Jean Oser

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Jean Oser (born January 18, 1908 in Strasbourg , Alsace , Germany ; † February 20, 2002 in Regina , Canada ; actually Hans Oser ) was a German-American film editor .

Life

The Alsatian Hans Oser had to call himself Jean Oser after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by France at the end of 1918. He came to Berlin at a young age, where he made contact with the cinema avant-garde. At the age of 19 he appeared in Hans Richter's experimental silent film Morning Spook . From Richter, Oser learned the basics of filmmaking, especially the importance of editing techniques. In 1929 Carl Froelich brought him in and had Oser, together with Wolfgang Loé Bagier , edit Froelich's first sound film The night belongs to us . Oser's cutting technique impressed Froelich's colleague GW Pabst so much that he brought Oser into his team in 1930. For Pabst, Oser edited the most important early sound films West Front 1918 , Die Dreigroschenoper und Kameradschaft . When Pabst moved to Paris in 1932 , Oser followed him and also edited his follow-up works Die Herrin von Atlantis , Don Quixote and Du haut en bas involved.

Since the National Socialists had taken power in Germany in the meantime , the pacifist and Left Oser decided to stay in France. Oser's follow-up work in France was of little significance. On the eve of the Second World War , Jean Oser staged Le Monde en armes, a cinematic outcry against the arms race and lust for war. Immediately afterwards, in early 1940, Oser cut Max Ophüls ' historical drama Von Mayerling bis Sarajevo . The German occupation of France forced Osers to flee that same year, who initially found protection in the unoccupied part of the country. In the summer of 1942 he escaped to the USA. There, together with two colleagues, he edited the short propaganda documentary about the Resistance Salute to France for Jean Renoir . A little later he became a US citizen.

After the end of the war, Oser stayed in the USA and now concentrated on the production (direction) and editing (final editing) of mostly short to medium-length film documentaries. He received an Oscar for his work on The Light in the Window . In the early 1960s he cut a documentary series for television about the British war premier Winston Churchill , and in the middle of the same decade one about US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt . In later years Oser also taught film students in Canada, was Professor of the Department of Film and Video and (1989) Professor Emeritus at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan.

In honor of Oser, a prize was awarded to students of the Department of Film and Video, the annual "Jean Oser Prize". In 1990 he received the “Liftetime Award for Excellence in the Arts” in his adopted home Canada, the following year Oser could be seen in the German film documentary Der Andere Blick , in which he spoke about the collaboration with his most important sponsor, Pabst.

Filmography

literature

  • Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. Acabus-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , p. 377 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oser, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oser, Hans (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American film editor
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg , Alsace , Germany
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 2002
Place of death Regina , Canada