Second of Chomón

Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón Ruiz, better known as Segundo de Chomón, was born in Teruel late on the night of October 17, 1871. It seems that his last name is of French origin, Chaumont, and can be traced back to the time of the crusades. His father was a doctor, and little is known of his childhood and youth. Obviously Teruel was a small town for a restless young man, and the only thing that is more or less certain is that Segundo moved to Paris in 1895. If he was previously in a city like Zaragoza or Barcelona, ​​the idea must be reduced to pure speculation, although it seems reasonable to think so. His connection with the cinema would come from the relationship with who would be his wife, the theater and film actress Julienne Mathieu. With her he would have her only son, Robert, who would eventually become her cameraman and assistant.

For unknown reasons, Chomón left Paris in 1897 and traveled to Barcelona. There he enlists in the army and intervenes in the war in Cuba on the eve of Spain losing this colony. The future filmmaker will be repatriated in 1899, and shortly after he joins his family in Paris. During his absence, Julienne has continued with his theatrical activity, and has also worked for the Pathé, Gaumont and Méliès film companies. He not only acts, but participates in a laborious task, that of coloring frame by frame of the primitive films; she will be one of those in charge of the Méliès workshop in this delicate work. Over time, the workshop became independent, and Julienne hired her husband to earn a living. She is soon going to discover that she has a special talent not only for that, but for conceiving small and imaginative films.

Although some scholars do not like the nickname, it is understood that Segundo de Chomón was referred to as the “Spanish Méliès”, since an important stage of his career will focus on tricks that allow illusionism tricks, such as barraca de fair, very imaginative fantasies. Pathé Frères, Charles Pathé’s company, viewed Georges Méliès as a serious competitor, and commissioned Chomón to conceive films that would not only emulate but surpass him. And the Aragonese filmmaker set about it, collaborating with Ferdinand Zecca , with such surprising creations as The Fantastic Diver (1905), The Witch’s Cave (1906), Balancing Show (1907), The Electric Hotel(1908), The Elusive Pickpocket (1908) or The Haunted House (1908), to name just a few among several hundred. Very surprising was An incoherent excursion (1909), with a surreal cut that anticipates Luis Buñuel . Chomón exercised with arguments, directing, photographing or devising tricks, for himself or for others. This worldly Aragonese was a restless man, and also in Spain he had associated with Macaya y Marro, a Catalan company promoted by Alberto Marro. He made titles for him such as Los guapos del parque (1905).

In 1910 Chomón returned to Spain, the filmmaker’s usual fantasies were going out of style, and Pathé thought that his director could be the perfect man to shoot somewhat folkloric stories in his country of origin. And indeed, under the Ibérico Film label he will shoot titles such as Sueña despierto (1912). With the Valencian Joan Fuster, he would become the first filmmaker to bring zarzuelas to the screen, with titles such as Los guapos (1910) or El puñao de rosas (1911). His chameleonic ability to do whatever it takes also leads him to serialized melodrama in titles such as El puente de la muerte (1911) or Treasure for treasure (1911).

Starting in 1912, Chomón developed his career in Italy, a country where the film industry was experiencing an amazing boom. Through Itala Film he introduces himself in Turin to the subgenre known as ‘kolossal’, a historical cinema of antiquity of large ‘peplum’ type proportions. There he would work more as a photographer and special effects expert than as a director. So his intervention is key in titles like Father (1912) and Tigris (1912), although it is undoubtedly Cabiria (1914), by Giovanni Pastrone, the film in which his talent shines the most in the field of lighting, the use of tracking shots and effects, for example in the sequence of the ship fire and the volcano eruption. From here, Chomón will go on to participate in the Maciste series (1915).

As you can imagine, the First World War complicated Chomón’s professional dedication. In any case, he continued to experiment with color, in collaboration with the Swiss Ernesto Zollinger. In Paris his talent will be used in Abel Gance ‘s masterpiece Napoleón (1927), where his contribution is decisive to the extremely complex sequence of the siege of Toulon. And it seems that in 1929 he was working on what ultraviolet rays could contribute to cinematography. Exactly that year he will be surprised by death, due to an unspecified illness. It was May 2, and he was only 57 years old.