Segundo de Chomón

Segundo de Chomón

Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz (born October 17, 1871 in Teruel , Aragon , Spain , † May 2, 1929 in Paris , France ) was a Spanish film pioneer.

He gained prominence as a silent film director and as an expert in technical special effects in films such as Cabiria (1914) - by Giovanni Pastrone aka Piero Fosco and Napoleón (1927) by Abel Gance .

Often compared to Georges Méliès , the great technical quality and artistic creativity of his films made him one of the great cineastes of his time, who was signed by the most important film studios such as Pathé or Itala .

life and work

La maison ensorcelée (1908) by Segundo de Chomón

Pioneering days of film (1895–1905)

Chomón's early years are not fully documented. He apparently began engineering studies, and it is not known if he actually graduated. Between 1895 and 1897 he made a trip to Paris . There he met the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers and met Julienne Mathieu , whom he married.

Between 1897 and 1898 he did military service in Cuba . When he returned to Paris in late 1899, he studied the new invention of film. He helped his wife, who was busy with the manual coloring of the film strips taken by Méliès, and designed celluloid stencils that made this work easier and ensured greater precision. This system was later patented by Pathé under the name "Pathécolor".

In 1902 he settled in Barcelona and opened a workshop based on his coloring system. He built his own film camera and created his first work in which he used special effects with the help of model replicas: Choque de trenes ( Eng . " Collision of two trains"). Monserrat was established in the same year .

In the following year he made several films based on fantastic stories from Edition Callejas and in which he experimented with double exposures and fade-ins. As a result, he created gigantic effects in films such as Pulgarcito (the Thumbnail) and Gulliver en el país de los Gigantes ( Gulliver in the land of the giants). He perfected time-lapse techniques, which consisted of combining individual images and which he used in the film Eclipse de sol (Solar Eclipse, 1905).

During his time in Barcelona he made contacts with early Catalan film producers from Hispano Films who made films about popular or historical events. For them he made other films such as Los guapos del Parque (The great guys in the park), Se da de comer and Los sitios de Chile (locations in Chile), all of which were made in the same year (1905).

At Pathé (1906–1909)

Le Specter rouge (1907)

Signed by Studio Pathé, Segundo de Chomón settled back in Paris. Thanks to a monopoly on film material, the Pathé brothers were the most important film producers of the time. He returned to Spain to document the wedding of King Alfonso XIII , but his masterpieces were created in studios in France. He was both cameraman and special effects director and has made numerous fantastic films. In this discipline he was in competition with the producers of Méliès, which lasted until the end of the decade. To keep up with Méliès, Pathé relied mainly on the director Ferdinand Zecca and Segundo de Chomón.

During these years Segundo de Chomón created special effects for films such as La gallina de los huevos de oro (The Hen that Lays the Golden Eggs, 1905) directed by Albert Capellani ; El hijo del diablo (The Son of the Devil, 1906), by Charles-Lucien Lépine and Excursión a la luna (The Journey to the Moon), El pescador de perlas (The Pearl Fisherman ) and Vida y pasión de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo (Life and Suffering our Lord Jesus Christ), all by Ferdinand Zecca . In the last film he used a moving platform for tracking shots indoors. In contrast to outdoor shots, which the Lumière brothers occasionally took from trams, trains and ships, this meant significant progress for indoor shots.

Hotel eléctrico ( 1908 )

Alarde equilibrista (The Boast of the tightrope walker, 1908) was largely recorded from the ceiling to play circus acts. In the same year, Escultor moderno (The modern sculptor), El castillo encantado (The fairy tale castle), El teatro de Bob (Bob's theater) and, already in 1909, El sueño de un cocinero (The cook's dream) were created. For these films he developed new techniques by using animation with the help of drawings and modeling made of clay.

The most important opus of this era, however, was El hotel eléctrico (The electric hotel, 1908). This work, whose 140 film meters were based primarily on time-lapse effects using newly composed film snippets, represented the climax of this technique. The film was set in a fully automated hotel, where the brushes move by themselves, the shoes lace themselves and all the devices in the suite work without human assistance.

Another important film was Una excursión incoherente (A not entirely coherent excursion, 1909), which was made under the influence of the Parisian avant-garde group of the "incoherents", forerunners of the Dadaists and the Surrealists .

