Jean Epstein | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1897-03-25)25 March 1897 |
| Died | 2 April 1953(1953-04-02) (aged 56) Paris, France |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1922–1953 |
| Relatives | Marie Epstein (sister) |
Jean Epstein (French:[ʒɑ̃ɛpʃtajn]; 25 March 1897 – 2 April 1953) was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily forhis adaptation ofEdgar Allan Poe'sThe 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 withFrench Impressionist Cinema and the concept ofphotogénie.
Epstein was born inWarsaw, Kingdom of Poland (then a part of the Russian Empire) to a French-Jewish father and Polish mother. After his father died in 1908, the family relocated toSwitzerland, where Epstein remained until beginning medical school at theUniversity of Lyon in France. While in Lyon, Epstein served as a secretary and translator forAuguste Lumière, considered one of the founders of cinema.
Epstein started directing his own films in 1922 withPasteur, followed byL'Auberge rouge andCoeur fidèle (both 1923). Film directorLuis Buñuel worked as an assistant director to Epstein onMauprat (1926) andLa Chute de la maison Usher (1928). Epstein's criticism appeared in the early modernist journalL'Esprit Nouveau.
During the making ofCoeur 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".[1]
He made severaldocumentaries aboutBrittany. These includeFinis Terræ filmed inOuessant,Mor vran (The sea of the crows, inBreton) filmed inSein,L'Or des mers filmed inHoëdic,Le Tempestaire filmed inBelle Île.
During theGerman occupation of France, he was not allowed to work in any studio, and was even temporarily detained by theGestapo alongside his sisterMarie, because of his Jewish origin but was able to escape deportation, due to the intervention of his friends in theInternational Red Cross.[2]
Chanson d'Armor is known as the firstBreton-language film in history. His two novels also take place in Breton isles:L'Or des mers inOuessant andLes Recteurs et la sirène in Sein. In August 2005, his filmsThe Three-Sided Mirror (1927) andLe Tempestaire (1947) were restored and re-released on the DVD collection Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s.
Epstein died in 1953 from acerebral hemorrhage.[citation needed]
Paradoxically, Jean Epstein's significance as a stylist, poet, and theoretician has grown despite the absence of his films. Many of his masterpieces, including "Mor’Vran" (1931), "L’Or des mers" (1933), and "Les Berceaux" (1934), have never undergone restoration. Nevertheless, his early writings brought significant inspiration within Europeancontinental philosophy, specifically those currents dealing with realism and materialism.[3]
His theory of film began withLa Lyrosophie (1922), a companion piece to hisLa Poésie d’aujourd’hui, un nouvel état d’intelligence (1921). AlthoughLa Lyrosophie only skirts the question of the cinema, this book posits that the general intellectual fatigue arising from the fast-paced nature of modern life, alongside an accelerated thought process, leads to a form of subjectivity termed lyrosophie. In this mode, the weakening of reason's control over the subconscious results in projecting subconscious sentiments onto the conscious intellectual plane. The theory developed emphasizes that aesthetic pleasure is intricately tied to the stimulation of ineffable subconscious emotional associations. It proposes a view of poetic language wherein the sign, regardless of the reader's subjective imposition of beauty, remains aesthetically inexpressive.[4]
Epstein posits the notion that cinema possesses a magical quality due to its ability to transcend certain limitations of representation, surpassing "the resemblance of things" and achieving an "efficiency superior to forms," which he regards as the pinnacle of cinematography. However, he is keen to emphasize that these transgressions and achievements are not exclusive to a particular avant-garde cinema. In fact, Epstein was often skeptical of films primarily formal in their format.
Epstein, in an interview: “‘In your opinion, do films fashioned according to the cubist or expressionist taste represent the quintessence of cinema?’ This time, my answer was even more categorical: ‘No, it is but an accessory of cinema and almost an ill-state for this accessory.’”[5]
In numerous instances and through various expressions, Epstein contrasts narration with an alternative system of representation more closely aligned with cinematic brilliance – what we might term a descriptive framework. Here, experimentation supplants narrative conventions with the potency of scientific inquiry, transposing it into the realm of aesthetics and aligning cinematography with three primary objectives:[6]
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