Christophe Wall-Romana Libri

Focusing on the influential filmmaker and thinker Jean Epstein, this comprehensive study explores his fiction, documentary films, and philosophy of cinema. It traces Epstein's intellectual journey, linking his medical background to his innovative concepts of photogénie and embodiment in viewing. The analysis covers his notable films that blend avant-garde with melodrama, his metaphysical Brittany cycle, and his commitment to social issues through documentary. The conclusion connects Epstein's themes to contemporary cinema, making this work essential for scholars across various disciplines.

This is the first comprehensive study of Jean Epstein's fiction and documentary films, film theory, and writings on poetry and homosexuality. The book unfolds the intellectual trajectory of Epstein and restores him to the limelight of interwar world cinema, on a par with Renoir, Lang, Capra and Eisenstein. -- .

The book examines how 19th- and 20th-century French-speaking poets have used cinema for cross-medium writing experiments, especially in the aftermath of the two world wars, thereby altering modernist literary imagination.