CHIARA TOGNOLOTTI Jean Epsteins Intellectual Factory: An Analysis of the Fonds Epstein, 1946-1953

This paper aims at presenting an abstract of the research I conducted at the Fonds Epstein, conserved at the Bibliothque du Film in Paris, which led to a complete filing of the reading notes and outlines handwritten by the French director and to a deep analysis of their content. The paper is composed of three parts: 1) a description of the Fonds Epstein; 2) a summary of its contents; 3) an example of how this material can be used. The Fonds Epstein The Fonds was put in order for the first time by Marie Epstein, Jeans sister, after her brothers death; it was Marie herself who left it at the Cinmathque franaise; then the Fonds was transferred to the Bibliothque du Film, which made it available to scholars in January, 2000. The Fonds consist of handwritten material (unpublished essays, outlines, reading notes, letters) and printed material mainly documents related to the shooting of Epsteins films.1 Reading notes can be found in 11 out of the 90 boxes of the Fonds. In each box there are nearly 15 envelopes; every envelope contains a minimum of 4-5 cards to a maximum of 50-60 cards.2 The major source of my research are the reading notes, handwritten by Epstein. In those notes Epstein summarizes the books he reads with long quotes, to which he adds his own reflection on the topics hes interested in. Needless to say, those readings are essential in order to understand the extensiveness and the variety of studies Epstein carried out during the latest years of his life; an analysis of those notes highlights the sources and the method through which Epstein re-reads his thoughts on cinema and finally places it in a wider theoretical horizon. Lets have a closer look at the notes. The first question is: when did Epstein read all these books and write all those outlines? I believe that the outlines were composed after 1946 for two

An analysis of printed material in relation with the films Epstein made can be read in L. Vichi, Jean Epstein (Milano: Il castoro, 2003). 2 The reading notes can be found in the boxes from Epstein2B1 to Epstein10B9; notebooks and outlines in Epstein106B26 to Epstein110B26; Epstein114B27; and in Epstein 111B26 to Epstein 113B26.
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major reasons. First, the notes are written on the verso (sometimes on the recto too) of some cards (fig. 1). It seems that these cards have been part of a library catalogue: on the recto we can see a table reporting author and title of a variety of books, sometimes with the date (month and year) of every time the books were lent; all the cards are dated 1946 and, since Epsteins writing is superimposed to the table, we can deduce that the cards were written on after 1946; the cards must have been part of the catalogue of a library Epstein was working for (it is known that, during the war, the director cooperated with the Red Cross precisely in re-organizing public libraries in Paris). Moreover, in an interview Marie Epstein describes her brother, after the making of Tempestaire released in 1948 spending most of his time reading a variety of books and constantly taking notes about them.3 So we can assume with some certainty that the reading notes have been written starting from late 1946, after the shooting of Tempestaire and at the same time when Epstein was writing Cinma du diable, up to 1953, when he died. After having examined all the cards I filed a table testifying the whole range of Epsteins studies, including more than 200 books varying from philosophy to psychology and psychoanalysis, from physics, literature and linguistics to anthropology. But why did Epstein read all those books? In my opinion, he was trying to explore nearly every sector of human knowledge in order to define the role of cinema as an instrument of a brand new philosophy, completely renovated, based on what, in the Twenties, he had called lyrosophie: that is to say a philosophy based on irrationality as well as on rationality, on affection rather than on logic, on intuition rather than on intellect.4 Therefore, as we will see, Epstein studies philosophy and anthropology as well as physics, literature, psychoanalysis and so on, always looking for elements confirming his idea of the need to recover the dimension of the a-rational, the a-logic as opposed to the primacy negative to his eyes of intellect and of reason; a recovery that can be accomplished
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Marie Epstein states: Sa sant frenait son activit. Il marchait difficilement [...]. Il passait son temps lire et crire. Lev cinq ou six heures tous les jours, il crivait toute la matine. Cest au cours de ces dernires annes quil a redig ou remani ses ouvrages sur le cinma Esprit de cinma et Alcool et cinma. [...] Il lisait normement et toujours en prenant des notes: je ne sais pas lire autrement quun crayon en main, disait-il. Il a laiss un volume de notes de lecture sur les sujets les plus divers, dans lesquels il prenait souvent partie, en termes violents, lauteur avec lequel il se trouvait en dsaccord. Parmi ses auteurs prfrs, on trouvait alors: De Broglie, Montaigne, Diderot, Cabanis et tant dautres... [...] Il constituait ainsi une sorte dencyclopdie universelle stendant tous les domaines: sciences, arts, religions, sociologie, criminologie... (M. Epstein, quoted in P. Leprohon, Jean Epstein [Paris: Seghers, 1964], pp. 62-63). 4 See J. Epstein (from now on JE), La lyrosophie (Paris: la Sirne, 1922).

