Fantomas : un mythe moderne au croisement des arts

If cinephiles of the twenty-first century only recognize Fantomas as the puppet-like figure behind a blue latex mask appearing in Andre Hunebelle’s films of the 1960s, this heritage itself masks the mythological ramifications of the blood-thirsty anti-hero of popular literature born during the Belle Epoque in the fertile imaginations of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. As the embodiment of crime-related fears, the “Unrestrainable” man steals and kills with complete impunity. As early as 1913, Fantomas’s black figure took over picture houses as well as the imaginary worlds of artists such Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars or Max Jacob. However, the Surrealists above all, institutionalised Fantomas as a modern myth, as he paved them the way for regenerating chthonian world. In 1975, Julio Cortazar revives this revolutionary dimension and hires Fantomas for struggle against Latin-America’s dictatorships. The present study seeks to map out the polymorphous trajectory undertaken by the mythical figure of Fantomas, in cinema as well as in literature or in painting, as he journeys through the twentieth century and through his liberating energy, seduces the minds of the avant-garde.