In 1924, Jean Epstein was twenty seven, and despite his youth, he was considered by many to be a maestro of French cinema.

The previous year his Coeur fidèle, with its famous “Fête foraine” sequence, prompted almost unanimous agreement amongst the critics, above all those more associated with the avant garde. For the Parisian intellectuals and fans Coeur fidèle was the film to see, a real occasion. After this success Pathé sent Epstein to Sicily to film the eruption of Etna: they were to derive a couple of works from this important experience: firstly, a brief documentary La montagne infidèle, unfortunately lost; and secondly, a little volume of cinema writings, the magisterial Le cinématographe vu de l’Etna. It came out in 1926 and Epstein included some of his most important writings from the preceding years. He situated them in the context of the Sicily trip. The book was issued in a period when there was a debate raging on pure cinema and the destiny of the avant garde. Epstein, rather surprisingly, distanced himself in the writings from the style, the procedures, and also the intentions of impressionist cinematography. For example, he stated that accelerated montage, once discovered, had become a slightly ridiculous fashion. His condemnation of abstractionist experiences and “absolute cinema” were even clearer. He compared them to a “kaleidoscope, a toy in one’s second childhood”.

In the need to preserve the novelty of cinema and its profound particularities, a film such as La belle nivernaise is very similar to Coeur fidèle on the level of implementation. In appearance, it is extremely different from the experimentation of Coeur fidèle. According to some sources, it is the fruit from the cultivating necessity of Epstein’s youth. This necessity was to free himself from the foulness of manner, to not make of Coeur fidèle a model to be repeated in perpetuity, and to attach himself instead to a type of classicism, simplicity and immediacy of the story. The film, based on the novel by Alphonse Daudet, relates the tale of a boy adopted by the owners of a barge, “La Belle Nivernaise”, who lives happily on the river in the company of a girl with whom he shares work and play, until his real father takes him away. The boy, far from the places and the people he loves, gets sick and is about to die. His father has no choice but to return him to those who knew how to give him happiness.

Here therefore, one finds oneself within the structure of a genre, i.e. the rural melodrama, which was frequently used at the time; in any case the plot is secondary for Epstein who wishes to push forth the poetry of the atmosphere: the river, the water, the sluices, and the scenery which the barge passes in its journey from Paris to Rouen. Thus it is the Seine, discovered through long shots and camera movements, which is the protagonist – it fortifies the sensations and the feelings of the characters.

Althought at certain points La belle nivernaise calls to mind Vigo, because of the slow fluidity of the scenery images, it is nonetheless closer to the best results of Nordic cinema. In the words of Langlois: “Like all youngsters Epstein, having absorbed the discovery of French cinema, felt the need to reassure himself with the fluidity of a Stiller or a Griffith, of all those in Hollywood and Sweden who were seeking to arrive at profound sources from simplicity. This was La belle nivernaise, one of the purest, most classical, and most exquisite works of French silent cinema. […] With its imperceptible intellectual rhythm, its perfect simplicity, its sapient scrutiny, its desire to subordinate everything to the subject, it is without doubt the film which the French can put up against the masterpieces of the Swedish school”. (Guglielmo Pescatore)