only through cinema. This goal explains also his reading method: hes constantly looking for further elements in favour of his theory, so he extracts from every book only the topics hes interested in, questioning or simply leaving aside everything else; actually, hes often very polemic when he desagrees with the author he is reading. Contents of the Fonds: a table of Epsteins readings Here I present a simplified version of the table of Epsteins readings, in which I marked the main sectors of interest as well as the books that had a major influence on his theory;5 the outlines are analysed in a strict correlation with the books he was writing in those very same years, that is Cinma du diable, Esprit de cinma and Alcool et cinma.6 - Anthropology (44 titles in all) This is Epsteins main field of interest; in particular he reads Roger Caillois with his Lhomme et le sacr (Paris: Leroux, 1939), Mircea Eliade (Trait dhistoire de religion [Paris: Payot, 1948] and Le mythe de lternel retour [Paris: Gallimard, 1949]), Bronislaw Malinowski (Moeurs et coutumes des mlanesiens, Paris: Payot, 1933) and some articles signed by Georges Bataille. Ill explore this sector in the third part of this paper. - Philosophy (31 titles in all) Among Epsteins readings there are many volumes dedicated to philosophy, ranging from reference books (such as the text by Ducass Les grandes philosophies [Paris: Puf, 1941] and the Dictionnaire encyclopdique Quillet) to more specific studies. No surprise, given the fact that Epsteins theory on cinema is founded on the primacy of movement and of change,7and that we find him

The whole table can be found in my PhD thesis: see Chiara Tognolotti, Jean Epstein 1946-1953. Ricostruzione di un cantiere intellettuale, tesi di dottorato, Universit di Firenze, a.a. 2002-2003 (supervisor: prof. S. Bernardi). 6 All the writings composed by Epstein can be read in JE, Ecrits sur le cinma (2 voll., Paris: Seghers, 19741976). 7 See for instance one of the defitions he gives of photognie: Le cinma [...] tout entier est mouvement, sans obligation de stabilit ni dquilibre. La photognie, parmi tous les autres logarithmes sensoriels de la ralit, est celui de la mobilit. Drive du temps, elle est laccleration. Elle oppose la circonstance ltat, le rapport la dimension. Multiplication et dmultiplication (JE, Bonjour cinma [Paris: Seghers, 1974], p. 94).
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studying history of philosophy in order to find the traces of the currents of thought that leave aside rationalism and favor the strength of irrationality instead of esprit de gometrie, movement instead of stasis, transformation instead of non-motion. In this respect the authors Epstein annotates more frequently are Friedrich Nietzsche and the philosophers related to existentialism.8 As for Nietzsche, Epstein seizes the well-known contraposition between the apollonian and the dionisian that the philosopher describes in his The Birth of Tragedy and quickly transforms it into the dichotomy he wants to state between a world dominated only by cold and rational cartesian laws and the cosmos of cinema, marked on the contrary by the mobility of emotions.9 Epstein writes in his outlines:
Nietzsche exprime un mal du sicle: la perte du dionysisme, perte de dynamisme, nihilisme europen, dcadence civilise. Il veut retrouver la vie dionysiaque, la revaloriser. Pessimisme fort et transitoire. Pessimisme = tape vers la gurison. Crise de croissance de lhumanit trop intellectualise, trop rationalise. Faire remonter la tendance dionysiaque (irrationnelle) contre la tendance statique (rationaliste, rationalisante). Il faut maintenir le conflit des deux, et dans ce conflit, la raison (apollinienne) devenait trop forte et conduisait la mort. Lhumanit malade a perdu le sens du conflit et elle est domine par lesprit de lourdeur. ((Rle du cin dynamisant, irrationalisant)).10

So Epstein uses Nietzsche in order to reassert the primacy of irrationality that leads directly to cinema as an instrument de draison, that is as a bearer of a healthy return to the fantastic, the subversive, the redeeming. Those are, as it is known, the thesis Epstein presents in Alcool et cinma:
Non seulement le cinma remdie, comme des migraines, aux symptmes nvrotiques de la civilisation, [...] mais encore, plus profondment, plus gnralement linfluence du film ronge le systme dinterdiction lui-mme. Si ce systme est le grand organisateur de la culture savante, le cinma prend limportance dtre le propagateur le plus efficace dun

