Jean Epstein : critical essays and new translations

Abstract

The films and writings of Jean Epstein still remain one of the best-kept secrets of film studies, especially outside of France. Hopefully this rich and insightful new anthology may sound the trumpet blast that starts the walls of isolation tumbling. While I and a few other film scholars have enjoyed a certain sense of privileged pleasure in knowing the work of this extraordinary cineaste, I can only find this persistent neglect puzzling. To my mind Jean Epstein is not only the most original and the most poetic silent filmmaker in France, surpassing impressive figures like Abel Gance, Jacques Feyder, Marcel L’Herbier and even Louis Feuillade; I also consider him one of the finest film theorists of the silent era, worthy to be placed alongside the Soviet theorists (Eisenstein, Vertov and Kuleshov) and the equal of the extraordinary German-language cinema theorist, Béla Balázs. I recently amused another senior scholar when I claimed I thought an English translation of Epstein’s writings on cinema could revolutionize American film studies. My interlocutor, who greatly admires Epstein, shook his head and replied, “I wish I had as high an opinion of American film studies as you do!”