PAGE, LOUIS

(1905-1990)

Cameraman and cinematographer. Born in Lyon, Louis Page began his career as a painter before turning to the cinema. He got his start in film as an assistant toJean Cocteauon the filmLe Sang d'un poète(1930). Afterward he turned away from directing to cinematography, no doubt because of his ability to influence the visual elements of a film, and he is, in fact, known for his highly focused, nearly poetic film images. He is associated withLe Réalisme poétiqueor poetic realism of the 1930s, since he was the cinematographer for a number of directors associated with the movement. Page also worked with directors not associated with that movement, although nearly all of the directors with whom he worked in the 1930s had a strong interest in visual poetics. Among the 1930s films to which he contributed wereMarcel L'Herbier'sLe Parfum de la dame en noir(1931),René Clair'sLe Quatorze Juillet(1933),Jacques Feyder'sLa Kermesse héroïque(1935), Léonide Moguy'sLe Mioche(1936), Pierre Billon'sCourrier sud(1936) andLa Bataille silencieuse(1937),Jacques Becker'sLa Vie est à nous(1936),Marcel Carné'sDrôle de drame(1936) andLe Quai de brumes(1938), andPierre Chenal'sL'Affaire Lafarge(1938).

In the 1940s, Page worked on far less well-known films; however his focus remained independent films, often with the same directors he had worked with in the 1930s. He also began to work on more commercially oriented films, particularly during the postwar period. Among those to which he contributed were Billon'sLe Soleil a toujours raison(1943),Jean Grémillon'sLumière d'été(1943),Le Ciel est à vous(1944), and his D-Day documentaryLe 6 Juin,à l'aube(1945),Marc Allegret'sL'Arlésienne(1942) andFélicie Nanteuil(1945), André Malraux'sL'Espoir(1945), André Zwoboda'sFrançois Villon(1945),Christian-Jacque'sSortilèges(1946) andUn revenant(1946),Georges Lacombe'sLe Pays sans étoiles(1946), Marel Blistène'sMacadam (1946),René Clément'sAu-delà des grilles(1949), and André Cayatte, Jean Dréville,Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Georges Lampin'sRetour à la vie(1949).

During the 1950s and 1960s, Page worked largely in the popular cinema.The 1950s, in any case, are not known for having produced avant-garde cinema and Page was not associated withLa Nouvelle Vagueor the New Wave, the avant-garde movement of the 1960s. He did contribute to several well-known detective and crime films during the period, probably since the force and focus of his images lent themselves well to those genres. He worked, for example, on Gilles Grangier'sLe Rouge est mis(1957),Le Désordre de la nuit(1958), andMaigret voit rouge(1963),Jean Delannoy'sMaigret tend un piège(1958) andMaigret et l'affaire Saint-Fiacre(1959),Henri Verneuil'sMélodie en sous-sol(1963), and Alex Joffé'sLa Grosse caisse(1964).

Page's other focus during these decades was on drama, although he did do the occasional comedy. Films on which he worked include Lampin'sLes Anciens de Saint-Loup(1950),Louis Daquin'sMaître après Dieu(1951), Grémillon'sL'Etrange Madame X(1951) andL'Amour d'une femme(1954), Lacombe'sLa Lumière d'en face(1955), Verneuil'sDes gens sans importance(1955) andLe Président(1961), Allegret'sEn effeuillant la marguerite(1955), Denys de La Patellière'sLes Grandes familles(1958) andRue des Prairies(1959), Gangier'sArchimède,le clochard(1959) andLe Cave se rebiffe(1961), Delannoy'sLe Baron de l'écluse(1960),Jean-Paul Le Chanois'sMonsieur(1964), and Pierre Prévert'sA la belle étoile(1966), which was Page's final film. It is interesting to note that many of the films on which Page worked featured the great actorJean Gabin, and it is, for the most part, Page's chiseled images of Gabin that have passed into memory.