Bonjour Cinéma

Jean Epstein. [Bonjour] Cinéma. Une collection des tracts. Paris: Éditions de la sirène, 1921. First edition, ordinary paper issue, following forty-six on various leading papers. Octavo (7 x 4.5 inches; 180 x 115 mm.). 118, [6, illustrations (versos blank)], [2, justification (verso blank)], [2, copyright, verso blank] pages. Several in-text and full-page illustrations by the author and, primarily, Claude Dalbanne; features collages and typographic layouts following designs from contemporary film ephemera (posters and programs). Publisher's binding in the original wrappers printed in dark red, priced 6 francs on the rear wrapper (grands papiers issues unpriced); printer's imprint stamped on the front inner-wrapper; text block untrimmed; no endpapers. Wrappers with just a hint of rubbing; very faint tanning and a touch of soiling along the edges; base of the spine softly bumped with a tiny closed tear at the bottom of the rear joint. A few page edges roughly opened; scant, faint marginal soiling. Near fine. Text in French. Reprints three of Epstein's essays, with revisions, that were published earlier in the year: "Grossissement" (from Promenoir, published by the author) and "Le cinéma mystique" and "Le sens 1 bis" (both from Cinéa, published by Louis Delluc).

"[S]imultaneously sketches out several of the issues that were deeply important to the development of Epstein's theory of film--photogénie among them--and pays homage to popular moviegoing through an exuberant, infectiously enthusiastic approach to cinema" (Sarah Keller, Jean Epstein, Amsterdam: 2015. p. 277).

"[A] witty parody of a film program... More important was the book's correlation to the work done by Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, and even the Dadaists during the war and the postwar period... Epstein was already playing with the idea of 'editing' together the diverse strangs of modern life into something analogous to a film. And in his essays was the germ... of a cinema of discontinuity..." (Richard Abel, French Cinema, Princeton: 1984. p. 249).

"[T]he most significant book on the cinema of the period" (Abel, French Film Theory and Criticism, vol. 1, Princeton: 1993. p. 197).

Viejo, 5.1 ("one of the first avant-garde film books ever published"). (#10074).