Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 30 March 1862 |
| Died | 22 June 1913 (aged 51) Paris, France |
| Occupation | silent film director, film writer |
| Spouse(s) | Victorine-Caroline-Adolphine Diey |
Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset (30 March 1862 - 22 June 1913) was an early film pioneer in France, active between the years 1905 and 1913. He worked on many genres of film and was particularly associated with the development of detective or crime serials, such as the Nick Carter and Zigomar series.
Victorin Jasset was born to a pair of innkeepers [1] in Fumay in the Ardennes region of France in 1862, and after studying painting and sculpture with Dalou, he began a career designing theatre costumes and as a decorator of fans. He then became known as the producer and designer of spectacular ballets and pantomimes, notably Vercingétorix in 1900 at the newly built Théâtre de l'Hippodrome in Paris. In 1905 he was hired by the Gaumont Film Company to work with Alice Guy on film productions such as La Esméralda (1905), based on Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and La Vie du Christ (1906), working firstly as a designer and then as assistant director. [2]
After a short period working for the Éclipse film company, Jasset was engaged in 1908 by the new Éclair production company to make film series beginning with Nick Carter, le roi des détectives . The detective hero Nick Carter was based on the series of popular American novels which were then being published in France by the German publisher Eichler. Jasset kept the name of the character but invented new adventures with a Parisian setting. [3] The first six sections that Jasset directed were released at bi-weekly intervals in late 1908, and each one narrated a complete story. [4]
Following another short period working for the small Raleigh & Robert company, Jasset returned to Éclair and travelled to North Africa to produce a series of fiction films and documentaries in Tunisia, taking advantage of its natural light and spectacular locations such as the ruins of Carthage. [5] In the summer of 1910 he returned to Paris to become the "artistic director" of the Éclair studio, having oversight of all the company's production as well as his own film-making unit. [6] In 1911 he made Zigomar, taking his title character from the popular newspaper and magazine stories of Léon Sazie about a master-criminal. This feature-length film was so successful that a second title, Zigomar contre Nick Carter (1912), was made ready within six months, and a third instalment followed in 1913, Zigomar peau d'anguille. Jasset adapted other popular novels such as Gaston Leroux's Balaoo in 1913, and in the same year Protéa, a spy story in which for the first time the title character was a woman, played by a long-time favourite actress of Jasset, Josette Andriot. The Protéa series continued after Jasset's death. [7]
In 1912 Jasset turned from fantasy and spectacle to realism in making a Zola adaptation, as part of Éclair's new series of social dramas. For Au pays des ténèbres, based on Germinal , he took his crew to Charleroi in Belgium to film in authentic locations, and although he updated the story to the present, he went to great lengths to recreate in the studio the detail of the actual mining galleries, exploiting the ability of film to be a recorder of contemporary reality. [8]
Jasset had just embarked on adaptations of two novels by Jules Verne when in June 1913 he became seriously ill. He entered hospital for an operation which initially appeared to be successful, but after a short revival he died in Paris on 22 June 1913. He was buried in the vault of his wife's family in Père Lachaise cemetery. His last film Protéa was released in September, perhaps edited by someone else. [9]
Jasset made over 100 films, and explored many different genres apart from the crime serial. Le Capitaine Fracasse (1909) was a literary adaptation from Théophile Gautier; Journée de grève (1909) a documentary; Hérodiade (1910) a biblical-historical spectacle. [7] Only a very limited number of his films survive.
He was remembered as a man of immense energy, versatility, and concern for detail, and he took particular trouble in his direction of actors. [10] Alexandre Arquillière, who appeared in several of Jasset's films including the role of Zigomar, recalled "a slender grizzled silhouette, with a damaged eye... the tireless energy of this director who did not even take the time to sleep when he was making a film". [11]
The most immediate influence of Jasset's work was seen in the films of Louis Feuillade, who was working at Gaumont and took the film serial to new heights with Fantômas (1913–14), Les Vampires (1915–16) and Judex (1916). These variously developed the roles of the resourceful detective, the master-criminal, and the mysterious woman of action who had previously appeared in Jasset's Nick Carter, Zigomar and Protéa films.