Years of creation of the Spanish film industry (1910–1912)

In 1910, Segundo de Chomón returned to Barcelona, ​​where he teamed up with vaudeville artist Joan Fuster Garí. A total of 37 films with popular themes were made in the new company. Among them were funny ( Venganza de un carbonero - Revenge of a charcoal burner, La fecha de Pepín ), historical ( El ejemplo - The example, Pragmática real - Royal pragmatics, Justicias del rey don Pedro - The justice of King Pedro), melodramatic ( La expiación - The penance, Amor gitano - Gypsy love , La manta del caballo - The horse blanket , El puente de la muerte - The death bridge, La hija del guardacostas - The daughter of the coast guard ) and fantastic films ( La gratitud de las flores - thanks to the flowers) .

Frame from a Chomón film: Burgos voyage (1910 or 1911).

He also brought Sainetes and Zarzuelas to the screen, thereby helping to develop a popular Spanish type of film. Works from this category were Los guapos (The Beaus), El puñao de rosas (A handful of roses), Las carceleras (The prison guards), La tempranica y El pobre Valbuena (The poor Valbuena).

From June 1910, Segundo de Chomón made films on his own account as a licensee of the Pathé company. Films such as Lucha fratricida o Nobleza Aragonesa (Fatal Brotherly Fight or Aragonese Nobility), Los pobres de levita , Los dulces de Arturo (Arturs confectionery), Una farsa de Colás (A farce from Colás) and Flema inglesa (English cold-bloodedness) were made. In November of the same year he ended his collaboration with Fuster and therefore had more studio available for filming. He used this time for documentaries such as La heroica Zaragoza (Heroic Saragossa) and Gerona: la Venecia española (Gerona: the Spanish Venice).

Pathé helped Segundo de Chomón and acquired a production studio for him, the "Ibérico", for which he made eleven films between August 1910 and March 1912. These show noticeable advances in the details of film technology, which are documented in the original scripts that have survived to this day. The actions and narrative structures are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated. The editing sequences of films such as El talismán del vagabundo and Soñar despierto show a clear development in the composition of the locations and the targeted use of match cuts . Flashbacks, prolepsis and the montage of simultaneous actions in chase scenes are also used.

For the film El gusano solitario (The Hermit Worm , 1912), Segundo de Chomón worked with one of the most famous men of the silent comic film, the French André Deed . After Max Linder , this branch of European film was forgotten due to the influence of the First World War . The film was characterized by absurd situations, camera effects and trick techniques, which Segundo de Chomón used with great skill.

At Itala Films in Turin (1912–1923)

Movie poster for Cabiria (1914)

In the spring of 1912 Segundo de Chomón accepted an offer of Turin " Itala film " by Giovanni Pastrone on to work as head of special effects in Turin. He works on numerous films by Pastrones, the first being Padre (father). His work on Cabiria (1914), where Chomón played an important role as a trick specialist and first cameraman , was particularly outstanding . For example, he created a sequence in which Mount Etna erupted and which, thanks to the Schüfftan method, looked very realistic. In addition, he perfected tracking shots on rails indoors, which gave the decorations of oriental buildings a special effect, and developed expressionist lighting that more clearly profiled the actors' bodies and details of the decorations.

In 1914 the First World War broke out, which also hit Italy the following year. The conflagration of the fighting triggered a deep crisis in the film industry, which was mainly due to the rapidly increasing prices of celluloid . Itala Film's studios were used for medical care. Despite the impact on film production, Chomón helped Pastrones on other films such as El fuego (The Fire, 1915), Tigre real (1916), La guerra y el sueño de Momi (The War and Momi's Dream, 1916), where he created puppets by combining them brought to life by single shots, and Hedda Gabler (1919).

Between 1919 and 1921, Segundo de Chomón broke up with the Itala Studios. He was now working on his own account with the production company of the circus artist Luciano Albertini , Albertini Film.

Last years of life (1923–1929)

In 1923 Chomón moved back to Paris. There he worked with Ernest Zollinger , a Swiss engineer, on a color film process for which he won a gold medal at the International Photography, Optics and Film Exhibition in Turin. Three years later he worked on the shooting of the great French film Napoleon by Abel Gance .