Epstein doesnt read Nietzsches works directly but refers to a book by Jules Chaix-Ruy, Pour connatre la pense de Nietzsche (Paris: Bordas, 1946); the confrontation with existentialism also passes mainly through a reference book, part of the popular series Que sais-je?: Paul Foulqui, Existentialisme (Paris: Puf, 1947), besides an essay by Sartre, Lexistentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel, 1952). 9 On this topic see C. Tognolotti, Lalcool, le cinma et le philosophe. Linfluence de Friedrich Nietzsche sur la thorie cinmatographique de Jean Epstein travers les notes du Fonds Epstein, 1895, no. 46 (2005), pp. 37-53. 10 JE, Notes on J. Chaix-Ruy, Pour connatre la pense de Nietzsche, Epstein4B3, envelope 9, c. 25. Here as well as in the following quotations, outlines are reproduced using a conservative criterion. In his outlines Epstein uses double brackets to insert his own opinions, whereas the rest of the text is an abstract of the book hes reading; when he quotes directly from the book he uses inverted commas.
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contre-courant romantique effet de freinage, dun courant aussi de jouvence, renvoyant le savoir lcole de ltonnement, un rcommencement perfectionn dune exprience radicale: celle de la vue.11

The reading of Nietzsche suggests to Epstein another major concept in his idea of cinema, that is the pense visuelle (visual thinking). If verbal language has become confused and abstract, therefore deprived of any efficacy in this way the director interprets the thought of the philosoper he deduces that cinematic images only, with their immediacy of communication and sentimental strength, can renew knowledge through vision. Here are again some notes on Nietzsche:
Premier type de connaissance qui ramne linconnu au connu, lhabituel. Science, connaissance verbale. Langage qui traduit les ides en signes dchange. [...] Mais la pense qui devient consciente, ne reprsente que la partie la plus intime, disons la plus superficielle, la plus mauvaise, de tout ce quon pense. La connaissance du langage et de la conscience est donc fausse. Son origine et son utilit sociales lempchent datteindre autre chose que des conceptions grossires habituellement utiles la socit ((affinement de la transmission sociale par le langage rituel du cin)). Deuxime type de connaissance, recherche les choses en ce quelles ont de non habituel, dinquitant, de problematique ((surralisme-transmutation cin)). Connaissance non systmatique ((irrationnelle)) par dfinition. Si elle tait un discours cohrent, elle serait suspecte de fausset. Elle sera bien force de se servir du langage, mais de faon plus souple, plus mobile que la premire connaissance ((Langage visuel cin)).12

An echo of those notes can be heard in Cinma du diable:

A hanter les salles de cinma, le public dsapprend lire et penser comme il lit ou crit, mais il shabitue ne faire que regarder et penser comme il voit. [...] A la science par raisonnement, lente, abstraite, rigide, vient se mler la connaissance par motion, cest--dire par posie, rapide, concrte, souple, recueillie surtout par le regard.13

Similar themes come back in the confrontation with existentialism. As soon as he seizes the basic contrast that existentialism poses between essence and existence, Epstein quickly identifies essentialism with eleatism, that is a philosophy of the one and the immobile, and cinema with existentialism, intended as a bearer of a concrete kind of knowledge: ((Essentialisme = Elatisme, Existentialisme = Cinmatisme)) [...] En gnral, cest abstraction (essence) et cin (individualiste, concret, existentialiste).14 As a matter of fact, the contrast

JE, Alcool et cinma, cit., p. 253. JE, Notes on J. CHAIX-RUY, Pour connatre la pense de Nietzsche, cit., c.13. 13 JE, Cinma du diable, cit., p. 410. 14 JE, Notes on P. F OULQUI, Existentialisme, Epstein2B1, envelope 2, cc. 4, 5.
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between philosophy of essence and existence is seen by the director in a gnoseological perspective: while the second one starts from singular data in order to exceede them in an inevitably abstract and therefore not stimulating, passive, deprived of any meaning synthesis, the first one values the concreteness of the singular which means seizing life, vitality, meaningfulness; and cinema acts in this very same way, founding its own knowledge precisely on individual existences and on their peculiarities and dissymmetries. Epstein annotates:
La science, cest toujours la connaissance des essences. Lexistence nest quun moyen daccder aux essences ((contresens vital)). Le thomisme essentialiste ignore le got de nos contemporains pour lexistent concret et singulier ((mentalit cin)). [...] ((Particularisme cin, dissymtrie, disparit - existentielles)). La science est toujours plus ou moins essentialiste. Forcment. Lessentialisme entrane le souci de rationalit. Parce que la pense, la conceptualisation verbale, est constitutionellement rationnelle ((irrationalit du cinma est existentielle)).15

