If you live in the Denver area, or spend the weekend in the Rocky Mountain National Park, do not miss this unique experience : a movie and a simultaneous concert in a city of ghosts!

The Fall of the House of Usher is a silent film by Jean Epstein. It is featured at the Estes Park Festival, an independent horror cinema film festival. The movie will be accompanied by the live performance of an original score of a local artist. Stanley Estes Park Festival is named for the hotel where it is held, which happens to be the one that inspired Stephen King for The Shining. This hotel, opened in 1909, brandishes a beautiful location at the foot of the Rockies and is famous because of a rumor insisting that it's haunted! Even if you are not staying there, it's worth a visit.

"Cinema is the most powerful way of poetry," Jean Epstein, 1926
The Fall of the House of Usher, made ​​in 1928, based on the short story bearing the same title by Edgar Allan Poe, is more a fantastic movie than a horror movie, but it is mostly a poetic movie. Filmed in black and white, this adaptation includes elements of another Poe short story, The Oval Portrait, a liberty that brought Luis Buñuel, co-director, to leave the shoot.

First film bought in 1935 by the French Cinematheque, restored in 1996, it offers an exceptional black and white. The light that envelops the actors and the scenery makes this film haunting. Henri Langlois considered its "quality photography worthy of the greatest masterpieces of German film", referring to the works of Friedrich Murnau. Light effects, slow motions, superimpositions, blurredness, close-ups, tracking shots and bold angles highlight the technical mastery of Jean Epstein. This technic makes this film a must-see of the first "new wave".