Georges Franju (French: [fʁɑ̃ʒy]; 12 April 1912 – 5 November 1987) was a French filmmaker. He was born in Fougères, Ille-et-Vilaine.^[1]

In her study of French cinema since the French new wave, Claire Clouzot described Franju's film style as "a poignant fantastic realism inherited from surrealism and Jean Painlevé science cinema, and influenced by the expressionism of Lang and Murnau".^[8] Franju's focus was on the visual aspect of filmmaking, which he claimed marked a director as an auteur. Franju claimed to "not have the story writing gift" and was focused on what he described as the "putting into form" of the film.^[9]

Franju used elements of surrealism and shock horror within his films in order to "awaken" his audience. Franju had a long history of friendship with well-known surrealists including André Breton, and the influence of this movement is extremely evident in his works. Franju uses these elements to link horror, history, and an ironic commentary on modernity's ideal of progress. Franju is quoted as having said "It's the bad combination, it's the wrong synthesis, constantly being made by the eye as it looks around, that stops us from seeing everything as strange." Throughout his documentary Le Sang des bêtes, for example, Franju reminds the audience just how strange everyday life can be. The opening sequence of the film presents the modern age as a "dream land" in which there is a need for some sort of awakening; Franju's awakening comes through historical knowledge. Surrealist depictions of strange mannequins on the city's edge are reminiscent of the bodies of the men wounded in war. Walter Benjamin argued that surrealism must "disturb capitalist culture's mythic assumptions of a rationalized evolving history" which is done by provoking a simultaneous interpretation of the past and the present. This, as Benjamin argues, relies on the recognition of horror within everyday life. Franju does this in many ways throughout Le Sang des bêtes. For example, "La Mer" plays during a sequence in the slaughterhouse, comparing the lyrics to aspects of the slaughter, forcing the audience to interpret the love song in new and horrific ways. A similar contradiction can be seen in the film during scenes in which voiceover narration is used. The use of voiceover in the film works to undermine the form of a more typical documentary film. By alternating male and female narrators, the clinical, typically masculine authority of the documentary film is undermined. During the scene in which the instruments of slaughter are examined, the contradiction between the clinical account of the use of the instruments and the visceral horror of the instruments themselves points out the horrors that are ignored by modern society.

The same is true of Franju's most famous film, Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), which also uses aspects of the scientific documentary film to accentuate horror. Les Yeux sans visage proved so horrific that audience members in Edinburgh fainted during screenings. During the most graphic grafting scene in the film a large importance is placed on surgical lamps, the scalpel being used, gloves, masks, and operating tables. Once again, the contradiction between the methodical, scientific approach to this horrific situation and the situation itself serves to accentuate the horror. Les Yeux sans visage also uses surrealist elements to address aspects of post-war life. During one scene, loud, disrupting noises of an airplane and church bells are heard while Dr. Genessier and Louise bury a failed facial graft candidate. This scene serves to portray the loss of faith in medicine (represented by the body created by another of Dr. Genessier's many failed attempts to complete this surgery), the progress of technology (represented by the airplane), and the comfort of religion (represented by the church bells). This surrealist combination forces a new view of modernity and thus a reevaluation of the past.^[10]