The themes of these outlines can be found again in Cinma du diable:

Malgr le morcellement le plus pouss dun dcoupage, malgr toute la varit imaginable dune srie de prises de vues, lexpression cinmatographique ne parvient pas standardiser, abstraire ses lments. A lcran, comme dans le discours des peuplades primitives, il ne sagit jamais de la chasse tout court, mais, en une seule image, de la chasse--llan ou de la chasse-au-phoque ou de la chasse--la-baleine etc.16

Here Epstein once again underlines the capability films have to get a fresh knowledge of reality, this time stressing the attention that cinema pays to the singular and the concrete as founding elements of reality, as opposed to the coldness of the abstract knowledge given by science. In conclusion, philosophical readings can be resumed in a series of oppositions that found Epsteinian thought: abstraction vs concreteness, verbal knowledge vs visual thinking, rationalism vs lyrosophy, essence vs existence, motionlessness vs mobility. This doesnt mean that Epstein completely refuses the rational dimension and its means (logic, science, words); he wants rather to underline the need to restore the irrational element as a tool for a better comprehension of reality. - Literature (42 titles in all)

15 16

Ibid., c. 7. JE, Cinma du diable, cit., p. 351.

Epsteins attitude towards literature can be condensed in this sentence: Mort la parole! Vive limage!. The director is convinced that words have lost their power to communicate since they became dry, aseptic, abstract; only image (cinematic image only) is now able to communicate, to convey new meanings, to transmit emotions (this is the argument he carries on with Jean Paulhan, the author of Les fleurs de Tarbes).17 In his outlines he writes:
Mais toute ide de concret est une abstraction ((tant quil y a des mots, on ne peut pas diminuer labstraction. Plus on pense en mots, plus on abstrait. Il ny a que le cinma pour rpondre ce dgot de labstraction et ce got du concret, pour arrter le progrs dans labstraction. Le concept dindfini est dfini. Le concept de concret est abstrait. Lide est toujours abstraite et gnrale. Limage seule peut tre particulire et un peu concrte.))18

Therefore it is easy to imagine that Epstein is interested mainly in surrealism, with his attention paid to dream, irrationality, the unconscious; he reads the history of the movement written by Marcel Nadeau19 as well as some essays by Andr Breton, always underlining the closeness between his idea of cinema and the desire surrealists had to overturn the primacy of reason in favour of the toute-puissance du rve and of the jeu dsinteress de la pense. For instance, while he reads Histoire du surralisme, he notes that images on screen become a true surrealist object, deprived of any practical use and built following the unconscious desires of the creator:
Objet dpays: tout objet dvoy de son usage habituel ou fabriqu gratuitement sans autre usage connu que la satisfaction de celui qui la fait; tout objet fabriqu selon les dsirs de linconscient, du rve. Matrialisation, parfois toute trouve, des dsirs inconscients du crateur ((ou du spectateur. Tout film joue un tel rle)). [...] ((Tout film est un objet-ensemble surraliste)).20

The very same idea of film as similar to an objet dpays comes back in Alcool et cinma, where Epstein describes the characteristics of close-up:
Cette tour dbonite, sombre et brillante, cette potence fatidique, ce montre o va murmurer le destin, ce tlphone, immense et encore silencieux, dont un personnage du drame et mille spectateurs attendent le choc de justice o dinjustice, de bonheur ou de misre, damour ou de haine, mapparat-il pas comme le type des objets fonctionnement symbolique de Dali et des ready made de Duchamp, fixateurs et rvlateurs de penses et de Notes on Jean Paulhan can be read in JE, Notes on Jean Paulhan, Epstein8B7. JE, Notes on Critique n. 12, in Epstein3B2, envelope 5. 19 M. Nadeau, Histoire du surralisme (Paris: Seuil, 1945); Id., Documents surralistes (Paris: Seuil, 1948). 20 JE, Notes on M. Nadeau, Histoire du surralisme, in Epstein8B7, busta 27, c. 20.
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sentiments difficilement formulables dans leur complexit confuse, matrialisations prconues ou tout coup surgies, faites davance ou nes toutes faites, auxquelles adhre soudain un monde de dsirs et de craintes?21

