Customer Reviews

The Fall of the House of Usher

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This silent film by French avant-guarde film director Jean Epstein is a unique, and dark take on the classic Poe tale of premature burial and internal decay of the soul. Combining the story "The Oval Portrait" with the Usher story, Epstein and his actors create a solid narrative. The camera work is very powerful, helping to convey the nightmare within the story. If you enjoy silent films and Poe's work, I would highly recommend this one.

I knew very little about this story when I saw the movie, but it turned out to be an excellent horror movie. Not a modern slasher film, but something slow and creepy that gets under your skin. It's frightening, but for no apparent reason. Unfortunately not a movie that would get made today.

.....this artwork will freeze your heart!

It has a Medusa touch, you're slowly drawn into this grotesque, balletic interpretation of E.A. Poe's study of decay, delusion and eventual death? Well, maybe.

The music by Rolande De Cande aptly punctuates the mood. [Excellent in "surround"].

Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance, Charles Lamay and [shudder!] the bespectacled/dome headed doctor Fournez-Gouffard as well as the servant Luc Dartagnan convey volumes with just a look ---- in the right direction. {You don't want to stay too long in their company, there might just be an unfortunate "occurrence"}.

A primer lesson for any film student. This neglected work, lovingly restored to almost pristine youth well deserves to be visited, frequently! An inspiration to later works like "Suspiria"; "The Haunting" [original black and white version]and especially "The Innocents".

Trivia: Poe may or may not have written this work "Under the Influence" - he favored the mix of laudanum {tincture of opium} and alcohol, Enough ! - According to Poe, he drank and partook of drugs to keep himself from going insane!

With Luis Bunuel as assistant director, Jean Epstein directed THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER in 1928. It's one of these movies always quoted in encyclopaedia or dictionaries but almost impossible to see if you don't live in Paris, London or Los Angeles. At last, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER makes a discreet appearance in the DVD market. Except for a scene access, you won't find here any bonus features and the 66 minutes copy has obviously known better times. Don't expect a Criterion treatment and appreciate a portion of Movie History lost between black and white spots.

Edgar Allan Poe's novelette gives its name to the movie but Jean Epstein has freely adapted it by borrowing several themes from other works of the great american writer. One can also say that the arrival of Roderick Usher's friend is an homage to Friedrich Wilhelm's Murnau's NOSFERATU. But THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER has a poetic appeal of its own created by innovative camera movements, hypnotical actors and a labyrinthic castle. If you have the inner courage to rent or buy a silent movie, you too will be hypnotized by this forgotten masterpiece.

A DVD zone reference.

This film should be watched like a painting, as the visual effects are its most beautiful feature and strongest actor. Jean Debucourt plays Sir Roderick Usher in a very convincing, obsessive way. As a matter of fact, his obsession for painting his wife is at the center of the action, it creates a beautiful work of art as it simultaneously destroys the sitter, and is beautifully rendered as we understand it from Marguerite Gance, who plays the beautiful, helpless, wilting Madeleine Usher, always weaker every time we see her. Abel Gance, the great director of 'Napoleon" and her real life husband, has an uncredited part in this film, I supposse one of the people in the inn or maybe the coachman.
Charles Lamy plays the friend, or Allan, The Guest, that comes to visit the Ushers and through him and his visit we get to see the final days of this doomed couple. He was very courageous as it is hard to understand how he could stay more than a day in that hellish environment.
The setting of the house in the middle of a horrid, putrefied landscape is sublime. The film occurs almost entirely in the salon, which is a magnificent ruin, but there are also great shots of the entrance hall, the stairs, the wind coming through the windows, books falling, and many other eerie details. The portrait of Lady Usher is surrounded by an extravagant baroque frame that resembles a cage for her soul, a perfect detail. The burial and crypt scenes were not as interesting, but it was a very moving, expressive movie, definitely related to the aesthetics of German Expressionism. The participation of Buñuel I am sure added certain Surrealistic effects such as the owl and the frogs.
Seeing the film was interesting, but remembering the images has proved to be even more of a pleasure than I would have thought. Like "The Golem" and "Nosferatu" the images stay in your mind forever.

This silent film has retained it's French title cards and has the interpetation spoken by a narrative voice. At first I was slightly distracted by the voice, but after a couple title card readings, I felt it complimented this unusual and vivid presentation nicely. Although the description of this film as "Gothic eye-candy" is accurate because of the classic sets and shadowy lighting, it is the intense characterizations by the actors that make the viewer feel he's watching the story unfold through Poe's eyes. Impressionist influence is noticable, but the avant-garde aspect is equally prevalant with clever and innovative camera movement and effects. The malody of Roderick Usher is chilling here and its hard to imagine a better telling of The Fall of the House of Usher.

Epstein's sterling adaptation of the well-known Poe story today remains one of the most haunting and visually adventurous horror movies of the silent era. Certainly, the film's expressionistic use of slow-motion techniques and eerie settings owes a lot to the presence of surrealist Luis Buñuel, who served as assistant director. Gance (wife of French director Abel) is radiant, too, even as a shrouded specter. With its lurid, foggy air of mystery and demented otherworldliness, "Usher" is a triumph of the gothic sensibility.

I looked forward to receiving this film from the moment I ordered it, having a great interest in early European Cinema, particularly French and German Cinema, this was going to be a treat to behold.
I had no worries about the lack of extras, or a glossy booklet, the original French titles were enough, then I heard the voice! All of the titles and inter-titles are spoken in English, aaaahhhhhrrrrggghh! Imperialistic, cultural vandalism. This is a French film, and a silent french film at that. To watch it is like having an idiot sat behind you who talks all the way through the film, I was waiting for him to tell me the ending just before it happened. I cannot imagine the thought process that came up with this.

In summary, a great film, a visual treat, but totally ruined.

I'm a big silent horror film buff, and I cannot praise this seemingly lesser known masterpiece high enough.

The camera work is magnificently eerie and ethereal. Epstein places great emphasis on the House having a life of its own as well as on the feeling of some phantasmagoric presence within it, and he is a master at developing the type of nervous, ominous premonition that is Poe's forte. There is much very effective use of camera movement and slow motion, especially. I've never seen anything quite like it. Epstein has his own style.

I found the acting of Mr. Usher to be remarkably moving and modern. You feel his grief.

Special kudos goes out to the composer, music historian Rolande de Cande, for his/her outstanding creativity! The main love theme is a strange medieval tune, played on dulcimer, which I found extremely effective. In the more horrific moments, distant modal melodies mix with a chaos of screeching strings and eerie noises. Possibly the coolest and most fitting film score ever added to a silent film.

The DVD unfortunately has no extras.

Turn off all your lights and let yourself go. The film will draw you in. Put the story away, then get transported into its visual nightmare. Everything about the film takes part in conjuring dread, like Carl Theodore Dreyer's "Vampyr." And or sure, was this not Poe's purpose? These are films that rely on viewers with imagination. Some of the litanies in the negative reviews reveal a lack in this important respect. If you see the film in the way it is shown (not the way you think it should be shown), and if you have an imaginative capacity, you'll be led into its properly Gothic horror. And that's the charm of it. When you lessen your critical distance, you take a passage from there to an increasingly emotional involvement you won't soon forget. I for one, love this film.