Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean Gabin he became the great director of the pre-war era of the French cinema with the poetic realism style (e.g. Hôtel du Nord (1938)). During the ocupation of France by Nazi-Germany he worked in the zone of the government of Vichy making Les enfants du paradis (1945), a clear anti-nazi parabola and all time classic of French cinema. After having been confronted with a purge trial he went on filming but none of his later movies could catch up with his former works.
