Jean Epstein
Date of Birth: 25 Mar 1897
Country: France
Biography: Jean Epstein (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.
Total Credits at Criticker: 21 (Director), 11 (Writer)
Biography last updated by Rivette, and picture by Svengali
Find more information about Jean Epstein at The Internet Movie Database
Titles you haven't rated - Director (21) | Writer (11)
Allan has a hard time finding the Usher's house, which is known to be cursed... But he is a personal friend of Roderick Usher... (imdb)
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Marie wants to escape from her job and also from her lover, Paul, an unemployed drunk. She dreams of going off with Jean, a dockworker. The two men quarrel and fight over Marie on two occasions, but Paul retains a hold over her... (imdb)
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Psychological narrative avantgarde film about a wealthy young businessman who consecutively falls in love with a classy English woman (Pearl), a Russian sculptress (Athalia), and a naive working-class girl (Lucie). (imdb)
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Le Tempestaire (1947) - Short Film
Following a premonition, A young woman tries to persuade her fiancé not to go out to sea in his fishing boat, but the boy ignores her and sets out. Soon, a storm occurs, and the girl frantically tries to find out his fate. Eventually, at the advice of her grandmother, she goes to the "Tempestaire," (imdb)
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Ambroise is a seaweed farmer and lives with three other men on Bannec, one of the most dangerous islands of France. When he gets injured he has to be carried to a doctor on another island. But the sea is rough and the passage is really dangerous.
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Chanson d'Armor (1934) - Short Film
Ballad-type drama-documentary spoken in the Breton language and set in a Breton fishing community, telling of the impossible love between a fisherman and the lady of the manor.
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Les berceaux (1931) - Short Film
A woman rocks a cradle; a man comes to land from the sea, but leaves to view it from a distance.
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A bargeman takes an abandoned boy into his family and raises him as his own. Ten years later, as a romance between the boy and the bargeman's daughter develops, the boy's real father comes to claim him. He is sent away to be educated but pines for his life on the barges. His father relents and allows him to return to Nivernais to marry. (Melbourne International Film Festival)
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In the kingdom of the Moguls, Prince Roudghito-Sing, a young officer of the palace, falls in love with Zemgali, a captive princess held prisoner and coveted by the Grand Khan. Fleeing the country, he takes refuge in Paris and his presentability allows him to be hired as an actor by a French film company. The trouble is that Anna, the star of the movie, is attracted to him. Which displeases banker Morel, the producer and Anna's lover... (imdb)
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A Jean Benoît-Lévy & Jean Epstein biographical drama about the life of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist and microbiologist who was one of the most important founders of medical microbiology.
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Mauprat was adapted into a silent film with the same title by French director Jean Epstein in 1926. Luis Buñuel was assistant director on this film; it was his first film credit. (imdb)
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L'or des mers (1932) is based on Breton myths and legends. It tells the story of Soizic and her father, an old and alcoholic sailor who draws attention to himself when he discovers and hides a treasure from a ship wreak that has been washed up by the sea. In L'or des mers but also in the third film Chanson d'Armor, there are no good and bad characters, just human beings faced with their destiny and the forces of the nature.
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Following a 19th-century play penned by Benjamin Antier, the figure of Robert Macaire, bandit and rogue, enjoyed popularity in several contexts. One of the most detailed treatments may be found in Epstein's LES AVENTURES DE ROBERT MACAIRE, which he executed in five interrelated episodes.
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Based on the story by Honoré de Balzac. Caught in a storm, two young doctors book into an inn for the night and find themselves sharing a room with a Dutch diamond merchant. During the night Prosper steals from the merchant, but when he awakes in the morning he finds the merchant dead and his friend gone. When the stolen property is found on him he is arrested for the crime and executed. 25 years later the innkeeper's daughter relates the tale to a traveler. (imdb)
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Mor vran (1931) - Short Film
Jean Epstein's short documentary filmed on the Breton island of Sein, which film preservationist and cinephile Henri Langlois called "one of the most beautiful documentaries in the history of French film, a true poem about Brittany and the sea."
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A renowned doctor and his brother live and work together until the brother falls in love with Marie, a singer, and gives up medicine to be with her. After a time however, she misses her old life and goes back on the stage - an act which leads her lover to commit suicide. Later the doctor and Marie also meet, and she becomes his mistress. He finds out about his brother's suicide and goes through his artifacts looking for a clue as to what might have been the cause. (imdb)
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The almost financial ruined French gentleman Gaston Dewalter spends several day in Biarritz before going off in the Hispano-Suiza, a luxe car which was a present from his friends. George becomes the lover of Lady Stéphane Oswill pretending he is wealthy. Then Stéphane spends the remaining funds with which the now desperate George hoped to rebuild his fortune in Senegal. (imdb)
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Jean Angelo is a degenerate gambler. His losses at baccarat have bankrupted his lover, Nathalie Lissenko. When he steals four hundred thousand francs and loses that at the gambling tables, he flees to the United States, and Nathalie takes the blame. Twenty years later, she has a flourishing career as a night club singer, but their son is just as inept a gambler as his father had been.
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A criminal ship-owner claims to find radium ore in a lost island in Antarctic Ocean. The ship approaches and the crew find a white woman who lives with her husband with half-insane and his child. She sings Breton songs. All the crew falls in love with her, from where a series of brawls, madness and murders happen. The captain weighs anchor to return peace to his men, however, a young sailor commits suicide of despair.
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Sa tête (1929) - Short Film
Jean Bonard, the only son of a widow, goes to visit his mother in the small village where she lives. However, in the early hours of the morning the police arrive to arrest him and take him to court charged with the murder of a banker. (imdb)
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