Jean Epstein

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Jean Epstein (born March 25, 1897 in Warsaw , † April 2, 1953 in Paris ) was a Polish-French film director and film theorist .

Life

He completed his training in France and Switzerland; he studied medicine in Lyon . Influenced by the work of Louis Delluc , he published the film theory book Bonjour cinéma in 1921 . In this he emphasizes the importance of the camera perspective and close-up as a film-specific means of changing familiar ways of thinking and perception.

In 1922 he made his first film, a portrait of Louis Pasteur . With his feature films Cœur fidèle and L'auberge rouge (both 1923) Epstein had a respectable success that earned him a 10-year contract with Pathé . However, he dissolved this again after a short time and founded his own production company, where he worked together with his sister Marie Epstein . Epstein was in close contact with the group of Russian exiles in Paris and therefore directed the oriental adventure film Le lion de mogols in 1924 at the suggestion of Iwan Mosschuchin , who also took on the lead role and was involved in the script . In 1926, when Epstein was one of the directors of the “Académie du cinéma”, he became acquainted with Luis Buñuel . Buñuel made his first film appearance in Epstein's film Mauprat (1926).

Epstein was close to the ideas of the avant-garde and surrealism . In 1927 he used his film theories in Der dreiflügelige Spiegel and created the psychological image of a man from the perspective of three women. He used time shifts as a cinematic means. Epstein's best-known work is the 1928 film The Downfall of the House of Usher , a free interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name . Work on this began initially together with Buñuel, but the two artists fell out over Epstein's ingratiation to Abel Gance , whom Buñuel thought was extremely conservative, and the casting of the main role with Gance's second wife Marguerite Denis Gance. Buñuel then distanced himself from the project. The film is regarded as a formally demanding and groundbreaking work of French avant-garde film. Epstein first used slow motion as a means of dramaturgy, used overexposure and soft focus and varied the depth of field , with the actual main object appearing blurred and the background in focus.

In the 1930s, Epstein made mostly documentaries . During the occupation of France by the Germans, he was no longer allowed to work in a studio, was even temporarily detained by the Gestapo , but was able to escape deportation.

Filmography

  • 1922: Les Vendanges
  • 1922: Pasteur
  • 1923: La Montagne infidèle
  • 1923: Cœur fidèle
  • 1923: La Belle Nivernaise
  • 1923: L'Auberge rouge
  • 1924: La Goutte de sang
  • 1924: L'Affiche
  • 1924: Le Lion des Mogols
  • 1925: Le Double amour
  • 1925: Les Aventures de Robert Macaire
  • 1926: Au pays de George Sand
  • 1926: Mauprat
  • 1927: Six et demi onze
  • 1927: The three-wing mirror (La Glace à trois faces)
  • 1928: The fall of the House of Usher (La Chute de la Maison Usher)
  • 1929: Sa tête
  • 1929: Finis Terræ
  • 1930: Le pas de la mule
  • 1931: Notre-Dame de Paris
  • 1931: Mor vran
  • 1932: L'Or des mers
  • 1933: L'Homme à l'Hispano
  • 1934: La Vie d'un grand journal
  • 1934: La Châtelaine du Liban
  • 1934: Chanson d'Armor
  • 1936: Cuor di vagabondo
  • 1936: La Bretagne
  • 1936: La Bourgogne
  • 1937: Vive la vie
  • 1937: La Femme du bout du monde
  • 1938: La Relève
  • 1938: Eau vive
  • 1938: Les Bâtisseurs
  • 1939: Artères de France
  • 1947: Le Tempestaire
  • 1948: Les Feux de la mer

Fonts

French
  • Bonjour, cinema. La Sirène, 1921.
  • La Poésie aujourd'hui. La Sirène, 1921.
  • La Lyrosophie. La Sirène, 1922.
  • Le Cinématographe vu de l'Etna , Les Écrivains réunis, 1926.
  • L'Or des mers. Valois, 1932.
  • Les Recteurs et la sirène. Montaigne, 1934.
  • La Photogénie de l'impondérable , Corymbe, 1935.
  • L'Intelligence d'une machine. Melot, 1946.
  • Le Cinéma du diable. Melot, 1947.
  • Critics on the cinema. 2 vol., Seghers, 1974-1975.
  • L'Or des mers. La Digitale, 1995.
  • Les Recteurs et la sirène. La Digitale, 1998.
German
  • Nicole Brenez, Ralph Eue (ed.): Bonjour Cinéma and other writings on the cinema. Austrian Film Museum, SYNEMA - Society for Film and Media, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-901644-25-2

Secondary literature

Web links