Jean Epstein

March 4–April 10, 2016

Revolutionary cinema from French director Jean Epstein (1897–1953), including his poetic adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher.

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Six et demi, onze
Coeur fidèle
Finis Terrae
The Fall of the House of Usher

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Past Films

Finis terrae
Jean Epstein
France, 1929
BAMPFA Student Pick!

Friday, March 4 7 PM
Live Music: Judith Rosenberg on piano
Epstein collaborated with local Breton fishermen to create this tale of their fear of the very thing that brings them life: the sea. “A masterpiece of silent cinema” (ARTE).

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Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema
James Schneider
France, 2011
Friday, March 4 8:40 PM
This poetic meditation on Epstein and his work focuses on the time he spent in Brittany.

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Coeur fidèle
Jean Epstein
France, 1923
Friday, March 11 6:30 PM
Judith Rosenberg on piano
A young woman suffers at the hands of her foster family and the town drunk until her true love offers a possible salvation in Epstein’s visually stunning tale of violence, love, and loss.

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Six et demi, onze
Jean Epstein
France, 1927
Archival Prints!

Thursday, March 17 7 PM
Lecture and booksigning by Sarah Keller. Judith Rosenberg on piano
Two brothers inherit the family fortune; one falls in love with an opera singer who cannot be loved, while the other hopes to rescue him. With short Sa tête.

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L'or des mers
Jean Epstein
France, 1932
Archival Prints!

Friday, March 18 6:30 PM
Introduced by Sarah Keller
Epstein’s moving yet disturbing portrait of the inhabitants of a remote, windswept island, is an early use of "natural actors" in a "natural set." With short Les berceaux.

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Coeur de gueux
Jean Epstein
France, 1936
Archival Print!

Friday, March 18 8:30 PM
Introduced by Sarah Keller
The story of a young man from a wealthy family and a perfume girl with whom he falls in love. “A beautifully shot film, bathed in every kind of luminescence” (Anthology Film Archives).

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The Sea Speaks: Short Films by Jean Epstein
Archival Prints!
Saturday, March 19 6:30 PM
Introduced by Sarah Keller
Epstein’s innovative films created in the windswept, ocean-lashed region of Brittany: Le tempestaire, Mor'Vran, and Les feux de la mer.
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L'homme a l'Hispano
Jean Epstein
France, 1933
Archival Prints!

Saturday, March 26 8 PM
An ode to transportation, as well as to every possible kind of cinematic movement, Epstein’s film combines a love triangle and the theme of world travel. With short La villanelle des rubans.

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L'auberge rouge
Jean Epstein
France, 1923
Archival Print!

Sunday, March 27 4:30 PM
Judith Rosenberg on piano
Based on a Balzac novella, this extraordinary “double narrative” unfolds two stories in parallel—one during an elegant dinner in Paris, the other in an isolated Alsace inn.

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Le lion des Mogols
Jean Epstein
France, 1924
Archival Print!

Friday, April 1 6:30 PM
Judith Rosenberg on piano
A young Indian prince (the great Ivan Mosjoukine) flees his kingdom for Paris due to a doomed love affair, only to fall in love again, in Epstein’s almost forgotten treasure.

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The Fall of the House of Usher
Jean Epstein
France, 1928
Thursday, April 7 7 PM
Epstein’s poetic variation on motifs from Edgar Allan Poe relates the story of a painter whose obsessive desire to give life to his images has sinister consequences. With short La glace à trois faces.

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Le double amour
Jean Epstein
France, 1925
Archival Print!

Saturday, April 9 6 PM
Judith Rosenberg on piano
A woman whose lover and son are chronic gamblers must overcome the hypocrisy of wealth and the corruptions of money in Epstein’s melodrama, starring the great Russian actress Nathalia Lissenko.

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Short Films by Jean Epstein
Sunday, April 10 4:30 PM
Epstein’s 1930s shorts contain all the lyricism and beauty of his earlier creations, married to an even more refined sense of skill. Presented are Les bâtisseurs, Chanson d’Ar-mor, and La chanson des peupliers.
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Jean Epstein

March 4–April 10, 2016

Epstein sought new ways of thinking through cinema.

Born in Poland, Epstein came of age in Lyon (where he encountered the Lumière brothers and first became enamored of the cinema) before making his way to Paris. Eclectic influences—from contemporary art movements, to philosophy and poetry, to his experiences with premodern Breton culture—found their way into his three decades of work from the early 1920s to the end of the 1940s. His first forays into cinema were through writing—one of his earliest works is a remarkable text entitled Bonjour cinéma...

Jean Epstein, more than any other filmmaker in the interwar period, contributed to the complex debates on the nature and influence of cinema in his time. The films in this series represent the full range of his investment in revolutionary forms of cinema, equally employing narrative, documentary, and experimental elements to elaborate his ideas.
Epstein sought new ways of thinking through cinema.
Born in Poland, Epstein came of age in Lyon (where he encountered the Lumière brothers and first became enamored of the cinema) before making his way to Paris. Eclectic influences—from contemporary art movements, to philosophy and poetry, to his experiences with premodern Breton culture—found their way into his three decades of work from the early 1920s to the end of the 1940s. His first forays into cinema were through writing—one of his earliest works is a remarkable text entitled Bonjour cinéma, where he lays out the terms of his own cinephilia, his ideas about the power film wields over audiences, and his experimental proclivities. But it is in his films that the full force of Epstein’s cinematic mind finds expression. Throughout his life, Epstein recognized the simultaneously technological and expressive capacities of the camera and sought new ways of thinking through cinema. —Sarah Keller
Sarah Keller, coeditor of the collection Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations, will introduce four programs of Epstein’s films as part of our Afterimage series. She is assistant professor of art and cinema studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

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Curated by Film Curator Kathy Geritz. We are grateful for the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York; the Consulate General of France, San Francisco; La Cinémathèque française; Centre national du cinéma; Gaumont Pathé Archives; and Anthology Film Archives. Afterimage is made possible by generous funding from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association®.

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