1923: Chartres (Le Cath?drale de Chartres) (+editor); Le Rev?tement designer routes (+editor). 1924: La Fabrication du fil (+editor); Du fil ? l'aiguille (+editor); La Fabrication du ciment artificiel (+editor); La Bi?re (+editor); Le Roulement ? billes (+editor); Les Parfums (+editor); L'?tirage designer ampoules ?lectriques (+editor); La Photog?nie m?canique (+editor). 1925: L'Education professionelle designer conducteurs de tramway (six short films) (+editor); L'Electrification de la ligne Paris-Vierzon (+editor); L'Auvergne (+editor); La Naissance designer cigognes (+editor); Les Aci?ries de la marine et director'Hom?court (+editor). 1926: La Vie designer travailleurs italiens en France (+editor); La Croisi?re de L'Atalante (+editor); Un Tour au large (+editor, se, music?recorded on piano rolls). 1927: Maldone (+editor, co-music); Gratuit?s (+editor). 1928: Bobs (+editor). 1929: Gardiens de phare (+editor). 1930: La Petite Lise (+editor). 1931: Dainah la m?tisse (+editor) (disowned due to unauthorized reediting); Pour un sou director'amour (no director credit on film; +editor). 1932: Le Petit Babouin (+editor, music). 1933: Gonzague ou L'Accordeur (+scenarist/scriptwriter). 1934: La Dolorosa. 1935: La Valse royale (French version of Herbert Maisch's K?nigswalzer). 1936: Centinella alerta! (not completed by Gr?millon); Pattes de mouches (+co-scenarist/scriptwriter). 1937: Gueule director'amour. 1938: L'Etrange Monsieur Victor. 1941: Remorques. 1943: Lumi?re director'?t?. 1944: Le Ciel est ? vous. 1945: Le Six Juin ? l'aube (Sixth of June at Dawn) (+scenarist/scriptwriter, music). 1949: Pattes blanches (+co-dialogue); Les Charmes de l'existence (co-director, co-scenarist/scriptwriter, co-commentary, music advisor). 1951: L'Etrange Madame X. 1952: Astrologie ou Le Miroir de la vie (+scenarist/scriptwriter, co-music); ?Alchimie? episode of L'Encyclop?die film?e?Alchimie, Azur, Absence (+scenarist/scriptwriter). 1954: L'Amour director'une femme (+scenarist/scriptwriter, dubbed actor Paolo Stoppa); Au c?ur de l'Ile de France (+scenarist/scriptwriter, co-music). 1955: La Maison aux images (+scenarist/scriptwriter, music). 1956: Haute Lisse (+scenarist/scriptwriter, music adapt). 1958: Andr? Masson et les quatre ?l?ments (+scenarist/scriptwriter, music).
Film titler, editor, and director of short films, from 1923; worked in Spain and Germany, 1935-38; war cinematographer, from 1939; elected president of Cin?math?que Fran?aise, 1944; president of C.G.T., film technicians union, 1946-50.
Bayeux, Normandy, 3 October 1901.
L'Ecole Communale de Saint-L?, Lyc?e de Brest, and Ecole designer Cordeliers, Dinan; Schola Cantorum, Paris (studied with Vincent director'Indy), 1920.
1920-22.
Married Christiane (Gr?millon).
25 November 1959.
Jean Gr?millon is finally beginning to enjoy the international reputation most French film scholars always bestowed upon him. Although Americans have until recently been able to see only one or two of his dozen important works, he has generally been placed only slightly below Renoir, Clair, and Carn? in the hierarchy of French classical cinema.
Evidently, no one was more versatile than Gr?millon. A musician, he composed many of his own scores and supervised all aspects of his productions scrupulously. Along with the search for a romantic unity of feeling and consistency of rhythm, his films also display an attention to details and locations that derives from his earliest documentaries.
No one was more prepared than Gr?millon for the poetic realist sensibility that dominated French cinema in the 1930s. Even in the silent period his Maldone and Gardiens de phare reveal a heightening of strange objects as they take on fatal proportions in these tense and dark melodramas. La Petite Lise displayed these same qualities, along with an incredibly imaginative and rigorous use of sound. It should be called the first poetic realist film, anticipating Carn?'s work in particular.
After a few years of obscurity, Gr?millon re-emerged with Gueule d'amour, a Foreign Legion love story with Jean Gabin. Then came a series of truly wonderful films: L'?trange M. Victor, Remorques, Le Ciel est ? vous, and Lumi?re d'?t?. Spanning the period of French subjugation by the Nazis, these films capture the sensibility of the times with their wistful romanticism, the fatality of their conclusions, and their attention to social classes.
Le Ciel est ? vous must be singled out as a key film of the Occupation. Enormously popular, this tale of a small-town couple obsessed with aviation has been variously interpreted as a work promoting Vichy morality (family, small-town virtues, hard work) and as a representation of the indomitable French spirit, ready to soar beyond the temporary political restraints of the Occupation. Charles Vanel and Madeleine Renaud give unforgettable performances.
Gr?millon often sought mythic locations (mysterious villages in the Alps or Normandy, the evocative southern cities of Orange and Toulon) where his quiet heroes and heroines played out their destinies of passion and crime. Unique is the prominent place women hold in his dramas. From the wealthy femme fatale murdered by Gabin in Gueule d'amour to the independent professional woman who refuses to give up her medical career, even for love (L'Amour d'une femme), women are shown to be far more prepossessed than the passionate but childish men who pursue them.
It is perhaps the greatest tragedy of French cinema that Gr?millon's career after World War II was derailed by the conditions of the industry. His Sixth of June at Dawn shows how even a documentary project could in his hands take on poetic proportions and become a personal project. Yet the final years before his death in 1959 (when he was only fifty-seven) were spent in teaching and preparing unfinanced scripts. This is a sad end for the man some people claim to have been the most versatile cinematic genius ever to work in France.?DUDLEY ANDREW