René Leprince

Biography

In 1876, the quiet village of Sathonay in France’s Rhône valley welcomed René Leprince. Over the next five decades he would slip between the lenses of the young film industry—first in front of the camera, then behind it—crafting stories that flickered into life during cinema’s silent era. Audiences of the 1910s and ’20s came to know his name through Le roi du bagne (1913), the wartime parable La lutte pour la vie (1914), and the suspense-filled La folie du doute (1923). His final scene played out on 25 May 1929, among the sun-washed pines of Saint-Raphaël on the Var coast.