Ferdinand Zecca

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Ferdinand Zecca (born February 19, 1864 in Paris , † March 23, 1947 in Saint-Mandé ) was a French film director and pioneer of French film .

Life

He worked as a coffee house entertainer before moving to film in 1899. He was employed by Pathé as a director and made his first film Le muet mélomane (1899). Along with Georges Hatot and Lucien Nonguet , he was the most important and most successful director of early Pathé productions. For the ideas of his films, he made use of other film productions, such as those of Georges Méliès , in a way that was not unusual at the time . Zecca created public appeal mass-produced goods, including with Histoire d'un crime (1901) the first thriller of cinematic history . Also in 1901 he directed Les enfants du Capitaine Grant , the first film version of Jules Verne's novel The Children of Captain Grant .

Occasionally, Zecca also appeared as an actor and producer. His 1903 film La vie et la passion de Jésus Christ, co-directed with Nonguet, is one of his most important. With a running time of around 45 minutes, it is the oldest feature film that has survived. Zecca worked continuously until 1915 when he went to the United States to head a Pathé subsidiary. Back in France, he stopped working as a director in 1919 after directing two more films.

In 1920 he took over the management of cine film production at Pathé Frères , which increasingly withdrew from film production itself, and retired in 1939.

Filmography (in excerpts)

1901 The story of a crime

1903 La vie et la passion de Jésus Christ

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Zecca, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French film director and pioneer of French film
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1947
Place of death Saint-Mandé