
Jean Epstein, Pathé Consortium, 1923. Marie (Gina Manès), an orphan in a Marseille bar, is promised to the brute Petit Paul; Jean (Léon Mathot), a dockworker, wants her out. Epstein and Marie Epstein shoot the port and then a fairground where the camera rides the carousel until faces smear. He had just published his essays on photogénie. The CNC restoration is the one that keeps the dock and the spinning horses in the same film. A melodrama that believes a close-up can do more than a title.
Photogénie put to work: a Marseille bar, a dock, and a carousel the camera rides until the faces smear. Epstein had just published the theory. The melodrama is the excuse. The fairground is the demonstration.