Coeur fidèle was Epstein’s masterpiece of “pure cinema.” René Clair wrote in 1924: “What distinguishes Coeur fidèle from so many other movies is the fact that it was composed for the screen. . . . The lens leans on all sides, turns about things and people, seeks an expressive shot, an unexpected angle of vision.” Henri Langlois, founder of the La Cinémathèque française, later wrote, “In Coeur fidèle the public found all of modern poetry, the port of Marseilles, the quays, the boats, the dirty rooms . . . that world which was one of the great inspiring themes of the literature of that day.”