Pigeon-holes are terribly useful things, it seems. Film-makers who can't be shoehorned into one or the other have a way of falling down the cracks. Now, that is a pretty awesomely mixed bunch of metaphors, but let's go with it for now.
Jean Epstein is the phenomenon under analysis, and the problem for the pigeon-holers is immediate and insurmountable. An important strand of his work relates to German Expressionism, another to surrealism (or the kind of surreal-affiliated yet non-surrealist work exemplified by Jean Cocteau or Marcel L'Herbier: what we might call surrealish), and another is pure proto-neo-realism, interweaving drama and documentary. Abel Gance was an influence, stylistically and in terms of his novelistic ambition and realism. Luis Buñuel was a collaborator. Epstein was a theorist as well as a practitioner. He embraced aspects of melodrama, experimented with different styles, adapted Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928) and Balzac (L'auberge rouge,...
Jean Epstein is the phenomenon under analysis, and the problem for the pigeon-holers is immediate and insurmountable. An important strand of his work relates to German Expressionism, another to surrealism (or the kind of surreal-affiliated yet non-surrealist work exemplified by Jean Cocteau or Marcel L'Herbier: what we might call surrealish), and another is pure proto-neo-realism, interweaving drama and documentary. Abel Gance was an influence, stylistically and in terms of his novelistic ambition and realism. Luis Buñuel was a collaborator. Epstein was a theorist as well as a practitioner. He embraced aspects of melodrama, experimented with different styles, adapted Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928) and Balzac (L'auberge rouge,...
- 11/11/2010
- MUBI
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