# Bonjour Cinéma

## Introduction

Bonjour Cinéma, published in October 1921, features at its center a set of essays Epstein had published in film journals earlier in the same year and then revised for this collection. The first of these articles, “Grossissement,” appeared in Epstein’s own arts journal Promenoir in the February/March issue; “Le Cinéma Mystique” (renamed here “Ciné Mystique”) and “Le Sens 1 bis” appeared in Louis Delluc’s magazine Cinéa in the spring and summer of that year. Surrounding this core of essays is every manner of textual, poetic, and graphic play: in addition to several poems and pithy statements about the cinema, the slim volume includes pages whose designs derive from the world of movie fandom (posters, programs, fan magazines, music sheets, etc.) and several drawings both by Claude Dalbanne and Epstein himself. Bonjour Cinéma simultaneously 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

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## Continuous Screenings [1921]

Translated by Sarah Keller

[Jean Epstein, “Séances continuelles,” Bonjour Cinéma (Paris: Éditions de la Sirène, 1921), pp. 13-15.]

Continuous Screenings

In close-up
pale sunshine
this face reigns
The enamel mouth stretches out
like a lazy awakening
then turns laughter upside down
up to the edge of the eyes
Without good-byes the waltz retreats
I am taking you, cinema,
and your china wheels
which I feel when I embrace
your trembling enduring
skin, so close,
spread out in the arc-light glare
How beautiful this lantern is
which repeats its dramatic light –
I have seen your 1 2 3 step
moving away on the lawns
and your silent laughter
which rushes toward me
full in the face
The gallop of flight
escaping into the cab –
hooves trample,
the auditorium, tango air,
Pursuit in the saddle
driving over the hill
In the dust, the heroine
reloads her gun
Next to a man
I walked through the snow
everything against his back
an eye on his coat
He was running along with great strides
without turning his head
he feared it was getting cold
every moment he pressed forward
my supernatural cinema
The tracks of documentary
come in through my mouth –
the lopsided hill
slips away and lies down
this seasickness is excellent
in the ocean liner cabins
with tracks for the blowtorch
I congest the earth
In my deck chair
I resign myself to shipwreck
Blocked at every right turn
Tunnel to starboard
Under the belly of a blimp
I slide in by plane
the nose, the propeller in air

I have been to the Belle Hélène theatre
I was well-shaved –
Cinema I am taking you
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