Henri d' Ursel(1900-1974)
- Director
The count Henri d'Ursel was a singular charactor: born in Brussels
1900, he lived in Paris during the 20s, a regular at the homes of the
surrealists and avant-garde film-makers, and shot 'The Pearl' under the
pseudonym of Henri d'Arche "in the flush of inexperience", as he put
it. Returning to Belgium, eternally nostalgic for silent cinema ("the
only films whose horizon was the dream"), in 1937 he founded the Prix
de l'Image, the precursor of the experimental film festivals; then, in
the aftermath of the war, the Séminaire des Arts, which for 22 years
was to remain the most prestigious of Belgian ciné-clubs. A flower in
his buttonhole, utterly deadpan, he showed the great classics, with his
inadvertent clumsiness creating widespread enthusiasm, especially when
he regularly vented his spleen about the silent era. A friend of Henri
Storck and Charles Dekeukeleire, the count was also vice-president of
the Royal Film Archive for 25 years and died in 1974. As with the other
Belgian surrealist film-makers (Ernst Moerman, Pierre Charbonnier and
Marcel Mariën), d'Ursel shot only one film, which was based on a
screenplay by the poet Georges Hugnet.