COEUR FIDÈLE

In January, 1923, after the critical acclaim won by the documentary film, Pasteur, Pathé offered Epstein a tenyear contract at 2,000 francs per month. The agreement would last little more than a year. However, during this time, the director made three highly valuable films: L'Auberge rouge, Coeur fidèle, and La belle Nivernaise. Epstein wrote the screenplay for Coeur fidèle in a single night, following the classic plot of a melodrama with a social background. After this, he made the film in a style that was open to experimentation and reminiscent of the influence of the cinema of Abel Gance. Despite the director's declarations of his aim Io make a realistic work, his realism was not welcomed warmly by the official critics. The film's preview in Spring, 1923, before an audience of film professionals aroused reactions lively enough Io unnerve the distributors. In June one of the Pathé administrators asked Epstein to shorten the scenes of the fair and of the maritime superimpositions. Despite that, there was enough material left to raise the indignation of the public. The first screenings raised such an uproar that the police had to be called in. The excited arguments between the film's indignant detractors and its enthusiastic admirers made it so that the programming of the film was suspended after only three days. On June 16, Coeur fidèle was projected at the Sorbonne before the group for philosophical and scientific studies. For many years it played the role of exemplary film in all avantgarde demonstrations.

Director: Jean Epstein.
Soggetto e sceneggiatura: Jean Epstein, dalla novella di Honoré de Balzac.
Director of photography: Paul Guichard, Henri Stuckert e Léon Donot.
Cast: Gina Manès (Marie), Manfroy (la madre Hochon), M.Ile Marice [pseudonimo di Marie Epstein] (l'inferma), Madeleine Erickson (una ragazza del porto), Léon Mathot (Jean), Edmond van Daële (Petit Paul), Claude Bénédict (il padre Hochon).
Production company: Pathé Consortium Cinéma.

CONSERVAZIONE E RESTAURO / CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION

Copia conservata alla Cinémathèque Française. Stampa da negativo originale curata da Marie Epstein.