Without surprise, the interest Epstein shows towards literature focuses on the contrast between words, that seem to have lost any connection with reality, and cinematic image, that he sees as the only tool able to convey meaning with a renewed strenght and immediacy, due to its closeness to the dimension of dream and unconsciousness. - Physics (19 titles in all) Starting from a variety of readings related to science, and in particular to physics, Epstein assumes that the universe cannot be seen anymore as ruled by Cartesian laws of space, time and necessity; reality is plural and fluid, in it nothing stays the same, but everything changes and moves inside weak and ephemeral borders. In this respect the director reads the writings by the well-known mathematician Henri Poincar La science et lhypothse (Paris: Flammarion, 1902) and Valeur de la science (Paris: Flammarion, 1911), focusing on the redefinition of the idea of space in a plural and non-anthropomorphical sense; Lide de ncssit by Jean Laporte (Paris: Puf, 1941), through which the Epsteinian theory questions the validity of the principle of identity, which in cinema gives up its place in favour of the less binding principle of analogy; and, as far as the idea of time is concerned, he refers to the writings by Gaston Bachelard, with Les intuitions atomistiques (Paris: Boivin, 1933) and La dialectique de la dure (Paris: Puf, 1950) and by Bergson, even if in an indirect way22; he focuses mostly on the concept of dure, that is the interior perception, erratic and connected to emotions, substituting the dry perfection of scientific measurement; a kind of perception coming back again with great evidence in cinematic representation. Without any doubt, Bachelard is the author that influences the director the most, inspiring in him the idea of discontinuity of time, that Epstein sees as a major characteristic of film. Here are some notes on La dialectique de la dure:
On veut communment que le temps soit de prime abord une donne objective et que le mouvement doive nous donner la plus claire mesure de la dure... (Mais) le fil du temps est couvert de nuds. Et la facile continuit des JE, Alcool et cinma, cit., p. 236. Again, Epstein doesnt read Bergson but he refers to the essay by Jean Wahl Tableau de la philosophie franaise (Paris: Fontaine, 1946) and to the book by Marcel Boll, Attards et prcurseurs (Paris: Chiron, 1921).
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trajectoires a t ruine compltement par la microphysique. Le rel ne cesse de trembler autour de nos repres abstraits. Le temps petit quanta scintille.23

The same influence by Bachelard can easily be seen in this quotation from Esprit du cinma:
Mais, le cinma accomplit le prodige de dformer cette constante [le temps] qui sembliat un oprateur intangible de la cration; le cinma divise et multiplie un rythme quon croyait unique et inoprable; en de et au-del de la seule valeur que nous tenions encore pour absolue, le cinma fait apparatre une chelle de temps, techniquement limite par des conditions photographiques et mcaniques, mais dj suffisemment tendue pour offrir, lesthtique et la dramaturgie du film, des nouvelles possibilits de se raliser de la faon peut-tre la plus originale, la plus exclusivement cinmatographique.24

In this sense, Epstein argues, cinema is the only medium able to represent a universe characterised by fluidity and mobility, identifying once more the essence of cinema with the photogeny of movement, starting this time not from cinematic rhetorical means (see for instance his films of the Twenties, at least up to La chute de la maison Usher) but from a philosophical reflection:
Mais, le cinmatographe nous arrache ce rve de la solidit, par un autre rve, par le cauchemar dun univers fluidifi, dans linconstance duquel les barrires de nos classifications sen vont la drive, les rgles de nos dterminations se dissolvent. Il ne sagit pas de chaos qui signifie mlange dsordonn dlments disparates. Il ne peut tre question pas plus de dsordre que dordre, quand il ny a ni ressemblance, ni diffrence, sur lesquelles on puisse tabler. Il sagit dune seule nature, dune seule essence: le mouvement qui ne se ralise que par son propre changement, par un mouvement de mouvement.25

- Psycho-physiology (19 titles in all) A further major element in Epsteins inquiry for a new cognitive method is represented by psycho-physiology. When Epstein, in the Twenties, was working out his idea of lyrosophie, he had been inspired by the works of Italian physiologist Angelo Mosso and of psychologist Edouard Abramowski;26 in the Forties he refers to some studies by Paul Chauchard and, most of all, to the

