Quote:
Despite her protestations and concerns over ominous signs, a young woman’s lover leaves for the sea to fish for sardines, but while he is out a terrible storm strikes. However, she finds out about Le Tempestaire, or Tempest Master, who has the power to speak to the wind and subdue it.Read More »
Jean Epstein
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Jean Epstein – Le tempestaire (1947)
1941-1950ArthouseFranceJean EpsteinShort Film -
Jean Epstein – La belle Nivernaise AKA The Beauty from Nivernais (1923)
1921-1930FranceJean EpsteinSilentQuote:
Bargeman Louveau finds an abandoned boy, Victor, and with the authorities permission takes him back to his own family where he raises him. 10 years later Victor and Louveau’s daughter Clara have fallen in love, and it is then that Louveau is called to Paris, where it has been discovered that Victor is really the son of Maugendré, a charcoal shipper on the Nivernaise canal.Read More » -
Jean Epstein – Le lion des Mogols (1924)
1921-1930AdventureFranceJean EpsteinSilentThe first film Epstein made for Albatros stars Ivan Mosjoukine as a Mogul prince in exile. After getting caught up in such vices of the Occident as drinking, movies and women, the prince eventually returns to his Khanate and to his waiting bride.Read More »
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Jean Epstein – Six et demi onze (1927)
1921-1930ClassicsFranceJean EpsteinSilentQuote:
Female infidelity leads a man, Jean, to commit suicide. When he is dead his brother, Jerôme, starts having an affair with the same woman, Mary. But… there is a photography left of her first brother, who the second is getting closer to finding – hence the title (6,5 X 11 – an film negative format).Wonderfully photographed with moving camera, superimposed pictures and a contrast that leaves nothing to be desired. Interesting use of the close-up to emphasize the story as well. And notice the use of the mirror to show how the story is about to repeat itself. The mice-en-scene could, throughout the film, be though to have come directly from a display of state-of-the-art modernist interior design architecture – stunningly beautiful. The men in this film all wear lipstick, silk garments and nail-polish in their very chic upper-class fashion. Oscar Wilde would not be let down. Do not miss this film, should you ever get the chance to see it.Read More »
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Jean Epstein – L’auberge rouge AKA The Red Inn (1923)
1921-1930DramaFranceJean EpsteinSilentBased 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, who in turn later relates it at a dinner party. At that party is Frederic Taillefer, the missing friend and murderer.Read More »
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Jean Epstein – Chanson d’Armor (1934)
1931-1940DramaFranceJean EpsteinShort FilmSynopsis:
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.Read More » -
Jean Epstein – Les berceaux (1931)
1931-1940FranceJean EpsteinMusicalShort FilmHere is the text for the poem by Sully Prudhomme that the song is based on:
Le long du Quai, les grands vaisseaux,
Que la houle incline en silence,
Ne prennent pas garde aux berceaux,
Que la main des femmes balance.Mais viendra le jour des adieux,
Car il faut que les femmes pleurent,
Et que les hommes curieux
Tentent les horizons qui leurrent!
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Jean Epstein – Coeur fidèle AKA The Faithful Heart (1923)
1921-1930DramaFranceJean EpsteinRomanceQuote:
In Coeur Fidèle’s accompanying 44-page booklet, Jean Epstein, at a 1924 address, argues his film as “romantic” rather than”realist”, the label with which Italian poet Ricciotto Canudo assigned it before his death. The truth is that Epstein’s largely unknown masterpiece provides a fascinating agreement of the two styles, oscillating with seamless precision between reverie and sincerity. Marie (Gina Manès) is in love with Jean (Léon Mathot), a kind-hearted man who works on the Marseille docklands, but Marie’s adoptive parents want to marry her off to the obnoxious and unemployed drunk Petit Paul (Edmond Van Daële), and the scene is set for a sensational melodrama to unfold.Read More »