Louis Delluc

A telegram, heartbreaking in its laconicism, told me the terrible news yesterday: “Dear Mr. Croze, my poor child died this morning at 7 o'clock after a painful illness. René DELLUC."

To this unfortunate father of my friend, I send with all my sorry heart the sympathies of Comoedia and my own.

Delluc, he was thirty years old, maybe forty, but he was much younger than his age as he lived intensely for art, beauty, humor, fantasy. He seemed to have the soul of one of those ancient Arab caliphs, always ready to mount a horse for battle and conquest or to lie down on a cushion to listen to himself live. The conversation of this tall boy with fine eyes, a smirk, never cruel, reflected his spirit that one could fear before making contact, which one loved for its high quality after the first meeting.

Very cultured, original, personal to the point of disconcerting you, Louis Delluc came to the cinema with a full load. enthusiasm. He had studied and understood very quickly, very quickly he had asked the film to express new ideas, bold in form and content.

His production, or rather his way of leading a scenario, of presenting the characters and of illuminating them, of drowning them in shadows and blurs according to each person's thoughts, was sometimes surprising.

The public was slow to come to terms with this cinematic concept, an indication of a talent that was both researching and thoughtful. “Fever”, “The Woman from Nowhere” to the creation of which the name and soul of Eve Francis remain unforgettably attached, will remain the masterpieces of Louis Delluc. We will want to see them again to love them better, we will regret their author more bitterly.

Louis Delluc had written on cinema Photogénie and Charlot, one "essay on a new art", the other, "sketch on a brilliant artist"; the two volumes are no less remarkable. Several novels, from an extraordinary acuity of observation and irony had contributed to the literary reputation of the man who left, so brutally taken from his friends, his ideal, fervently sought and served: Beauty.

J.-L. Croze.

The funeral of Louis Delluc will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m. We will meet at 5, rue de Beaune.