05: Marco de Gastyne – Village Reflection

Marco de Gastyne, born Marc Henri Benoist in Paris in 1889, was a multifaceted French artist whose career spanned painting, illustration, and film. After formal training in the arts, he spent two formative years at the Villa Médicis in Rome (1911–1913) and gained early recognition as an illustrator for the satirical journal La Baïonnette. His visual sensibility soon transitioned into cinema, where he directed over fifteen films between 1922 and 1962. Among his most celebrated works is La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc (1929), a landmark film in French historical cinema.

A figure deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of 20th-century France, de Gastyne came from a literary and artistic family—his father was the writer Jules de Gastyne, and his brother, Guy de Gastyne, was a noted designer. In his later career, he played a role in shaping popular culture by introducing singer Dalida to the screen in his 1954 film Le Masque de Toutankhamon. His personal life was marked by creative partnerships: first with his wife Mary Christian, a lyric singer, and later with actress Choura Miléna, who starred in many of his films.