STUDIO FILM D'ART

Founded in May 1908 by French businessman Paul Lafitte, Studio Film d'Art was created to fit Lafitte's conception of cinema, which was that film should reproduce, onscreen, great works of literature. To that end, Lafitte hired directorCharles Le Bargyand playwright Henri Lavedan to make film versions of several "great works" of literature, and he built a glass-house studio (partly financed by Pathé), which was a type of early film studio constructed of steel and glass in order to allow for maximum exposure to natural light, in which these films were to be made. This type of filmmaking was later calledfilm d'art, regardless of where the films were made. Film d'Art made a number of such literary films, among themL'Assassinat du Duc de Guise(1908),Le Retour d'Ulysse(1909),Carmen(1910), andCamille Desmoulins(1911). Film d'Art went out of business in 1911 due to financial problems. Nonetheless, the studio was central in promoting the idea that cinema could rival the theater and other "higher" arts and in pushing a more literary type of cinema.