Jean Choux

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Jean Robert Choux (born March 6, 1887 in Geneva , † March 2, 1946 in Paris ) was a Swiss film director and screenwriter .

Life

The French-Swiss had studied law and then worked in his hometown of Geneva as a film theorist and critic (for the specialist publication La revue suisse de cinéma ). There Choux came out as a supporter of the young French film avant-garde. "In his columns (1921-25) he defends the works of Germaine Dulac , Delluc , Gance , Feyder , Epstein and, of course, L'Herbier with passion ." In June 1924 he dared (according to his own script) to direct his first film, La vocation d'André Carrel , with which he also gave the first (still.) Actor Michel Simon , who would later become the most famous actor from Geneva , who would later have a great career in French cinema tiny) film roll made possible. In view of the extremely difficult economic situation for Swiss film directors in their own country, Choux went to Paris as early as 1925 and continued his work behind the camera there.

His oeuvre is characterized by great seriousness and neat seduction. Many of his works are considered strict and cool, they are surrounded by a flair of sadness and drama. Choux made his sound film debut as co-director of the French version of Robert Land's production of Wiener Liebschaften . After he returned to his old homeland in March 1931 to film Blanc comme neige , he succeeded in the same year with Jean de la lune , the story of an "amour fou", his most famous and most important film. Choux signed Michel Simon again, but this time for one of the leading roles.

Choux was regarded as a director of use with a strong tendency towards fateful and sentimental subjects in which the ingredients love and suffering, mothers and children were often and gladly used. With these solemn, solemn fabrics, however, Choux knew not to let the intended seriousness slip into kitsch through his sensitive direction and the formally unobtrusive design. At the beginning of the Second World War, the French by choice moved to Italian studios, but soon returned to France. There he was politically fickle: with his film Port d'attache in 1942 he was still "a spokesman for Pétain ", two years later (1944) Choux wrote a jubilant aria for the liberator of Paris, General Charles de Gaulle .

Choux's last work, I found an angel , at the same time his only post-war film, tells (again in a highly melodramatic form) of a difficult, emotionally charged fate; this time with the problem of returning prisoners of war as a background. Jean Choux passed away during the preparation phase for a film about the pedagogue and social reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi . Two years after his sudden death, the film L'inconnue no.13 was made in France based on Choux's script .

Films (complete)

  • 1925: La vocation d'André Carrel , German The Power of Work (also screenplay)
  • 1926: La terre qui meurt
  • 1927: Hidden sins / Kisses that kill (Le baiser qui tue) (co-director)
  • 1928: Espionnage ou la guerre sans armes
  • 1929: Chacun porte sa croix
  • 1929: La servante
  • 1930: Amours viennoises (co-director)
  • 1931: Blanc comme neige
  • 1931: Un chien qui rapporte
  • 1931: Jean de la lune
  • 1932: Chez les buveurs de sang (documentary, screenplay only)
  • 1932: Le marriage de Mlle. Beulemans
  • 1933: L'ange gardien
  • 1934: La banque Némo (only artistic management)
  • 1934: Le greluchon délicat (co-director)
  • 1934: Motherhood (Maternité)
  • 1936: Paris (also co-script)
  • 1937: Une femme sans importance
  • 1937: Miarka, la fille à l'ourse (also screenplay)
  • 1937: La glu
  • 1938: Paix sur le Rhin
  • 1939: Le café du port (also screenplay)
  • 1939: The Night of Retribution (Angelica / Rose de sang)
  • 1940: La nascità di Salomé
  • 1942: Woman on the Way of the Cross (La femme perdue)
  • 1942: Port d'attache
  • 1943: La boîte aux rêves (co-director)
  • 1945: I found an angel (L'ange qu'on m'a donné) (also co-script)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ several sources name March 6th
  2. ^ Dumont: The history of Swiss film. 1987, p. 94
  3. ^ Dumont: The history of Swiss film. 1987, p. 95
  4. ^ Dumont: The history of Swiss film. 1987

literature

  • Hervé Dumont : The History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965. Lausanne 1987, p. 95.
  • Jean Loup Passek: Dictionnaire du Cinéma. 2nd edition Paris 1992, p. 123.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Choux, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Choux, Jean Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1946
Place of death Paris