Segundo de Chomon

Segundo de Chomón was a pioneering Spanish film director, cinematographer and screenwriter. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé Frères and has been compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions. He is regarded as the most significant Spanish silent film director in an international context. Born in Aragon (Spain), Segundo de Chomón reportedly got into film through the efforts of his French actress wife, Julienne Mathieu, who appeared in early Pathé Frères productions and worked in some special effects Parisian workshops like Thuillier's studio. Around 1900 he became an agent for Pathé Frères in Spain, publicizing and distributing their films out of Barcelona. In 1901, Chomón began producing actuality films in Spain on an independent basis and distributing them through Pathé; his first trick film was Gulliver en el país de los gigantes (1903). Chomón and his wife also specialized in producing stencil colored film prints and were one of the developers of the Pathéchrome process, patented by Pathé in 1905. Charles Pathé noted the quality of Chomón's trick films and, from 1903, began to support these efforts with the desire of competing with Georges Méliès. Chomón was expert enough at making trick films and had proven himself so valuable to Pathé that in 1905 he and Mathieu moved from Barcelona to Paris, and Chomón was placed in charge of a color stencilling shop in addition to his periodic duties as a director. Through 1907, Chomón worked in close collaboration with Pathé's top director, Ferdinand Zecca; the partnership worked so well that in 1907 Zecca selected Chomón to co-direct a major project, the remake of Zecca's own 1903 Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ. Shortly afterward, Zecca moved into an executive position at Pathé and did little direction from that time; Chomón's most productive years as a filmmaker lasted from 1907 to 1912, a period during which Méliès' production went into a steep decline. Chomón often worked with other directors; in addition to Zecca he collaborated with Gaston Velle, Juan Fuster, Alberto Capellani and Émile Cohl. Although he remained with Pathé, in 1910 Chomón returned to Barcelona and started an independent production company, Iberico Films, which proved short-lived. In 1912, Chómon accepted an invitation to make films in Italy. In addition to his own films, he worked on special effects on the films of others, notably Giovanni Pastrone's epic Cabiria (1914). Pastrone returned the favor in 1917 through collaborating on Chomón's last directorial effort, La guerra e il sogno di Momi; Chomón's own films had become less frequent after his move to Italy, and he had primarily worked in visual effects and cinematography in these years. Chomón was planning to get back into full-time film production on his own when he died, suddenly, of a heart attack at age 57. The very year that Chomón died, the Surrealists organized a soirée that would rehabilitate the artistic reputation of Georges Méliès and to begin the long process of recovering his films. Chomón's legacy was not so fortunate; many of his films were lost or misattributed to other directors. However, some of his surviving works have been restored and reevaluated by film historians and enthusiasts. He is now recognized as one of the early masters of cinema, especially in the fields of animation and special effects. His films influenced the surrealist work of filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, making him, in many ways, the father of Spanish cinema.