Charles Pathé

Known for ProductionBorn 1863-12-26Died 1957-12-25Chevry-Cossigny, Seine-et-Marne, France

Charles Morand Pathé (26 December 1863 – 25 December 1957) was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathé Frères, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathé and his brothers pioneered the development of the moving image. Pathé adopted the national emblem of France, the cockerel, as the trademark for his company. After the company, now called Compagnie Générale des Éstablissements Pathé Frères Phonographes & Cinématographes, invented the cinema newsreel with Pathé-Journal. The son of a butcher shop owner, Charles Morand Pathé was born at Chevry-Cossigny, in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. His father, Jacques Pathé and mother, Thérèse-Émélie Kech were butchers by trade, and ran a delicatessen first in Chevry-Cossigny, and later in Vincennes. Charles had three brothers and two sisters. Pathé left school at 14 to work as an apprentice butcher, at rue de Charenton, Paris. After military service, in 1889, at 25, he began working as a meat merchant but soon took his savings, and with the help of his brothers and his sister, embarked for Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the aim of setting up in business. Pathé tried to establish himself in various trades including a laundry service based on industrial washing machines that turned out to be unsuccessful. His life was unsettled and Pathé was forced to change jobs frequently. After a final failure of trying to deal in exotic parrots, when he and his business partner were stricken with yellow fever, Pathé returned to France in poor health. At age 30, Pathé married lle Foy in Paris, and worked as a clerk, drawing a meager salary. Back in Vincennes, in August 1894, Pathé saw the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison, demonstrated at the town fair. He immediately embraced the sound recording technology, purchasing examples of Edison machines to resell. In 1896, with his brothers Émile, Théophile and Jacques, Pathé founded Société Pathé Frères (Pathé Brothers) in Paris, a company that manufactured and sold phonographs and phonograph cylinders, with Émile Pathé at his head. While in London, Pathé saw the Edison Kinetoscope and decided to expand the Pathé company's business to distributing cinema projection equipment, and with the acquisition of Eastman Kodak patent rights in Europe, a licence for film stock in theatres throughout France. Pathé films were rented out, for a maximum of four months, a more lucrative business than selling the product. A modest first factory had been installed in 1896 at Vincennes. The first films of the Société Pathé Frères such as Le Passage à niveau à Joinville le Pont and L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de Bel-Air were produced, under Pathé's guidance. For several years, however, the success of the phonograph business underwrote the success of the cinema company. ... Source: Article "Charles Pathé" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.Read more

Movies & web series

Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma

The King of Prison

Around The Wheel

I Accuse

La Roue

El hombre que quiso ser Segundo

Cinematógrafo 1900

Jael and Sisera

Mass Meeting of Suffragettes

Métamorphoses d'un magicien

Those of Our Land

The Conquest of the Pole

Paris 1900

Spanish Clair de Lune

Cinderella or The Glass Slipper

Barnum's Trunk

Arrival of a Train

Max's First Job

The Carrot Caterpillar

The Mysterious Man

Brûleuses d'herbes

The Hidden Hand

The Factory of Hats of Paper in Japan

The Banks of the Thames from Oxford to Windsor

Glimpses of Bird Life

Spirochoeta pallida (de la syphilis)

Sports in the Indian Army

Ruins of Delhi

Suffragette Demonstration in London (June 1910)

Fishing for Crocodiles

Un domingo en Lima

Salida de misa de Santo Domingo

El Presidente Leguía en las carreras

El Jubileo de Su Santidad, película de las corporaciones oficiales para celebrar la festividad del Papa en la Catedral de Lima

Corridas de toros en Lima

Un baile nacional en Cantagallo, también llamada Una jarana en Cantagallo

Vendedor de El Comercio

Les effets de la foudre

Voyage dans un train

Masques et grimaces