Léon Poirier (25 August 1884 – 27 June 1968) was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer best known for his silent films from 1913 onwards. He directed some 25 films between 1913 and 1949. His most famous film today is '' Verdun: Visions of History'', a drama-documentary depicting the
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (french: Bataille de Verdun ; german: Schlacht um Verdun ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
. His later films adopted a form of poetic realism influenced by pictorialist photography.
Life
Poirier was the nephew of Berthe Morisot. He began his career in the theatre, as secretary of the Théâtre du Gymnase. Following a serious accident, he withdrew from theatrical productions and accepted a contract from Gaumont to make a film. In 1914 with the outbreak of war, he joined the army and became a lieutenant in the artillery, even though his accident exempted him from duty.
At the end of the conflict he returned to filmmaking, creating a large number of films in the silent era, but reducing his output after the advent of sound. Most of these works adopted a form of pictorialist naturalism.Ian Aitken, ''European Film Theory and Cinema: A Critical Introduction'', Edinburgh University Press, 2001, p.70
In 1928 Poirier completed '' Verdun: Visions of History'', a dramatized documentary about the battle. The film was shot on site of the carnage. Poirier utilised, ten years after the conflict, the battlefield and the ruins of the forts of Vaux and
Douaumont
Douaumont () is a former commune in the Meuse department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. On 1 January 2019, it was merged into the new commune Douaumont-Vaux.Urval where he died in 1968.
Narayana
Narayana (Sanskrit: नारायण, IAST: ''Nārāyaṇa'') is one of the forms and names of Vishnu, who is in yogic slumber under the celestial waters, referring to the masculine principle. He is also known as Purushottama, and is co ...
Geneviève
Genevieve (french: link=no, Sainte Geneviève; la, Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; 419/422 AD –
502/512 AD) is the patroness saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast is on 3 January.
Genevieve was born in Nanterre an ...
The Call of Silence
''The Call of Silence'', also screened as ''The Call'' (French: ''L'Appel du Silence''), is a 1936 French drama film directed by Léon Poirier and starring Jean Yonnel, Pierre de Guingand and Jacqueline Francell. It is a biography based on the ...
1913 in film
1913 was a particularly fruitful year for film as an art form, and is often cited one of the years in the decade which contributed to the medium the most, along with 1917.
The year was one where filmmakers of several countries made great artist ...