14 Facts About Henri Langlois

1.

Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile.

2.

Henri Langlois was co-founder of the Cinematheque Francaise with Georges Franju and Jean Mitry and co-founder of the International Federation of Film Archives in 1938.

3.

In 1974, Henri Langlois received an Academy Honorary Award for "his devotion to the art of film, his massive contributions in preserving its past and his unswerving faith in its future".

4.

Besides films, Henri Langlois helped to preserve other items related to cinema such as cameras, projection equipment, costumes, and vintage theater programmes.

5.

Henri Langlois eventually collected so many items that he donated them in 1972 to the Musee du Cinema in the Palais de Chaillot, where they covered a two-mile span of film artifacts and memorabilia.

6.

Henri Langlois influenced the French New Wave directors Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol and Alain Resnais among others, and the generation of filmmakers that followed.

7.

Henri Langlois was accused of having no rational approach to record keeping.

8.

In 1970, Henri Langlois selected seventy films from the Cinematheque's collection for inclusion in "Cinematheque at the Metropolitan Museum," an exhibition in celebration of the Centennial of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

9.

Henri Langlois selected films for their significance and contributions to the history of filmmaking, including work from official film industries as well as current and early avant garde directors.

10.

In 1974, Henri Langlois received an Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime work with the Cinematheque.

11.

Henri Langlois died three years later and is interred in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris.

12.

In 1970, an English language documentary Henri Langlois was made about his life's work, featuring interviews with Ingrid Bergman, Lillian Gish, Francois Truffaut, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau and others.

13.

Edgardo Cozarinsky's 1994 documentary Citizen Henri Langlois is an essayistic biography showing Henri Langlois' progress from amateur collector to nouvelle vague hero and friend of the stars.

14.

Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film The Dreamers addresses the firing of Henri Langlois and includes period footage of the events.