This Magic Moment: the Aesthetics of Jean Epstein and Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

In 1928, filmmaker Jean Epstein produced La Chute de la Maison Usher: a masterpiece of Gothic cinema. It is an adaptation of two of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Oval Portrait”. The study of this intersection of Jean Epstein and Edgar Allan Poe has led to the production of a triptych (a suite of three films): I Work for the Devil, Tonight You Belong to Me, and The Night-Side of Nature. The project explores a theory-in-action known as “photogénie”, and how this method might be used and updated to invigorate experimental cinema in the twenty-first century.

Keywords

• jean epstein
• edgar allan poe
• triptych
• photogénie
• experimental cinema