Joel Adlen on Piano
Lecture by Russell Merritt

(La Chute de la maison Usher). This is Jean Epstein's Gothic-Impressionist theme and variation on the motifs of several Edgar Allan Poe tales, including, in addition to the title story, "Liegia," "Berenice," and "The Oval Portrait." The film relates the story of a painter whose obsessive desire to give life to his images drains away the life of his model, his beloved wife. Epstein's poetic experiments with narrative form, his eerily lit landscapes and interiors, his complex superimpositions of positive and negative images, and, most strikingly, his fascination with slow-motion photography to give, in his words, "a new, purely psychological perspective" combine to make this a classic of art cinema.

• Written by Epstein, based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Photographed by Lucas and Charles Lamy. (c. 52 mins, Silent with French intertitles and live English translation, B&W, 35mm, Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Preceded by short:
The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, Canada, 2000). A breathless parody of Soviet film propaganda condensed into a few miraculous minutes of proletarian panache. (6 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Zeitgeist)

• (Total running time: c. 58 mins)