Jean Epstein

Jean Epstein French ?p?tajn 25 March 1897 2 April 1953 was a French filmmaker film theorist literary critic and novelist Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poes The Fall of the House of Usher he directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the early 1920s through the late 1940s He is often associated with French Impressionist Cinema and the concept of photogénie Epstein was born in Warsaw Kingdom of Poland then a part of Russian Empire to a FrenchJewish father and Polish mother After his father died in 1908 the family relocated to Switzerland where Epstein remained until beginning medical school at the University of Lyon in France While in Lyon Epstein served as a secretary and translator for Auguste Lumière considered one of the founders of cinema Epstein started directing his own films in 1922 with Pasteur followed by LAuberge rouge and Coeur fidèle both 1923 Film director Luis Buñuel worked as an assistant director to Epstein on Mauprat 1926 and La Chute de la maison Usher 1928 Epsteins criticism appeared in the early modernist journal LEsprit Nouveau During the making of Coeur fidèle Epstein 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 He wrote the scenario in a single night Epstein had been much impressed by Abel Gances 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 closeups and superimpositions of images These techniques are most apparent during the first half of the film the opening sequence establishing Maries situation in the harbour bar through a series of closeups 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 films 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 In the 1920s Epsteins works would display influences from German Expressionism Epstein also made several documentaries about Brittany Chanson dArmor is known as the first Bretonspeaking film in history His two novels also take place in Breton isles LOr des mers in Ouessant and Les Recteurs et la sirène in Sein Epstein died in 1953 from a cerebral hemorrhage