Georges Franju

Georges Franju was a French filmmaker He was born in Fougères IlleetVilaine Before working in French cinema Franju had several different jobs Franju was also briefly in the military in Algeria and was discharged in 1932 On his return Franju studied to become a set designer and later created backdrops for music halls including Casino de Paris and the Folles Bergère In the midthirties Franju and Henri Langlois met through Franjus twin brother Jacques Franju As well as creating the 16 mm short film Le Métro Langlois and Franju also started a shortlived film magazine and created a film club called Le Cercle du Cinema with 500 francs he borrowed from Langlois parents The club showed silent films from their own collections followed by an informal debate about them amongst members From Le Cercle du Cinema Franju and Langlois founded the Cinématheque Française in 1936 Franju ceased to be closely related with the Cinématheque Française as early as 1938 and only became associated with it strongly again in the 1980s when he was appointed as the honorary artistic director of the Cinématheque In 1949 Franju began work on a series of nine documentary films The Nazi occupation of Paris and the industrialism following World War II influenced Franjus early works With Head Against the Wall FrenchLa tête contre les murs in 1958 Franju turned toward fiction feature films His second feature was the horror film Eyes Without a Face FrenchLes Yeux sans Visage about a surgeon who tries to repair his daughters ruined face by grafting on to it the faces of beautiful women His 1963 film Judex was a tribute to the silent film serials Judex and Fantomas In Franjus later years his film work became less frequent Franju occasionally directed for television and in the late seventies he retired from filmmaking to preside over the Cinématheque Française In her study of French cinema since the French new wave Claire Clouzot described Franjus film style as a poignant fantastic realism inherited from surrealism and Jean Painlevé science cinema and influenced by the expressionism of Lang and Murnau Franjus focus was on the visual aspect of filmmaking which he claimed marked a director as an auteur Franju claimed to not have the story writing gift and was focused on what he described as the putting into form of the film Franju was also extremely influenced by surrealism He used elements of surrealism and shock horror within his films in order to awaken his audience Franju had a long history of friendship with wellknown surrealists including Andre Breton and the influence of this movement is extremely evident in his works Franju uses these elements to link horror history and an ironic commentary on modernitys ideal of progress Franju is quoted as having said Its the bad combination its the wrong synthesis constantly being made by the eye as it looks around that stops us from seeing everything as strange Description above from the Wikipedia article Georges Franju licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia