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{{short description|French born American film director}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = George Fitzmaurice
| image = George Fitzmaurice - 1922 ETR.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1885|02|13}}
| birth_place = [[Paris]], France
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1940|06|13|1885|02|13|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[Los Angeles]], [[California]], U.S.
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| occupation = [[Film director]]
| years_active = 1914–1940
|notable_works = {{Unbulleted list|''[[The Son of the Sheik]]''|''[[Raffles (1930 film)|Raffles]]''|''[[Mata Hari (1931 film)|Mata Hari]]''}}
| spouse = {{Unbulleted list|[[Ouida Bergere]]{{break}}(married 1919–1924)|Diana Kane{{break}}(married 1927–1940)}}
| children = 3
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Fitzmaurice's career first started as a [[set designer]] on stage. Beginning in 1914, and continuing until his death in 1940, he directed a total of over 80 films; several of these were successful, including ''[[The Son of the Sheik]]'', ''[[Raffles (1930 film)|Raffles]]'', ''[[Mata Hari (1931 film)|Mata Hari]]'', and ''[[Suzy (1936 film)|Suzy]]''.
At the beginning of his directorial career, Fitzmaurice was astute at directing stage actresses in their initial films with the first wave of great Broadway stars that migrated to motion pictures during the [[World War I]] era, including [[Mae Murray]], [[Elsie Ferguson]], [[Fannie Ward]], [[Helene Chadwick]], [[Irene Fenwick]], [[Gail Kane]], and [[Edna Goodrich]]. Fitzmaurice’s long-time cinematographer, [[Arthur Miller (cinematographer) | Arthur Miller]] observed: “Fitzmaurice’s specialty was in designing a film beautifully, and in handling women stars with great flair. He could do a beautiful love story very well. He had the ability to get the best out of women, to get along with them.”<ref>Higham, 1970 p. 138</ref>
''The Son of the Sheik'' is his most famous extant silent film, no doubt aided by the sudden death of its star, [[Rudolph Valentino]]. ''[[Lilac Time (1928 film)|Lilac Time]]'' is a classic war/romance film. Fitzmaurice, however, directed scores of silent films of which the majority of them are [[lost film|lost]] to the ravages of decomposition. Recent discoveries in Gosfilmofond in [[Russia]] include 1919's ''[[The Witness for the Defense (1919 film)|Witness for the Defense]]'' with Elsie Ferguson and 1922's ''[[Kick In (1922 film)|Kick In]]'' with [[Bert Lytell]]. A restoration of his 1928 part-talkie hybrid ''[[The Barker]]'' is winning praise from many film buffs. Rumors of other Fitzmaurice films in Gosfilmofond include 1920s ''[[Idols of Clay (1920 film)|Idols of Clay]]'' (with Mae Murray) and ''[[Three Live Ghosts (1922 film)|Three Live Ghosts]]'' with [[Norman Kerry]], [[Anna Q. Nilsson]], [[Cyril Chadwick]], and [[Edmund Goulding]].
{{box quote|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote= “I stayed with Fitzmaurice right through until 1925. He was a talented man until the “[[Sound film |talkies]]”; he was only a man of the [[Silent film | silents]]. He couldn’t cope with the change.” Cinematographer [[Arthur Miller]].<ref>Higham, 1970 p. 138</ref>}}
George Fitzmaurice advocated for ranking “serious film productions” among the [[Académie des Beaux-Arts | Beaux Arts]], and appraising them critically as such.<ref>Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Film deserving the same level of analysis as “painting, sculpture or any of the other arts.” And p. 34: See his essay from [[The New York Dramatic Mirror]], March 11, 1916.</ref>
Fitzmaurice was meticulous in his preparations prior to shooting and “knew beforehand everything he wanted to see on screen.”<ref>Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Final part of sentence elided, reads: “...and expended the majority of his attention on preparatory work far in advance of shooting.”</ref> Like his filmmaking contemporaries [[F. W. Murnau]] and [[John Ford]] “he never looked through the camera” to frame his compositions, but nonetheless achieved a widely acknowledged “visual grace” in his pictures.<ref>Koszarski, 1976 p. 33</ref>
In his 1916 essay entitled “The Art of Directing,” Fitzmaurice emphasized the importance of engaging in a psychological analysis of the film characters to discover their motivations.<ref>Koszarski, 1976 p. 33: Koszarski suggests that, in this respect, the director was influenced by the writings of [[Hugo Münsterberg]].</ref> He wrote:
{{blockquote | A comprehensive knowledge of psychology in all its branches is a necessary complement to good directorship…to incorporate human nature into a picture you must understand the science of mental phenomenon, for it is this science that is guiding the hand of realistic action.<ref>Koszarski, 1976 p. 34: Ellided material reads: “for motion pictures have progressed to such a stage that thought is the base upon which they are all built.”</ref>}}
==Personal life==
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* ''[[Three Live Ghosts (1922 film)|Three Live Ghosts]]'' (1922)
* ''[[The Man from Home (1922 film)|The Man from Home]]'' (1922)
* ''[[Kick In (1923 film)|Kick In]]'' (1922)
* ''[[To Have and to Hold (1922 film)|To Have and to Hold]]'' (1922)
* ''[[The Cheat (1923 film)|The Cheat]]'' (1923)
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* ''[[Suzy (1936 film)|Suzy]]'' (1936)
* ''[[The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937 film)|The Last of Mrs. Cheyney]]'' (1937)
* ''[[The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937 film)|The Emperor's Candlesticks]]'' (1937)
* ''[[Live, Love and Learn]]'' (1937)
* ''[[Arsène Lupin Returns]]'' (1938)
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===Actor===
* ''[[The Avalanche (1919 film)|The Avalanche]]'' (1919)
* ''[[Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925 film)|Ben-Hur]]'' (1925)
==
{{Reflist}}
==References==
*[[Charles Higham (biographer) | Higham, Charles]]. 1970. ''Hollywood Cameraman: Sources of Ligh''t. [[Indiana University Press]], [[Bloomington, Indiana]] and London. {{ISBN | 0-253-13820-5}}
*[[Richard Koszarski |Koszarski, Richard]]. 1976. ''Hollywood Directors: 1914-1940.'' [[Oxford University Press]], London, New York. {{ISBN | 0-19-502086-3}}
==External links==
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