Marie Epstein (born Marie-Antonine Epstein; 14 August 1899,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

- 24 April 1995,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

) was an actress, scenarist, film director, and film preservationist. Her career is distinguished by three important collaborations. Throughout the 1920s, she acted in and wrote scenarios for films directed by her brother,

Jean Epstein Jean Epstein (; 25 March 1897 – 2 April 1953) was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's '' The Fall of the House of Usher'', he direct ...

. From the 1920s through the early 1950s, she collaborated with the director

Jean Benoît-Lévy Jean Benoît-Lévy (1888–1959) was a French film director and producer.Andrews p.355 Selected filmography * '' Heart of Paris'' (1932) * '' Hélène'' (1936) * '' Ballerina'' (1937) * ''Fire in the Straw ''Fire in the Straw'' (French: ''Le fe ...

on sixteen films, serving variously as a writer, assistant director, and co-director. From the early 1950s to her retirement in 1977, Epstein served as a film preservationist at the

Cinémathèque française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

Career

Collaboration with Jean Benoît-Lévy (1928-1940)

Epstein is best known for the films she co-directed with

throughout the 1930s. Moving away from the romantic scenarios she wrote for

, her films with Benoît-Lévy employ many of the avant-garde techniques developed in

French Impressionist Cinema French impressionist cinema (first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde) refers to a group of French films and filmmakers of the 1920s. Film scholars have had much difficulty in defining this movement or for that matter deciding whether it should ...

of the 1920s to explore major social issues facing France in the 1930s, especially poverty, single motherhood, the struggles of oppressed women, and the plight of poor and neglected children. As film historian Alan Williams notes, Benoît-Lévy and Epstein's films "always pay careful attention to the moral choices required by particular social conditions."Alan Williams, ''Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). While their films reflect the Poetic Realism prominent in 1930s French cinema, their work makes greater use of experimental editing techniques. Describing ''La Maternelle'' (1933), a film about state-run nursery education, Williams notes that the film recalls "the tradition of cinematic impressionism" by using "subjective editing" to convey "traumatic events in the life of a neglected slum child" and by presenting a woman's "attempted suicide in a rapid sequence of disparate images" to communicate the episode's violence. Film scholar Sandy Flitterman-Lewis also calls attention to this episode because the woman looks directly at the camera (a rarity in films of this period), "implicating the spectator directly" in the woman's suicide.Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, ''To Desire Differently: Feminism and the French Cinema'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Benoît-Lévy and Epstein's films also depart from typical Poetic Realist films in their treatment of social issues. As film scholar Ginette Vincendeau says in her obituary for Epstein, ''La Maternelle'' offers a "useful corrective" to Jean Vigo's ''

Zéro de conduite ''Zero for Conduct'' (french: Zéro de conduite) is a 1933 French featurette directed by Jean Vigo. It was first shown on 7 April 1933 and was subsequently banned in France until November 1945.Temple (2011), p. 145. The film draws extensively on ...

''.Ginette Vincendeau
"Obituaries: Marie Epstein"
''The Independent'', 12 June 1995. Retrieved 2011-04-02. Whereas Vigo's film portrays the French education system as cruel and ineffectual, ''La Maternelle'' depicts "school as an instrument of social liberation rather than repression." Vincendeau and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster also note that Benoît-Lévy and Epstein's films place particular importance on the challenges confronting women and feature a number of strong female characters, both unusual in French films of the period.Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, ''Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary'' (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995).

1940s

As a Jew, Epstein was arrested by the Gestapo in February, 1944, but avoided deportation and was later released thanks to the efforts of friends in the French film industry and the Red Cross, for which she worked. Epstein's filmmaking career came to a standstill during the 1940s.

Late documentaries and preservation work (1950s-1977)

In the early 1950s, Epstein served as an assistant director for several short documentary films directed by Benoît-Lévy, and in 1953, completed the only film for which she is credited as the sole director, ''La Grande espérance'', a documentary about atomic energy. Beginning in the early 1950s, Epstein worked as a preservationist of silent cinema under the guidance of

Henri Langlois Henri Langlois (; 13 November 1914 – 13 January 1977) was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema. His film screenings in Paris in the 1950s are often ...

at the

. She is known to have restored Abel Gance's ''

Napoléon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

'' (1927), as well as films by her brother,

. She retired from the Cinémathèque in 1977.

Filmography

Director

* ''La Grande espérance'' (1953)

Co-director with Jean Benoît-Lévy

Given the collaborative relationship between Benoît-Lévy and Epstein, it is difficult to determine Epstein's exact contribution to these films. Epstein likely served as a writer and assistant for some films and as co-director for others. * ''Il était une fois trois amis'' (1928) * ''Âmes d'enfants'' (1928) * ''Peau de Pêche'' (1928) * ''Maternité'' (1929) * ''

Heart of Paris ''Heart of Paris'' (French: ''Coeur de Paris'') is a 1932 French film directed by Jean Benoît-Lévy and Marie Epstein and starring Simone Mareuil, Blanche Beaume and Jimmy Gaillard.Crisp p.391 Cast * Simone Mareuil as Jeannette Durand * ...

'' (1932) * '' La Maternelle'' (1933) * ''Itto'' (1934) * ''Hélène'' (1936) * ''

Ballerina A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on ...

'' (''La mort du cygne'') (1937) * ''Altitude 3200'' (1938) * ''Le feu de paille'' (1939)

Assistant director

Unless otherwise noted, all films are directed by

. *'' Coeur fidèle'' (

, 1923) * ''Agence matrimoniale'' (1952) * ''Le congrès de la dance'' (1952) * ''Deux maîtres pour un valet'' (1952) * ''Le poignard'' (1952) * ''Sous les ponts'' (1952)

Writer

* '' Coeur fidèle'' (

, 1923) * ''L'Affiche'' (

, 1924) * ''Le double amour'' (

, 1925) * ''Six et demi onze'' (

, 1927) * ''Vive la vie'' (

, 1937) * ''La liberté surveillée'' (Henri Aisner and Vladimír Vlcek, 1958)

Actor