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

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. He was one of the first film director and screenwriter of the Pathé company.

Biography

Lucien Nonguet was born on 10 May 1869 in

Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...

, 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 Innovator, 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 inter ...

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 writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, especi ...

. 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 ''Vie et Passion du Christ'' (English: ''Life and Passion of the Christ'') is a 44-minute French silent film that was produced and released in 1903. As such, it is one of the earliest feature-length narrative films. The film, with sequences made ...

, released in 1903. Nonguet also directed alone a number of films at Pathé, specialising in historical reconstructions or reconstructed

Actuality films The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coh ...

, 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 ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

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 Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking * ...

. He died on 22 June 1955 in Fay-aux-Loges, 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'' (french: Guillaume Tell, link=no; it, Guglielmo Tell, link=no) is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Sch ...

'' * 1903: ''

Don Quichotte ''Don Quichotte'' (''Don Quixote'') is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Caïn. It was first performed on 19 February 1910 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Massenet's ''comédie-héroïque'', like many dramatize ...

'' * 1903: ''Le Chat botté'' * 1903: ''

'' * 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 ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. * 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 ''Au pays noir'' is a 1905 French silent short film directed by Ferdinand Zecca and Lucien Nonguet, and distributed in english-speaking countries under the titles ''In the Mining District'' (World-wide, English title), ''Down in the Coal Mines'' ...

'', d'après '' Germinal'' by

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

* 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

. * 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 Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) (1 ...

. * 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 film-making 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 Fantasy film directors French film directors Silent film directors