Jean Epstein

infobox actor
name = Jean Epstein


caption =
birthname =
birthdate = birth date|1897|03|25
birthplace = Warsaw POL
deathdate = death date and age|1953|04|03|1897|03|25
deathplace = Paris FRA
occupation = Film director
yearsactive = 1922—1948

Jean Epstein (25 March 1897, Warsaw – 3 April 1953, Paris) was a film director and early film theoretician.

Career

He started directing his own films in 1922 with "Pasteur", followed by "L'Auberge rouge" and "Coeur fidèle" (both 1923). Famous film director Luis Buñuel worked as an assistant director to Epstein on "Mauprat" (1926) and "La Chute de la maison Usher" (1928). Epstein's criticism appeared in the early modernist journal "L'Esprit Nouveau".

During the making of "Coeur fidèle" Epstein now chose to film a simple story of love and violence "to win the confidence of those, still so numerous, who believe that only the lowest melodrama can interest the public", and also in the hope of creating "a melodrama so stripped of all the conventions ordinarily attached to the genre, so sober, so simple, that it might approach the nobility and excellence of tragedy". [ Jean Epstein. "Présentation de "Coeur fidèle", in "Ecrits sur le cinéma", 1, 124 (jan. 1924) [quoted in Richard Abel, "French cinema: the first wave 1915-1929" (Princeton University Press, 1984), p.360.] He wrote the scenario in a single night.

Epstein had been much impressed by Abel Gance's recently completed "La Roue", and in "Coeur fidèle" he sought to apply its techniques of rapid and rhythmic editing as well as the innovative use of close-ups and superimpositions of images. These techniques are most apparent during the first half of the film: the opening sequence establishing Marie's situation in the harbour bar through a series of close-ups of her face, her hands, the table and glasses that she is cleaning; the use of images of the sea and the port, either intercut or superimposed, to convey the yearnings of Jean and Marie; and the film's most celebrated sequence at the fairground in which a highly complex series of rhythmically assembled images charts the tension of the relationship between Marie and Petit Paul. The later scenes of the film are relatively conventional in the techniques employed and depend more upon situation and action than upon photography and processing of the images.

First influenced by German expressionism in the 20's, Jean Epstein finds his own way by discovering Brittany. He then expresses himself through documentaries of islands such as "Finis Terrae" filmed in Ouessant, "Mor vran" (The sea of the crows, in breton) filmed in Sein, "L'Or des mers" filmed in Hoëdic, "Le Tempestaire" filmed in Belle-Ile. "Chanson d'Armor" is known as the first Breton-speaking film in History. His two novels also take place in Breton isles: "L'Or des mers" in Ouessant and Les Recteurs et la sirène" in Sein.

In August 2005, his films "La Glace à trois faces" (1927) and "Le Tempestaire" ("The Tempest") (1947) were restored and re-released on the DVD collection "".

Filmography

*Pasteur (1922)
*Les Vendanges (1922)
*La Montagne infidèle (1923)
*Coeur fidèle (1923)
*La Belle nivernaise (1923)
*L'Auberge rouge (1923)
*Le Lion des Mogols (1924)
*La Goutte de sang (1924)
*L'Affiche (1924)
*Les Aventures de Robert Macaire (1925)
*Mauprat (1926)
*Au pays de G. Sand (1926)
*Le Double amour (1926)
*Six et demi onze (1927)
*La Glace à trois faces (1927)
*La Chute de la maison Usher (1928)
*Finis terrae (1929)
*Sa tête (1929)
*Le Pas de la mule (1930)
*Notre-Dame de Paris (1931)
*Mor vran (1931)
*L'Or des mers (1932)
*L'Homme à l'hispano (1933)
*La Châtelaine du Liban (1934)
*Chanson d'armor (1934)
*La Vie d'un grand journal (1934)
*Cuor di vagabondo (1936)
*La Bourgogne (1936)
*La Bretagne (1936)
*Vive la vie (1937)
*La Femme du bout du monde (1937)
*Les Bâtisseurs (1938)
*Eau vive (1938)
*La Relève (1938)
*Artères de France (1939)
*Le Tempestaire (1947)
*Les Feux de la mer (1948)

ee also

*""

External links

*imdb name|0258477|name=Jean Epstein
*imdb title|0018770|title=The Fall of the House of Usher

References