The model of crime and adventure series and serials developed by Jasset and Feuillade was taken up elsewhere in Europe during the next few years: Dr Gar el Hama (1911) in Denmark; Lieutenant Daring (1911- ) in the UK; Tigris (1913) and the Za La Mort series (1914–1924) in Italy. [3] The Pathé company's American branch took the serial to new levels of worldwide popularity with its production of The Perils of Pauline (1914).
Jasset also contributed to early film theory with a journal article in which he analysed film style and the national characteristics of cinema. [12]
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.
Fantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain (1885–1969) and Pierre Souvestre (1874–1914).
The Bonnot Gang was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the late Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang used cutting-edge technology not yet available to the French police.
Émile Eugène Jean Louis Cohl was a French caricaturist of the largely forgotten Incoherent Movement, cartoonist, and animator, called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon" and "The Oldest Parisian".
Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a dime novel private detective in 1886 and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century. The character was first conceived by Ormond G. Smith and created by John R. Coryell. Carter headlined his own magazine for years, and was then part of a long-running series of novels from 1964 to 1990. Films were created based on Carter in France, Czechoslovakia and Hollywood. Nick Carter has also appeared in many comic books and in radio programs.
André Suarès, born Isaac Félix Suarès was a French poet and critic.
Eclair, formerly Laboratoires Eclair, was a film production, film laboratory, and movie camera manufacturing company established in Épinay-sur-Seine, France by Charles Jourjon in 1907. What remains of the business is a unit of Ymagis Group offering creative and distribution services for the motion pictures industries across Europe and North America such as editing, color grading, restoration, digital and theatrical delivery, versioning.
Pierre Souvestre was a French lawyer, journalist, writer and organizer of motor races. He is mostly remembered today for his co-creation with Marcel Allain of the fictional arch-villain and master criminal Fantômas.
Lucien Callamand born Lucien Marie Pascal Eugène Callamand was one of the earliest French film actors whose career spanned six decades of French cinema. Between 1909 and 1965, he starred in at least 115 films.
Harry Baur was a French actor.
Nick Carter, le roi des détectives (1908) is a French silent serial film based on the popular American novels featuring master detective Nick Carter. It was written by Georges Hatot and directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset for the Éclair company. It was released in six episodes, each of which told a complete story, but their release was timed at approximately fortnightly intervals to create a sense of continuity with the audience. The stories were set in Paris.
Josette Andriot was a French film actress of the silent film era, best known for playing the role of Protéa in the series of espionage films made between 1913 and 1919.
Alexandre Arquillière (1870–1953) was a French stage and film actor.
Le Mirage may refer to:
André Liabel was a French actor, film director and screenwriter.
Maurice Ordonneau was a French dramatist and composer. The son of a merchant of eau de vie, Ordonneau was a prolific author in creating theatrical works. He composed, often with the collaboration of other playwrights, composers and musicians, a great number of operettas, opéra-bouffes, comedies and vaudevilles.
Camille de Morlhon was a French film director.
Raymond Deslandes, called Raimond Deslandes, was a 19th-century French journalist, playwright and theater manager.
Jeanne Bérangère was a French stage and film actress whose career spanned nearly forty years on the stage and in films during the silent film era.
Zigomar the Eelskin is a 1913 French crime drama silent film directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset and produced by Éclair. It was the third movie made by Jasset that used the character of Zigomar, and the second sequel to Zigomar. The story is an adaptation of a story of the same name that was published in the French newspaper Le Matin from June 30-August 26, 1912. The film follows Paul Broquet, the chief of police, as he struggles to recapture the escaped crime lord Zigomar and his ally, La Rosaria. The cast consists of Alexandre C. Arquillière as Zigomar, André Liabel as Paul Broquet, and Josette Andrio as La Rosaria. The movie was split into the three parts: The Resurrection of Zigomar, The Elephant Burglar, and The Air Brigand.
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