Jacques Tourneur

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Jacques Tourneur (born November 12, 1904 in Paris , † December 19, 1977 in Bergerac in the Dordogne department ) was an American film director of French descent. Some of his films such as Cat People or Golden Poison are now considered masterpieces.

life and career

Jacques Tourneur came to the USA in 1914 with his father, the French film director Maurice Tourneur . In 1919 he received American citizenship . In 1929 Tourneur met his future wife, the actress Christiane Virideau, while his father was filming the German film The Ship of Lost People . After assisting his father in his projects, Tourneur made the French film Tout ça ne vaut pas l'amour in 1931 .

As head of the second filming team for David O. Selznick's literary film adaptation Flucht aus Paris (1935), he met director Val Lewton , who asked him to become his first director after taking over the new "horror department" at RKO in 1942. The result were artistically outstanding films like Katzenmenschen (Cat People, 1942) and I Followed a Zombie , and that despite a relatively small budget. In 1947 he achieved a film noir masterpiece with the multi-layered, atmospherically dense film Goldenes Gift with Robert Mitchum , Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer in the leading roles .

After Tourneur in 1950 rejected the dominance of categories of box office earnings for his beloved subject of the western star in My Crown with Joel McCrea out of artistic idealism, he no longer received high-value contracts from the large Hollywood studios, which were primarily oriented towards profit maximization and had to limit himself to producing less well-funded films and television series for the rest of his career. On the one hand, this resulted in filmic contributions oriented towards the mainstream, etc. a. to Bonanza , Incredible Stories (The Twilight Zone) or The Barbara Stanwyck Show , but also artistic films such as the subtle and profound horror classic The Curse of the Demon with Dana Andrews .

Filmography

literature

  • Chris Fujiwara: Jacques Tourneur. The Cinema of Nightfall. McFarland, Jefferson, NC 1998, 328 pp., ISBN 0-7864-0491-4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tourneur, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director of French descent
DATE OF BIRTH November 12, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 19th December 1977
Place of death Bergerac