Le coeur et les yeux
R: Emile Chautard. B: Emile Chautard, Pierre Sales (novel). D: Damorès, Cécile Didier, Maria Fromet, Renée Sylvaire. P: Société Française des Films Éclair. Fr 1911
Print: EYE
Dutch titles

“While cleaning her gloves which she was to wear at a ball, Cecilia meets with an accident and becomes blind. Her slim resources are soon exhausted, and being unable to work, the poor girl is soon brought to distress. Led by her little sister, she is forced to beg. Young Doctor Humbert, noticing the young girl one day, becomes interested, and persuades her to go to his offices, where he operates upon her, and in time the girl recovers her sight. Meantime, the young doctor has fallen in love with his pretty patient, but feels it is a rather delicate matter to declare his affection for the girl, under the circumstances, and cannot gain sufficient courage to do so. (…)”
Moving Picture World synopsis

“Directed probably by Chautard, this film is much more varied in its strategies of representation. A cut-in MS in the opening scene, for instance, accentuates the blinding from a benzine bottle, and a later, matching HA MCU (framed in an iris mask) presents a condense version of the restorative operation. The final long-take AS/LS, which returns to the very room where the blinding occured, then uses the device of a back-ground mirror to unite the couple – for the doctor behaves so shyly that only the reflection of his blown kiss, as he is about to exit, lets the woman literally see his intentions.”
Richard Abel: The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914. Updated and Expanded Edition. University of California Press 1998, p. 327

MS = Medium Shot, MCU = Medium Close-up, AS/LS = American Shot/Long Shot

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La dame de Monsoreau
R: Emile Chautard. B: Alexandre Dumas père (novel). D: Marie-Louise Derval, Henri Bosc, Paul Guidé, Victor Perny, Léonce Cargue, Jean Dulac. P: Société Française des Films Éclair. Fr 1913
Print: CNC / CINEMATHEQUE SUISSE

“Emile Chautard was born in Avignon, France in 1864 (one source states Paris in 1881). He studied for the stage and became a leading man at the Odeon Theatre in Paris, later going on to become the leading man and general manager of the Gymnase Theatre, Ryane Theatre, and Theatre Royal du Parc (Brussels, Belgium). He played the role of Napoleon 1,500 times in Madame Sans Gêne.
He began his screen career in Paris with Pathé in 1907, and directed L’Aiglon and other films, after which he went to Eclair. He was director-general of the Association Cinématographique des Auteurs Dramatiques. Jules Brulatour, one of the most active entrepreneurs in the nascent American film industry, brought Chautard to America. In 1915 he joined the Peerless-World studio in West Fort Lee, New Jersey. The Boss was his first World production. Over a period of time he directed such films as The Annals of Perpetua, The Rack, Love’s Crucible, Little Dutch Girl, The Little Church Around the Corner, Human Driftwood, Sudden Riches, The Heart of a Hero, A Hungry Heart, Forget-Me-Nots, All Man, Friday the Thirteenth, and The Man Who Forgot.”
Thanhouser

“Chautard and Maurice Tourneur were companions during their student days in the Latin Quarter, Paris. Tourneur was studying art, while Chautard was endeavoring to learn the intricacies of stage technique. Several years later they met at the Theatre Francaise, where Tourneur and Chautard were engaged in making a production. They separated and were again drawn together in the early days of film making in the various studios around Paris. Chautard took up film production, and when the Eclair Company began operation in Paris, he was one of the mainstays of that organization.”
The Moving Picture World, May 27, 1916

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