Jean Epstein

Biography

Jean Epstein (French: [ɛp.ʃtajn]; 25 March 1897 – 2 April 1953) was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The 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 with French Impressionist Cinema and the concept of photogénie. Epstein was born in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland (then a part of Russian Empire) to a French-Jewish father and Polish mother. After his father died in 1908, the family relocated to Switzerland, where Epstein remained until beginning medical school at the University of Lyon in France. While in Lyon, Epstein served as a secretary and translator for Auguste Lumière, considered one of the founders of cinema. Epstein started directing his own films in 1922 with Pasteur, followed by L'Auberge rouge and Coeur fidèle (both 1923). Film director Luis Buñuel worked as an assistant director to Epstein on Mauprat (1926) and La Chute de la maison Usher (1928). Epstein's criticism appeared in the early modernist journal L'Esprit Nouveau. Durin…

Directed

1. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) — Director
2. Cœur fidèle (1923) — Director
3. The Storm-Tamer (1947) — Director
4. The Three-Sided Mirror (1927) — Director
5. Finis Terræ (1929) — Director
6. The Sea of Ravens (1930) — Director
7. Mauprat (1926) — Director
8. La Belle Nivernaise (1924) — Director
9. Double Love (1925) — Director
10. Six and a Half by Eleven (1927) — Director
11. The Woman at the End of the World (1938) — Director
12. The Red Inn (1923) — Director
13. Song of Armorica (2016) — Director
14. The Lion of the Moguls (1924) — Director
15. The Cradles (1932) — Director
16. Pasteur (1922) — Director
17. Gold of the Seas (1933) — Director
18. The Adventures of Robert Macaire (1925) — Director
19. The Fires of the Sea (2016) — Director
20. His Head (1929) — Director
21. The Poster (1925) — Director
22. Les vendanges (1922) — Director
23. In the Land of George Sand (1926) — Director
24. Le pas de la mule (1930) — Director
25. Notre-Dame de Paris (1931) — Director
26. La Vie d'un grand journal (1934) — Director
27. La Bourgogne (1936) — Director
28. Vive la vie (1937) — Director
29. Eau vive (1938) — Director
30. La relève (1938) — Director
31. The Lady of Lebanon (1934) — Director
32. The Man with the Hispano (1933) — Director
33. The Infidel Mountain (1923) — Director
34. The Builders (1938) — Director
35. Artères de France (1939) — Director
36. Heart of Tramp (1936) — Director
37. The Drop Of Blood (1924) — Director
38. La Bretagne (1936) — Director
39. Photogenies (1925) — Director
40. Le vieux chaland (1931) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Jean Epstein or Cinema by Itself (1978) — (archival footage)
2. Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma (1978) — Self (archive footage)
3. Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema (2011) — Self (archive footage)