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The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

★ — The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

Jean Epstein was one of the leading figures of the French Impressionist cinema movement, a loose grouping of avant-garde filmmakers in the 1920s who treated the camera itself as an expressive instrument rather than a passive recorder. His adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story (first published in 1839) was co-scripted by a young Luis Buñuel, who would go on to direct Un Chien Andalou just a year later. Epstein made the film under his own production banner, Films Jean Epstein, keeping creative control but working on a modest scale. The production leaned heavily on in-camera techniques, slow motion and superimposition in particular, to achieve its otherworldly quality, placing it firmly in the experimental wing of late silent-era European cinema.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Jean Epstein's adaptation of Poe's gothic tale, is a film of striking visuals let down by nearly everything else in my opinion. The cinematography (swirling mists, distorted mirrors, and expressionistic lighting) creates an appropriately eerie atmosphere, and there's no denying the craft in its dreamlike compositions. But as a viewing experience, it's a slog: the pacing is so slow, emotionally distant, and so avant-garde that it forgets to tell a coherent story. What little narrative exists drowns beneath endless shots of hands trembling, curtains billowing, and characters staring meaningfully into the void. Silent films (the version I watched had english narration in a french accent though) already demand patience, but this one compounds the challenge with abstraction. Without dialogue or conventional pacing to anchor you, the 60-minute runtime feels twice as long. The performances (though stylised for the era, I accept) come across as stiff and alienating rather than haunting. You're left admiring isolated images while checking your watch. A visually interesting artefact that fails as entertainment. Its historical significance is clear, but as a film to actually sit through it's dull, disconnected, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Rating: ★ | Year: 1928 | Watched: 2026-03-26

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Where to watch (UK)

Physical: Amazon UK

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