Lucien Henri Nonguet (10 May 1869 – 22 June 1955) was a French

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

. He was one of the first film directors and screenwriters of the Pathé company.

Biography

Lucien Nonguet was born on 10 May 1869 in

Poitiers Poitiers is a city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune in France, commune, the capital of the Vienne (department), Vienne department and the historical center of Poitou, Poitou Province. In 2021, it had a population of 9 ...

, the son of dramatic artist Josué Nonguet (1831-1881). He was first an actor and director of extras at the theatre, among others at the Châtelet and l'Ambigu. Nonguet was hired on at Pathé in 1901 as assistant to

Ferdinand Zecca Ferdinand Zecca (19 February 1864 – 23 March 1947) was a pioneer French film director, film producer, actor and screenwriter. He worked primarily for the Pathé company, first in artistic endeavors then in administration of the internationall ...

and director of figuration. This function, which in the theatre consisted of recruiting and directing actors for the needs of a play, was to become the forerunner of the director's job at the beginning of the cinema. Zecca and Nonguet began a series of important collaborations, starting in 1901 with ''Quo Vadis'', based on the eponymous novel by

Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish epic writer. He is remembered for his historical novels, such as The Trilogy, the Trilogy series and especially ...

. This was followed by the féérie, ''La Belle au bois dormant'', in 1902. The best known of the Zecca/Nonguet collaborations is the 44 minutes silent film Vie et Passion du Christ, released in 1903. Nonguet also directed alone a number of films at Pathé, specialising in historical reconstructions or reconstructed Actuality films, composed of a series of tableaux, filmed in long shots with no camera movement, and often based on photographs or paintings of the events depicted. ''Épopée Napoléonienne'' (1903), a two-part epic of the life of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

seems to have been the model upon which Pathé's later histories and actualities were based. Other historical films directed by Nonguet include '' La Révolution en Russie'' (1905) and ''La Saint Barthelemy'' (1905). In 1920, Lucien Nonguet left the Pathé company to become director of the Alhambra-Saint-Ouen cinema. He died on 22 June 1955 in

Fay-aux-Loges Fay-aux-Loges () is a Communes of France, commune the Loiret Departments of France, department in Centre-Val de Loire Regions of France, region in north-central France and about southwest of Paris. Geography Fay-aux-Loges is located in the sept ...

, a village in the

Loiret Loiret (; ) is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of north-central France. It takes its name from the river Loiret, which is contained wholly within the department. In 2019, Loiret had a population of 680,434.

, about southwest of Paris.

Selected filmography

* 1902 : ''Quo Vadis'' * 1902 : ''La Belle au bois dormant'' * 1903: ''Massacres de Macédonie'' * 1903: ''Assassinat de la famille royale de Serbie'' * 1903: ''Le Pape Léon XIII au Vatican'' * 1903: ''La Mort du pape Léon XIII'' * 1903: ''Épopée napoléonienne - Napoléon Bonaparte'' * 1903: ''Épopée napoléonienne - L'Empire'' / ''L'Empire, grandeur et décadence'' * 1903: ''

Guillaume Tell William Tell (, ; ; ; ) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for Shooting an apple off one's child's head, shooting an apple off his son's head. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a cro ...

'' * 1903: '' Don Quichotte'' * 1903: ''Le Chat botté'' * 1903: '' Vie et Passion du Christ'' * 1904: ''Évènements russo-japonais'' (several short films) * 1904: ''L'Assassinat du ministre russe de l'Intérieur Viatcheslav Plehve''Russian interior Minister was killed on 15 July 1904 by a bomb thrown at his car in a street in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. * 1904: ''L'Incendie du théâtre Iroquois à Chicago'' * 1905: ''Vie et passion de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ'' * 1905: ''Les Troubles de Saint-Pétersbourg'' * 1905: ''La Saint-Barthélémy'' * 1905: '' La Révolution en Russie'' * 1905: '' Au Pays Noir'', d'après '' Germinal'' by

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

* 1905: ''Atrocités antisémites russes'' * 1905: '' L'Assassinat du grand-duc Serge'' * 1905: ''L'Incendiaire'' * 1905: ''Les Petits vagabonds'' * 1905: ''Dix femmes pour un mari'' * 1905: ''Les Martyrs de l'Inquisition'' * 1906: ''Pour la fête de sa mère'' * 1906: ''Terrible angoisse'' * 1906: ''Les Dessous de Paris'' * 1907: ''Idée d'apache'' * 1907: '' À Biribi, disciplinaires français'' * 1907: ''Une mauvaise vie'' * 1907: ''La Vie de Polichinelle'' * 1908: ''Victime de sa probité'' * 1908: ''Le Bébé'' * 1908: ''La Belle au bois dormant'' * 1908: ''Le Roman d'un malheureux'' * 1908: ''L'Affaire Dreyfus'', co-directed with

. * 1910: ''Max prend un bain'' * 1919: ''Les Trois potards'' * 1919: ''Frédy chef costumier'' * 1919: ''Les Deux paillassons'' * 1920: ''Une institution modèle'' * 1907 to 1914: Several films in the series ''Max'', starring

Max Linder Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle (16 December 18831 November 1925), known professionally as Max Linder (), was a French actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and comedian of the silent film era. His onscreen persona "Max" was one of the first r ...

. * 1905 to 1913: Several films in the series ''Gontran'', starring .

References

External links

Lucien Nonguet Filmography
at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

website
Lucien Nonguet Filmography (in French)
at Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nonguet, Lucien 1869 births 1955 deaths French fantasy film directors French film directors French silent film directors French screenwriters