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Georges Lacombe, one of the early French documentary filmmakers, had an important but sometimes overlooked role in the development of the genre. His work was aided tremendously by the cinematic atmosphere of nonlinear, visual experimentation in France during the late 1920s. The Studio des Ursulines, a small theater and later distribution company, offered a haven for young artistic filmmakers to show their work during its sold-out subscriber series. Because of the theater’s focus on the avant-garde, Lacombe’s documentaries could access an audience that was less hostile than at the more conservative Cine´-Latin and Vieux-Colombier theaters. Non-narrative documentary films about Paris were in vogue during this period, and Lacombe’s bold visual style created a pictorial world that was seen as transcendent and vital despite its challenging and sometimes harrowing subject matter. Before embarking on his own Parisian docu-

mentary, Lacombe assisted Rene´ Clair with his short black-and-white subject piece about the Eiffel Tower, La Tour. Acting as both assistant director and writer of the scenario, Lacombe added his talent for recognizing compelling subjects to Clair’s formidable directorial vision. Filmed in

1927 and released in 1928 at the Studio des Ursulines, this ten-minute exploration of the tower included not only intricately juxtaposed close-up and far shots of the tower itself, but intercut these visuals with long, panoramic views of Paris, notably the l’Ecole Militaire, the Parc du Champ de Mars, and the Palais de Chaillot. Building off of Clair’s earlier portrayal of the Eiffel Tower in Paris quit dort (1923), Lacombe wrote a scenario in which La Tour Eiffel was a fantastic refuge in the sky, offering protection to whomever stood atop it. The short film was a paean to the tower from the avant-garde who saw its monolithic and infinitely reinterpretable presence as both a challenge and a comfort. The second documentary feature Lacombe was

involved with was also the only one that he directed. The short film La Zone: Au pays des chiffonniers, a twenty-eight-minute film examining the lives of rag-pickers in Paris’s Clignacourt district. also debuted in 1928 at the Studio des Ursulines. La Zone is Lacombe’s documentary masterpiece in the truest sense of the word. In it he has absorbed and perfected the stylistic techniques of Rene´ Clair, but also imbued it with his own humanistic sentiment.