Culture
Words by Michel Wlassikoff
Jean Epstein, “Cinéma”
The emerging film industry inspired artists to break from traditional norms and to incorporate elements of cinema advertising in their production.
The emerging film industry inspired artists to break from traditional norms and to incorporate elements of cinema advertising in their production.
To illustrate La Fin du monde filmée par l'ange Notre-Dame (The End of the World filmed by the Angel Notre-Dame), a work that Blaise Cendrars constructs in the manner of a screenplay, Fernand Léger evokes the editing and succession of shots of a film. The poem by director Jean Epstein associated with Lyon futurist Claude Dalbanne also suggests the unfolding of a film. All of them note the aspect as fascinating as it is trivial of the emerging film industry, the first by calling on mechanical reproduction and assuming its imperfections, thus breaking with the canons of the artist's book, the seconds by drawing their visuals from cinema advertising and by twisting its slogans.
Document: Jean Epstein, Cinéma, collection of tracts, Nº6, Éditions de la Sirène, 1921. Cover and layout by Claude Dalbanne.
Musée des arts décoratifs.