JE, Notes on G. Bachelard, Dialectique de la dure, Epstein2B1, envelope 3, c. 13. JE, Esprit de cinma, cit., pp. 90-91. 25 Ibid., p. 29. 26 A. Mosso, La fatica (Milano: Treves, 1892), translated in french as La fatigue intellectuelle et physique (Paris: Alcan, 1894); E. Abramowski, Le subconscient normal (Paris: Alcan, 1914).
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work of the XVIIIth century philosopher Cabanis.27 The principles of physiology attract Epstein mostly beacuse of the connection they pose between spiritual and organic dimension, and in particular beacuse of the reduction that physiology operates of every spiritual and transcendental phenomenon to a merely physical reaction: as Cabanis says, thought is nothing but a secretion of brain: la pense, scretion du cerveau. Epstein quotes Cabanis when he states that every idea and emotion comes from sensation: Sans la sensibilit, nous naurions aucun moyen dapercevoir notre propre existence... nous nexisterions pas. Du moment que nous sentons, nous sommes ((cest bien plus vrai que Descartes!)).28 Therefore, in Epsteins opinion, physiology is another demonstration of the cognitive strenght cinema has : if every knowledge derives from sensation, then film, which states the primacy of emotion over verbal logic, must lead to a more intimate and intense connection with the world:
Le cinma se prsente ainsi actuellement comme le langage de plus grand rayon daction directe. [...] Or, son efficacit potique, le cinma la doit, avant tout, sa technique, cest--dire lensemble de sa constitution mcanique, qui ncessite un certain mode, trs riche, trs vari, trs mouvant, de reprsentation de lunivers.29

The table also includes minor sections, such as history (15 titles in all, mainly reference books), psychoanalysis (7 titles, in which Epstein focuses on the dualism conscious/unconscious forcing it into the opposition rationality/irrationality, privileging the concrete vitality of the second element, which can be recovered, once again, only through cinema), biology (15 titles in all), history of science (5 titles in all), politics (5 titles in all), mathematics (3 titles in all).30 As weve seen Epsteins readings are extremely tendentious, since they aim at confirming the idea of cinema he was working out, often forcing the thought of the authors he read. Nonetheless, and on the contrary for this very reason, this overview is highly significant in itself, because it

P. Chauchard, Messages de nos sens (Paris: Puf, 1944); Id., Physiologie de la conscience (Paris: Puf, 1948); Id., La douleur (Paris: Puf, 1947); Id., La chimie du cerveau (Paris: Puf, 1943); Id., Hypnose et suggestion (Paris: Puf, 1951). As for Cabanis, cards dont mention any bibliographical reference except for the name of the philosopher; we can imagine that Epstein is quoting from one of the reference books he often refers to. 28 JE, Notes on Cabanis, Epstein2B1, c. 17. 29 JE, Alcool et cinma, cit., p. 252. 30 It would be interesting also to analyze what is missing in the readings Epstein carried out; see for instance L. Le Forestier, Entre cinisme et filmologie: Jean Epstein, la plaque tournante, Cinmas, no. 23 (2009), pp. 113-140.
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highlights the sources and the method that Epstein uses: in reading the cards we feel like we were exploring his intellectual factory, the breeding ground of his thought. How to use the Fonds Epstein ? A case study: Le tempestaire and the idea of cinma sacr After having filed the table, the question is : how to use this material? One example of the use that can be done of the information given by the Fonds is the material concerning Le tempestaire and the idea of sacred.31 In one of the notes I found an interesting line, proposing a new definition of photognie, the major idea of Epsteins thought: La photognie ou plutt sa recherche est aussi une qute du sacr, evidemment.32 Where does this idea come from? Does it have some roots or some echo in the film Epstein made or in the books he wrote? Can we find it somewhere else in the notes? And can this new idea of photognie give us new hints to comprehend Epsteins theory on cinema? To answer these questions, I tried to trace this idea in the reading notes as well as in the images of the films and in the theoretical books he wrote. In particular, I confronted the images of Le Tempestaire with Esprit de cinma and with the notes on two books he was reading, Le mythe de lternel retour by Eliade and some articles by Georges Bataille. The first place where we can find the idea of sacred is the film Le tempestaire. It is well known that the film tells the story of a superstition: a magician is able to communicate with nature through a crystal ball, which establishes a link between man and nature (fig. 2); so the sorcier is able to calm down the sea and the wind during a terribile storm (fig. 3). But at the end of the film the crystal ball is broken, eventually breaking also the bond man/world (fig. 4). Therefore, one can argue that the main idea of the film is to describe the sacred link between man and nature which has been canceled by modern man: a connection that can be restored precisely and only through cinema. The photognie, essence of cinema, becomes then a quest for sacred, as the note above mentioned said.
This part of my paper derives partially from C. Tognolotti, La fotogenia del sacro in Jean Epstein, Bianco & nero, no. 552 (2005), pp. 165-178. 32 J. Epstein, Notes on J. Monnerot, La posie moderne et le sacr, in Epstein8B7, envelope 27.
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There is something more than that. This idea, already present in the film, is deepened in the outlines Epstein wrote starting from the book written by Eliade Le mythe de lternel rtour. Here is the quote from the notes:
Le rel par excellence, cest le sacr, seul le sacr est dune manire absolue, efficace, durable. [...]Le temps profane et la dure sont suspendus ((Cin sacr)). Lhomme est projet lpoque mythique des archetypes. Abolition implicite du temps profane, de la dure, du temps historique, de lhistoire. [...]Le clbrant ((le spectateur cin)) sinsre dans le monde divin des immortels. Sil redescendait sur terre pendant le rite, il mourrait sur le champ, moins dune certaine prparation ou dsacralisation ((cin sacr)). Crmoniaux aussi, qui ne sont ni priodiques ni collectifs, qui suspendent le temps profane dans son coulement et rejettent le clbrant in illo tempore ((mystre et saint sacrifice dune sance de cin sacr)) dans un instant mythique a-temporel.33

