The Fall of the House of Usher (La Chute De La Maison Usher) (1928)
Runtime: 63 minutes
Directed by: Jean Epstein
Starring: Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance, Charles Lamy, Fournez-Goffard, Luc Dartagnan
From: Films Jean Epstein
Not to be confused with the 1928 American short, this French 63 minute production I stumbled upon a few days ago while searching for something else. It follows the Edgar Allan Poe story-more or less-and for this Halloween season, it only seemed logical to feature at least one of his tales, right?
Presumably most at least have a basic familiarity with the story of Roderick Usher-here, they found someone who appropriately appeared to be demented throughout-his sister Madeline, the family curse and the titular house also being a recipient of the curse, so that won't be dwelled on. Instead, I will note that director Jean Epstein was not only obviously inspired by the Soviet and German cinema of the time, this was highly Impressionistic. It means that it was a visual delight as some of the sets were huge in scope and among other things, a few times there are long scenes where images are overlaid on each other. None other than Bunuel was initially involved before he left after a disagreement with Epstein.
The film manages to be rather macabre and vivid, making it a quality selection to get you in the mood for the spooky season. It was viewed in a unique way on my part due to the lack of easy availability for a clear copy w/ translated intertitles. Therefore, two streams had to run at the same time... one had a nice picture but when I needed to see what the intertitles said, I had to flip over to the lousy video that at least was subtitled. The things I sometime have to do... thankfully this silent is pretty good so it was worth that minor inconvenience.
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