Jean Franco
Acting
Biography
Jean Franco, born July 19, 1914 in Nice and died December 2, 1971 in Montagnat (Ain), is a French mountaineer and writer. He was a high mountain guide and resistance fighter during the Second World War. Co-author in 1944 with his wife of the first ascent of the South Pillar of the Écrins in the Alps, he was appointed, after the war, head of the Praz college in 1946 then, in 1951, coordinator of the French expeditions in the Himalayas. He was the head of the 1954 and 1955 expeditions to Makalu in Nepal. Between May 15 and 18, 1955 his team reached the summit, the 5th highest in the world. This 1955 expedition was also the first in the world in which all the members of the team reached the summit of a peak over 8,000 m. In 1959, he also led the second of three French expeditions to Jannu (the third, in 1962, reached the summit). In 1957, he was appointed director of the National School of Skiing and Mountaineering (ENSA) in Chamonix. He shared his adventures through books that became references in mountaineering and extreme sports, such as Makalu in 1955 or Battle for Jannu with his friend and teammate Lionel Terray at Gallimard in 1965.
Known For
"Les Coulisses De L'Exploit" was a French television program of sports information created by Jacques Goddet and Raymond Marcillac, and broadcast on RTF Television then on the first channel of the ORTF from December 13, 1961 to August 16, 1972. The principle of this program is to report on sports news but also to meet men and women performing exceptional feats. According to Raymond Marcillac: "Competitive sport is not our only field of action. It never has been. We want to discover beings whose life is enriching, exhilarating; men who have accomplished acts that can be offered to our admiration without reluctance."
Les Coulisses De L'Exploit
Biography of ski instructor, mountain guide, mountaineer and filmmaker-lecturer Lionel Terray. Film-portrait of an emblematic figure of French mountaineering in the 1950s and 1960s, reconstructing the life, the great races and the expeditions of the "conqueror" of the most difficult walls and summits of Europe, the Himalayas, the Andes and North America. Marcel Ichac produced in 1966, the day after the Gerbier accident, this illustrated tribute by bringing together personal archive documents, unpublished animated sequences or extracts from expedition images as well as comments taken from the autobiographical texts of Lionel Terray " The Conquerors of the Useless" and "Battle for Jannu". This film, presented at the Cannes Film Festival, has won numerous awards at specialized film festivals, including the Trente Festival and the Banff Festival.
The Conqueror Of The Useless
Retrospective of four major peaks climbed by French expeditions: Annapurna (8078m) in 1950; Makalu (8481m) in 1955; Mustagh Tower (7273m) in 1956 and Le Jannu (7710m) in 1962. A film by Lucien Berardini and Jean-Marie Perthus with the support of the French Alpine Club and the FFME (French Mountain and Climbing Federation).
Victories on the Himalayas
Three years after the 1959 expedition, abandoned 350m from the summit, Lionel Terray leads a new assault on Jannu, one of the most demanding peaks in the Himalayas. At the base camp, equipment and food rations are prepared. The conditions are optimal and the ascent can begin. The camera follows the progress of the mountaineers and Sherpas as closely as possible, from one high-altitude camp to another: installing fixed ropes, progressing over crevasses, in the middle of frozen towers, vertically down immense ice falls or along the edge of sharp ridges. From 7000m, oxygen bottles become essential, as the difficulty of the climb prevents acclimatization. The expedition is a total success: the majority of its members reach the 7710m summit.