Most recently he worked on the Spanish film El negro que tenía el alma blanca (The black man with the white soul, 1926) by Benito Perojo , for which he created a scene in which the actress Concha Piquer dreams of a gigantic monkey.

In his final years he experimented with color film, for example with the Keller-Dorian method in Morocco in 1928 . There he contracted an illness from which he died in Paris the following year.

The importance of his work

Segundo de Chomón was a detail-obsessed technical perfectionist who often spent months working on individual effects that sometimes only lasted a few seconds in the finished film. He was one of the most important pioneers of fantastic film in the silent film era, and his skills can only be compared to that of George Méliès. Therefore, he received a contract with the most important production company of his time, the Pathé brothers, to work with their most important director, Ferdinand Zecca, and so that they could compete with the effects of the "magician" Méliès.

He is responsible for the development of the time lapse from compiled individual images, the climax of which was the 1908 film Hotel eléctrico , as well as the deliberate use of tracking shots on platforms for recordings in designed interiors. He was a genius of trick technology, starting with the coloring of black and white films about the most diverse current effects of his time, such as the use of models, Schüfftan effects , double exposures, fade-ins, pyrotechnics and jokes.

During his years in Barcelona, ​​he also helped to build up his own Spanish film industry and created works that were popular with the people: melodramas, zarzuelas, historical dramas and comedies. In summary, he is one of the most important international filmmakers, thanks to his contribution to the development of the silent film art, who worked with the most important directors and producers of his era in France, Italy and Spain.

Selected Works

• 1902: Choque de trenes , Monserrat .
• 1903: Pulgarcito , Gulliver en el país de los Gigantes .
• 1905: Eclipse de sol , Los guapos del Parque , La gallina de los huevos de oro , director Albert Capellani .
• 1906: El hijo del diablo , director: Lépine. Excursión a la luna , director Ferdinand Zecca.
• 1907: Vida y pasión de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo , El pescador de perlas , both directed by Ferdinand Zecca. La casa encantada , Satan s'amuse , Les ombres chinoises , La Légende du Fantôme , Le Chevalier mystère , Voyage à la planète Jupiter , Le Specter rouge .
• 1908: El hotel eléctrico , Alarde equilibrista , El escultor moderno , El castillo encantado , El teatro eléctrico de Bob , Mars , Cuisine magnétique , La Table magique , Transformation élastique .
• 1909: El sueño de un cocinero , Una excursión incoherente , Les Jouets vivants , Voyage au center de la terre , Voyage dans la lune .
• 1910: Amor Gitano , La expiación , El puente de la muerte , Venganza de un carbonero , La fecha de Pepín , La fatalidad , El ejemplo , Pragmática real , Justicias del rey don Pedro , La manta del caballo , La hija del guardacostas , La gratitud de las flores o Flores y perlas , Los guapos , El puñao de rosas , Las carceleras , La tempranica , El pobre Valbuena , Lucha fratricida o Nobleza Aragonesa , Los pobres de levita , Los dulces de Arturo , Una farsa de Colás , Flema inglesa , Gerona: la Venecia española , La heroica Zaragoza .
• 1911: Pulgarcito
• 1912: El talismán del vagabundo , Soñar despierto , El gusano solitario (by André Deed). Padre , by Giovanni Pastrone (Itala Films).
• 1914: Cabiria .
• 1915: El fuego
• 1916: Tigre real
• 1917: La guerra y el sueño de Momi .
• 1919: Hedda Gabler .
• 1926: El negro que tenía el alma blanca , by Benito Perojo
• 1927: Napoleón , by Abel Gance .

literature

• Agustín Sánchez Vidal: Realizadores aragoneses (= CAI100. No. 46 = Publicación de la Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón. No. 80). Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, Zaragoza 1999, ISBN 84-95306-22-0 .
• Agustín Sánchez Vidal: El cine de Chomón. Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, Zaragoza, 1992.

Web links

Commons : Segundo de Chomón  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Chomón y Ruiz, Segundo de. In: Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (Spanish)
• Biography on datazine.net (Spanish)
• Biography on redaragón.com (Spanish)
• Documentation by TV3 (Catalan)
• Review (english)
• Segundo de Chomón in theInternet Movie Database(English)