by Sandra Brennan
biography
Henri Chrétien is the inventor of the Hypergonar, more commonly called the anamorphic lens, which is especially designed to distort a wide image so that it can fit into a standard frame during filming and expand to fill a wide screen during projection. Chrétien displayed his innovation in 1927. The following year, filmmaker Claude Autant-Lara used the new lens to make his short Construire un Feu. After this film, the invention was largely forgotten until 1952 when 20th Century-Fox purchased the rights to it and used the technology to create CinemaScope. The anamorphic lens is also used in Panavision and other wide-screen processes.
