Clement-Maurice

Clément-Maurice was the stage name of the French photographer Clément Maurice Gratioulet (born March 22, 1853 in Aiguillon , † July 15, 1933 in Sanary-sur-Mer ), who also made a name for himself as a director, film producer and screenwriter.

Life

Initially employed in the Lumière factories , where he joined in 1894, he became a portrait photographer in Paris, where he settled in Antoine Lumière's studio on the Boulevard des Italiens above the Robert Houdin Theater. The future filmmaker Georges Méliès happened to be the owner of this theater . This made it easier to enter the world of cinematography .

In 1897 he was a photographer for the Parisian open-air edition PARIS of the series "Le Beau Pays de France" of the Universal Library in Color .

From 1898 to 1906 he was the cameraman for the surgeon Eugène Doyen , for whom he shot around sixty operations for training purposes. He worked there with Ambroise-François Parnaland (1854-1913), who in 1908 with Charles Jourjon (1876-1934) founded the Éclair Laboratories .

In 1899 the production company Association frères Lumière hired him as a cameraman and technician for the filming of the film car race Meulan-Paris . He quickly began producing and directing feature films such as The Duel of Hamlet Cyrano by Bergerac .

With Henri Lioret , he developed the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre , a pioneering sound cinema system that was presented at the 1900 World's Fair.

family

Clement Maurice was married to Émilie. Together they had a son Léopold Maurice, who also became a photographer and founder of a public company.

Filmography

• 1900: The duel of Hamlet
• 1900: Mrs. Sans-Gêne
• 1900: Romeo and Juliet
• 1900: Cyrano by Bergerac
• 1911: the useless sacrifice

literature

• Laurent Mannoni: Clément-Maurice . In: Richard Abel (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Routledge, London et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-77856-5 , p. 131

Web links

• Clément-Maurice (Clément Maurice Gratioulet) in Who's Who of Victorian Cinema