No need to be watching Ridley Scott’s new, flawed version, Napoleon, starring Juaquin Pheonix.
The definitive version is still Abel Gance’s 1927 masterpiece.
Abel Gance wrote, produced, and directed the silent French epic film, Napoleon, focusing on the early years of the conqueror.
The film’s formal title is “Napoléon vu par Abel Gance,” which translates into “Napoleon as seen by Abel Gance.” This suggests that there was no effort at historical accuracy in events and other details.
| Napoléon | |
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Albert Dieudonné as Napoleon
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The film displays masterfully fluid camera motion, at a time when most camera shots were static.
Many innovative techniques were used, including fast cutting, extensive close-ups, a wide variety of hand-held camera shots, location shooting, point of view shots, multiple-camera setups, multiple exposure, superimposition, underwater camera, kaleidoscopic images, film tinting, split screen and mosaic shots, multi-screen projection, and other visual effects.
A revival of Napoléon in the mid-1950s influenced the filmmakers of the French New Wave.
The film used the Keller-Dorian cinematography for its color sequences.
The tale begins in Brienne-le-Château with youthful Napoleon attending military school where he manages a snowball fight like a military campaign, yet he suffers the insults of other boys.
It continues a decade later with the French Revolution and Napoleon as a young army lieutenant. He returns to visit his family in Corsica but politics shift against him and put him in mortal danger. He flees, taking his family to France.
Serving as an artillery officer in the Siege of Toulon, Napoleon showed genius for leadership, and was promoted to brigadier general. Jealous revolutionaries imprison Napoleon but then the political tide turns against the Revolution’s own leaders.
Napoleon leaves prison, forming plans to invade Italy. He falls in love with the beautiful Joséphine de Beauharnais. The emergency government charges him with the task of protecting the National Assembly. He is promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior, and marries Joséphine. He takes control of the army which protects the French–Italian border, and invades Italy.
Gance’s plan was for Napoléon to be the first of six films about Napoleon’s career, a chronology of triumph and defeat ending in Napoleon’s death in exile on the island of Saint Helena. After the difficulties encountered in making the first film, Gance dropped the project due to the immense costs involved.
Napoléon was first released in a gala at the Palais Garnier (home of the Paris Opera) on April 7, 1927.
After showings in only eight European cities, MGM bought the rights to it.
But after screening it in London, it was cut drastically in length, and only the central panel of the three-screen Polyvision sequences was retained before it was put on limited release in the U.S.
Initially, the film was indifferently received due to the fact that sound films, “talkies” (such as The Jazz Singer) were starting to appear.
The film was restored in 1979 after twenty years’ work by film historian Kevin Brownlow. It was first shown at the Telluride Film Fest, with Gance in attendance.
In 1981, Coppola showed the restored film, with a new score by his father, Carmine Coppola, at Radio City Music Hall for three sold-out performances. The initial screenings were so successful that Coppola extended the run to three more weekends. (The ticket price was $25 which, adjusted to inflation, is over $75 today).
For most of its length, Napoleon was projected in standard screen size.
However, Napoleon’s campaign in Italy, was shown in triptych. Three projectors were used to line up three images that march across the Music Hall screen in the widest film ever.
At the climax, Gance tints one image red and another blue, to create the French tricolor.
Credits:
Produced, written, directed by Abel Gance
Music by:
1927, France: Arthur Honegger
1927, Germany: Werner Heymann
1980, UK: Carl Davis
1980, US: Carmine Coppola
Cinematography Jules Kruger
Edited by Marguerite Beaugé (1927) and others
Distributed by Gaumont
Release date: April 4, 1927
Restored: Jan 23-25, 1981
Running time: 330 minutes (and various other lengths)
