Between 1942 and 1953, the photographer Henri Caruel (1899-1978) was hired on the sets of around thirty films, including the most prestigious productions of the time: Les Enfants du Paradis and Les Portes de la Nuit of Marcel Carné, Falbalas of Jacques Becker, Premier de cordée of Louis Daquin and many others.
Employed by Pathé on more than sixteen productions, Caruel was certainly not the only still photographer on films, but the only one to take stereoscopic photographs. The use of a Monobloc dual-lens stereoscopic device allows, thanks to a dedicated viewer, a spectacular relief rendering, making his pictures unique.
The process is not new (the first stereoscope was developed in 1832), but his stereo photographs remain a unique and still unexplained example in the late context of the 1940s and 1950s, moreover, during the Occupation. , when taking a photograph was very expensive.
After the death of Henri Caruel’s wife and the discovery by her nieces of a set of four thousand glass plates for stereoscopic use, the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation acquired them in 2019 and presents for the first time a selection.
Henri Caruel, stéréoscopie de cinéma (1942-1953)
Until January 1, 2022
Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé
73, avenue des Gobelins · Paris 75013 · France
