In 1924, French filmmaker Jean Epstein published the essay “On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie,” in which he uses the term “photogénie” to argue for the specificity of cinema as an art form. Because he only obliquely defines this term, many film scholars working on Epstein have theorized various meanings and origins. None, however, have considered the affinity between “photogénie” and what Edgar Allan Poe describes in his 1840 report on the invention of photography as the new medium’s “photogeny.” In “The Daguerreotype,” Poe thinks of “photogeny” from a comparative media perspective, calling it a process of “sun-painting” an image of which “all language must fall short of conveying any just idea of the truth.” There is no evidence that Epstein read Poe’s report. However, his film adaptation of “The Fall of the House of Usher” suggests an aesthetic genealogy from filmmaker to writer that could clarify the meaning of “photogénie”...

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