working Group Film Regensburg e. V., Regensburg 2015, p. 5, on: stummfilmwoche.de
- ↑ The night is ours , on: filmportal.de
- ↑ I never believe in a woman again , on: filmportal.de
- ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung of March 1, 1930. Quoted from: Bernhard Jensen: I never trust a woman again ( Never trust A Woman ) - The Sound for the Film , February 5, 2015, on: jmberlin.de
- ↑ Lui et moi , on: filmportal.de
- ^ Michael Wedel: Film history as a crisis story - cuts and traces through German film . transcript, Bielefeld 2104. ISBN 978-3-8394-1546-7 , p. 170.
- ^ Western Front 1918 , on: filmdienst.de
- ↑ Frankfurter Zeitung of May 27, 1930. Quoted from: Westfront 1918 . In: Film series Good Soldiers - Red Sailors. The First World War in German feature films from 1914 to 1990 (PDF file; 2.3 MB), Deutsche Kinemathek, Museum for Film and Television, DEFA Foundation (publisher), Berlin 1990, pp. 10–11, on: deutsche -kinemathek.de
- ^ Stefan Drößler : Western Front 1918 , on: goethe.de
- ^ Institute for Youth Film Television (ed.): Central Filmography Political Education , Vol. II: 1982 A: Catalog. Springer-Verlag, Munich 2013. ISBN 978-3-322-97155-5 , p. 237.
- ↑ Chris Dähne: The city symphonies of the 1920s - architecture between film, photography and literature . transcript, Bielefeld 2014. ISBN 978-3-8394-2124-6 , p. 360.
- ^ Dietrich Scheunemann (Ed.): Expressionist Film - New Perspectives . Boydell & Brewer, Rochester, NY, 2003. ISBN 978-1-5711-3068-6 , p. 276.
- ^ Horst Peter Knoll: Lexicon of the international film . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-8947-2797-0 .
- ^ Bernhard Chiari, Matthias Rogg, Wolfgang Schmidt: War and the military in the film of the 20th century . Oldenbourg, Munich 2003. ISBN 978-3-4865-6716-8 , p. 339.
- ↑ Mirko Riazzoli: A Chronology of the Cinema , Vol. 1: From the pioneers to 1960 . Youcanprint 2017. ISBN 978-8-8926-8548-2 .
- ↑ Christian Rogowski (ed.): The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema: Rediscovering Germany's Filmic Legacy . Camden House, Rochester, NY, 2010. ISBN 978-1-5711-3429-5 , p. 328.
- ↑ The Rebel - The Fires Call , on: filmportal.de
- ^ Hervé Dumont : Robert Siodmak, le maître du film noir . L'Age de Homme, Lausanne 1981. p. 338.
- ^ Charles Métain , on: filmportal.de
- ^ Charles Métain , on: bfi.org.uk
- ^ Romeo and Juliet in the village , on: viennale.at
- ↑ Histoire d'un monde en miniature , on: cndp.fr
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Métain, Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French cameraman, sound engineer, screenwriter and director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 22nd December 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bordeaux , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th century |