Emile Cohl
Emile Cohl was born Emile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet in
Paris, in 1857.
Originally making a name for himself as a caricaturist and writer in the 1880s,
he later began work as a writer for the Gaumont Film Company in 1905, and
subsequently progressed to directing films.
He later began to create animated films, partly due to the
influence of the American J. Stuart Blackton, famous for his pioneering work in
the field, including the groundbreaking
Humorous
Phases of Funny Faces (1906).
Cohl’s materials were varied, from simple line drawings to
puppets. He even created a character of his own, Fantoche, a puppet, and
established the very first cartoon series,
The
Newlyweds and their Baby (1912-1913).
His stick figure animation
Fantasmagorie (1908), for which he is perhaps most well-known, is
widely perceived to be the first complete animated film, containing 700
photographed line drawings. He developed a unique style which saw his drawings
change shape and manifest themselves as something unexpected or unusual.
Between 1908 and the early 1920s, Cohl produced more then
250 films whilst working for Gaumont and the Éclair Studio, amongst others.
These include
The Puppet’s Nightmare (1908)
and
The Museum of Grotesques (1911).
Only thirty-seven survive in archives.
Unable to keep up with animation trends, he left the film
business, returning to
France,
where he died of pneumonia, in addition to other complications, in 1938.
For further info,
check out these sources:
Find a Grave: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=7651&page=gr
The Bioscope: http://thebioscope.net/2008/02/17/emile-cohl/
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