Реферат: Max Linder

MaxLinder

(1883-1925)

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RepkaNick form 11 ”B”

MaxLinder

(1883-1925)

About Linder

As I have never seen a Max

Linder film, I cannot write anything about him.I have thus

reproduced here two separate articles. Sufficeto say, Walter Kerr in

The Silent Clowns (see books page) rates him asa true pioneer of

film comedy (e.g. the joke of being unveiled ona statue used by

Keaton in The Goat and Chaplin in City Lightswas first used by

Linder).

b. Gabriel-Maximilien

Leuvielle Dec 16 1883, Caverne, France. d.1925.

At 17 he left high school to

study drama and soon after began an actingcareer on the Bordeaux

stage. He moved to Paris in 1904 and startedplaying supporting parts

in melodramas. In 1905 he embarked upon aparallel career in

Pathe films. For three years he spent his daysin the film

studios and his evenings on the stage, usinghis real name in the

theater and the pseudonym Max Linder on thescreen. By 1908 he had

given up the stage to concentrate on hisincreasingly successful

screen career. By 1910 he was aninternationally popular comedian,

possibly the best-known screen comic on eitherside of the Atlantic

in the years before WW I. Typically playing adapper dandy of the

idle class, he developed a style of slapsticksilent screen comedy

that anticipated Mack Sennett and Chaplin andset the premises of the

genre for years to come. Ferdinand Zecca, LouisGasnier, and Alberto

Capelani were among the directors of hisearliest films.

By 1910, Linder was writing

and supervising, and from 1911 also directing,all his own films. His popularity was at its peak in 1914, when he was calledto arms. Early

in the war he was a victim of gas poisoning andsuffered a serious

breakdown. The injury was to have a lastingeffect on his physical and mental well-being. He returned briefly to Frenchfilms, but

finding his popularity vanishing, he accepted abid from Essanay and

left for the US late in 1916. Continuous illhealth hampered the American phase of Linder's career from the start. In mid-1917,after

only three films, he was felled by doublepneumonia and spent nearly

a year recovering in a Swiss sanitarium. Whenhe returned to the US

in 1921, he formed his own production unit,releasing through United

Artists. But after making only three moreAmerican films, including

the celebrated parody (of Fairbanks’ The ThreeMusketeers) The Three Must-Get-Theres, he returned to Europe, where he marriedthe

daughter of a Paris restaurateur in 1923.Linder made two more film

appearances: one in France, the other inAustria, but realized his career was finished. In 1925 he entered a suicidepact with his wife.

Their bodies were discovered side by side in aParis hotel. He

remained forgotten for years, until the 60s,when many of his old

films began turning up, affording filmhistorians an opportunity to

evaluate his career and his contributions tothe evolution of screen

comedy.

Biography from

Quinlan’s Film Comedy Actors

With his foxy brown eyes

matched by a like moustache, cane, elegantcutaway coat, silk cravat,

kid gloves and gleaming top hat, Max Lindercould have been every

inch the French boulevardier who “walked alongthe Bois de

Boulogne with an independent air”--had not, infilms, everything

gone wrong for him. Max Linder was France’sfirst great film

comedian. But not for him any kind of dressthat smacked of the

circus clown. Max was always debonair, even inthe face of disaster.

His early films in France, of which he madescores, are cameos of

catastrophe, little gems which work a varietyof gags on a single

situation, such as taking a bath, gettingdressed, or (quite often,

as the wolfish Max pursued his prey) chasing adamsel. He was

enormously popular in the early 1900s. And, hadnot war intervened,

he would perhaps have been happily entertainingcontinental audiences

into his sixties, competing with such upstartsas Jacques Tati and

Fernandei. Linder spent the early part of hislife in America, where

his father had gone to plant vineyards. Whenthe business failed the

family returned to France and Max completed hiseducation there. He

was a natural athlete (once pole-vault championof South West

France), an ability that was to stand him ingood stead in the more

energetic of his comedy capers on screen.Leaving high school in

1901, he studied drama for two years beforebeginning a stage career

under his real name. But by 1905 he was playingminor film roles as

Max Linder, progressing to comic leads by 1907and international fame

by 1910. His style of comedy somewhatforeshadowed that of Chaplin

(one of his greatest fans) and his dapper,disaster-prone dandy would

later prove a useful prototype for CharleyChase. These were the

golden years for Linder, who directed all hisown work from 1911 to

1917. But the war changed everything. Lindernot only received severe

shrapnel wounds but was the victim of seriousgassing, which left him

with moods of black melancholia in betweenpatches of inspiration.

With his work output and his popularity inFrance diminishing, a

partially recovered Linder accepted an offer towork in America in

1916. After three of a projected run of 12two-reelers, however, his

health broke down again. Returning to thecontinent after a dire

battle with double pneumonia, the ailing Maxentered a convalescent

home in Switzerland for a year. Refusing toretire despite continued

fragile health, Linder returned to America,formed his own production

company there and made three feature filmswhich contain much of his

best work. The first, Seven Years Bad Luck,contains an extended

sequence involving a mirror with no glass whichpredates several such

scenes with other prominent American comedians,notably The Marx

Brothers in Duck Soup. The last of the three,The Three

Must-Get-Theres, a triumphant parody of Dumas’sfamous

swashbuckler, contains sustained actiontomfoolery which makes the

Richard Lester version 50 years later pale bycomparison. But the

films were only moderately successful withAmerican audiences and

Linder found trouble getting his workdistributed. Disconsolate after

a deal with Samuel Goldwyn fell through, Maxreturned to France.

There was one more film here and one in Austriabut the

once-confident Linder was becoming anincreasingly forlorn figure.

There was talk of another film but Linder andhis young wife entered

into a suicide pact and, a few weeks short ofhis 42nd birthday, were

found dead together in a Paris hotel.Fortunately, in later years his

daughter Maud launched a battle to bring hisgenius to a fresh

audience, resulting in two compilation films,Laugh With Max Linder

in 1963, and The Man in the Silk Hat 20 yearslater.

Filmography

Year                          Title

1905 La premiere sortie d'un collegien

1906 Le premier cigare d'un collegien

1906 Le poison

1906 Le pendu

1906 Les contrebandiers

1907 Idee d'apache

1907 Une mauvaise vie

1907 La mort d'un  toreador

1907 Sganarelle

1907  Lavie de Polichinelle

1907  Les debuts d'un patineur

1908  Larencontre imprevue

1908 Une conquete

1908 La tres moutarde

1909 Un mariage a  l'americaine

1909 Le petit jeune homme

1909 See the picture!

1920 Le feu sacre

1921 Seven Years Bad Luck

1921 Be My Wife

1922 The Three Must-Get-Theres

1923 Au secours!

1924 Clown aus Liebe/Le roi du cirques (GB andUS: Max, King of the Circus)