Here Epstein transforms cinema in a ritual, part of a sacred ceremony, in which man recovers his belonging to the world, his deep communication with nature. During this ceremony, the linear time of history stops; the chronology is suspended in a mythical and timeless moment. The viewer is transformed in a participant of a ritual, finding himself involved in a religious ceremony similar to an ancient rite. Again the motif of sacred is central in the definition of cinema. But, going back to the film, when the crystal ball of the magician breaks, the ritual is interrupted; the bond between man and nature is broken, with the world losing its sacrality. Epstein writes in Esprit de cinma :
Cette maigre et claire fort de Paimpont, qui fut Brocliande, apparat maintenant au voyageur comme depuis longtemps rabougrie et dpeuple par un autre cri panique: le grand Merlin est mort! Mlusine et tant dautres fes ont disparu des bois et des tangs, abandonn les vieux chteaux dserts et les collines voues au vent. Aujourdhui, lcran reste le seul lieu o on puisse apercevoir encore parfois quelquune de ces merveilleuses personnes.34

He quotes Bataille too : Le monde du mystre a perdu son obscurit ((mais le cinma la rend, la ressuscite, cette obscurit)), ce nest (plus) que le domaine de la sensibilit ou de lintert born linstant mme.35 In Epsteins words, in a world where man has lost his relationship with the universe, cinema becomes the only instrument that is able to recover that bond, to rediscover the true nature of everything; an instrument that can restore the dimension of sacred. Here, Epstein states the deep

JE, Notes on M. Eliade, Le mythe de lternel retour, in Epstein2B1, envelope 3, cc.2-3. JE, Esprit de cinma, cit., p. 44. 35 JE, Notes on G. Bataille, Prvert, in Epstein3B2, envelope 7, c. 2.
33 34

link between cinema and sacred, describing his idea of cinma sacr as a new definition of the theoretical status of cinema. In conclusion, this example shows how the material of the Fonds can help us determine a new idea in Epsteins theory (photognie as cinma sacr, as a quest for sacred), discovering its sources through the outlines (in this case, Eliade and Bataille) and finding its echo both in the images of the film and in the books Epstein himself wrote. I hope that this little example has shown the richness of the Fonds enough. The little line from where we started has revealed itself very useful; it gives us a hint to comprehend Epsteins cinematic production in depth; it shows us the breeding ground of his theories; and it suggests to us new directions in interpreting Epsteins theoretical work.

Image captions: 1. One card handwritten by Epstein (Bifi, Fonds Epstein) 2-4. Le tempestaire (J. Epstein, 1948)

Keywords: Jean Epstein Theory of film Bibliothque du film Photognie Anthropology