Louis Feuillade was born on February 29, 1873, in Lunel (Hérault-France) to a family of unassuming wine merchants. From his early youth, he manifested a profound interest in literature and worked on many projects for drama and "vaudeville". Some of his poems - obedient to academic precepts of the worst kind - were published in the local press, where he developed a reputation as a fierce critic. He left for Paris in 1898 to earn literary fame. A period of great mystery awaited him, voracious journalist that he was.

Early in 1905, he began to sell his scripts to Gaumont and, a short while later, to direct them. In 1907, he became artistic director for the producers, a position he was to occupy until 1918, and continued with his own production. By 1925, the year of his death, there were some 800 films (in early days in cinema, a film rarely exceeded ten minutes). He made every type of film: experimental films with newly discovered ruses, plagiarism from the great Méliès, comedy, bourgeois drama, period, historical, or Biblical drama, police drama or exotic adventure... Above all, however, were the splendid series of films in episodes where his genius shines forth.

The "Fantômas" series from 1913 resulted in a long apprenticeship during which the series, of realistic ambition, "La Vie Telle Qu'elle Est" had a more important role. This was his first masterpiece and the first masterpiece that modern critics were later to describe as "fantastic realism" or "social realism", both on the literary plane and on the film making plane.

"It is said that, in cinema, there is a Méliès tradition and a Lumière tradition; I believe there is also a Feuillade current that, most wondrously lays hold of the fantastic in Méliès and the realism in Lumière", declared Alain Resnais.

In effect, it is by driving deep into day-to-day reality that Feuillade - no doubt one of the greatest artists in the history of cinema - knows how to lend credibility to even the most unlikely of characters and the most far-fetched of situations.

Because to him, day-to-day reality is only a mask behind which is another reality that is much stronger, much more true, much more real... much more beautiful - a reality of wonder, of the onyric, of the fantastic - in short, filmmaking reality.

"In Feuillade", continues Alain Resnais, "I admire this prodigious poetic instinct that enables him to produce surrealism in the same way as we breathe. It is thanks to this intuition that we owe the extraordinary sequences for the arrangement of "a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table." In Fantômas, the execution squad midst the casks is as beautiful as fighting with ostrich feathers. The garden of Tih-Minh is as unforgettable as the main hall in the guest-house, while the Great Vampire tells the story of his Grandfather, or as unforgettable as a monk setting up a canon in his hotel room. And all of these street scenes, mysterious cars crossing desert paths, parks fenced in, façades of private hotels..." After the 1914 War, Louis Feuillade became one of the most distinguished film makers in the world with his series, namely Fantômas (1913), Les Vampires (1915) and Judex (1916), the three great cycles present in this selection for the 24th Mostra. He also made Tih-Minh (1918) and Barrabas (1919), among others, with their heroes ranking side by side with the great popular myths, that drew millions of spectators.

Less known, for a great part was lost and because of others, only the script is known, his comedy and "vaudeville" must not be overlooked, rather on the contrary. Within the realms of the comical, are the same absurd and suspense situations that meant success to him in the realms of adventure.

Forgotten once the talking pictures were here, only the surrealists declared an enormous admiration for him. His rehabilitation began after the Second World War, owing chiefly to Henri Langlois, who restored his films as from the French Cinematics foundation, and also, to film makers such as Georges Franju (co-founder of the Cinemateca), Alain Resnais, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Luís Buñuel, and many others...

After Les Vampires, his most famous masterpiece together with Fantômas and Judex, was launched as a video in the United States, Time magazine ranked Les Vampires as the second best film in 1998, after O Resgate do Soldado Ryan, by Steven Spielberg.

Subsequent to digital restoration and resonation - only musical - the complete series of five Fantômas was made available on DVD, in November, 1999.

Jacques Champreux