Jean Epstein /

If cinema can be approached as poetry and philosophy, it is because of Jean Epstein. Cocteau, Buñuel (who was his assistant), Hitchcock, Pasolini and Godard, and theoreticians Kracauer, Deleuze and Rancière are directly influenced by Epstein's pioneering film work, writings and concepts. This b...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wall-Romana, Christophe
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Manchester ; New York : New York : Manchester University Press ; Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Series:French film directors.
Subjects:
Description
Summary:If cinema can be approached as poetry and philosophy, it is because of Jean Epstein. Cocteau, Buñuel (who was his assistant), Hitchcock, Pasolini and Godard, and theoreticians Kracauer, Deleuze and Rancière are directly influenced by Epstein's pioneering film work, writings and concepts. This book is the first in English to examine his oeuvre comprehensively. An avant-garde artist and an anti-elitist intellectual, Epstein wanted to craft moments of pure transformative cinema. Using familiar genres, melodramas and documentaries, he hoped to heal viewers of all classes and hasten social utopia. A lover of cinema as cognitive and sensorial technology, and a poet of the screen, he pushed cinematography as photogénie towards the experimental sublime, through daring close-ups, rhythmic montage, slow motion, even reverse motion.
Physical Description:xiv, 224 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index.
ISBN:9780719086236
071908623X