Napoléon

The original plan was to create six films highlighting all of Napoleon's life. But Gance spent the entire budget on this one and it really shows.

From the opening scene depicting a snowball fight, I was immediately impressed with the sheer number of techniques Gance used to make it more enegetic. From "Russian montage" (rapid edits at a blinding speed) to mounting the camera on snow sleds, boats, and even a horse to put the viewer in the middle of the action. Gance also invented the idea of widescreen by mounting three cameras on one tripod.

Perhaps the single finest scene in the film has the intercutting of Napoleon in a small boat at sea fighting through a typhoon as the French parliment is falling apart (with the camera attached to a pendulum to simulate the ocean waves). Few scenes pack so much incredable energy as this one.

I was also very impressed with Albert Dieudonne's performance as Napoleon. He seems to channel the spirit of Napoleon himself through his eyes. And the film goes to great lengths establishing the future emperor as a man of destiny. All this, in spite of the fact that Dieudonne is clearly too old to play the young (20 or so) Napoleon.

It's a shame that this film still isn't on DVD.

If you're a lover of films, this is a must-have for your collection. The four-hour length of the movie may seem daunting, but it can be watched in 2 two hour viewings.


WHY THE "CENSORSHIP"   March 1, 2004
Cinematically I agree with all of the superlatives offered up by previous reviewers.My major reservation is with the way Abel Gance bowdlerizes the story of Napoleon. Unlike the Russian moviemakers of the 20s who were under significant political pressure to minimize the unsavoury aspects of the Revolution I am not aware that Gance was under any sort of similar political pressure. Consequently I find the decision (presumably his) in a film almost four hours long (!) not to make any reference whatsoever to the Russian campaign, Waterloo or the exiles quite bizarre. Perhaps another reviewer knows of a reason behind this omission but absent that I think that this is a serious enough flaw to disqualify Napoleon from being a candidate for the greatest silent film.


Dated, but Still Fascinating   January 28, 2004
One of the saddest stories in film history is the blighted career of Abel Gance, a filmmaking genius whose work is virtually unknown and unavailable, even today. Gance, to some degree, was the master of his own fate, since he seems to have lost his nerve after *Napoleon* flopped in America. That we have *Napoleon* at all today is thanks largely to besotted fan Kevin Brownlow, who spent years combing flea markets and film archives for any scrap of the original--a fair bit, we are told, was irretrievably lost, but the bulk of the film is here (the offical BFA print is about 45 minutes longer than the version released by Zoetrope, by the way).

Why not 5 stars? Maybe because a video version cannot hope to reproduce the awesome power of the three-screen ending--even wide-screen TVs don't give you the overwhelming sense of marching with Napoleon's army at the film's end. I was fortunate to have seen this film in a symphony hall with a live orchestra on its re-release, and the video is a pale souvenir of that experience. Maybe, also, because there are long stretches that don't quite hold up as well as they did in 1927--the political stuff is thrilling, as are the battle sequences, but there is, for example, a lengthy sojourn in Corsica with Napoleon's family that goes nowhere, and is pretty conventional silent-film fare. Gance's film suffers at times from naive hero worship and slushy sentimentality, even as it is cinematically daring and revloutionary. Still, at over 4 hours, you expect some bits to drag--see this film, if you can, for the recreation of the French Revolution (including an audacious silent-film rendering of the first public performance of "La Marseillaise"!), for the exellent "double storm" sequence, and for the glorious finish. See it, also, for some unforgettable character sketches--Robespierre and Antonin Artaud's Marat are brilliant, as is Gance's own portrayal of the ruthless St Just. With all its flaws, it's still astonishing, especially set against Kevin Brownlow's own story of the restoration.

In the DVD age, it would be nice to see a DVD version of the BFA Napoleon, as well as what's left of Gance's other magnificent silent films.


A genuine classic   November 8, 2002
Remarkable, engrossing epic that was something of a life work for its inspired director Abel Gance. Re-issued after restoration, with much fanfare, in 1981. The story deals with Napleonïs youth and early successes, rather than his Empire days. Indeed the making of this movie was an epic seemingly as long and inspired as its subject. Among a torrent of innovations, Gance had cameras mounted on moving objects such as firing cannon; shot a segment in color and another in a ï3-Dï process similar to those popular in the 1950s (but in 1927!) but decided that he didnït like these effects after all; and pioneered wide-screen film, with three adjacent cameras making contiguous images, in outdoor segments seen in the later parts of the 1981 release. The hell of it is, this film is not about film technique but rather about the story and the actors. Gance himself appears as the revolutionary leader Louis Antoine de Saint-Just; Albert DieudonnA in the title role is possessed by his character, whom he well mimics in appearance; and you wonït forget Robespierre, peering at the world and his colleagues through his sinister dark glasses. Although released on black-and-white film, many scenes are tinted (in, naturally, the Tricolor blue-white-and-red), with some of the three-camera wide-screen segments underscoring this point via simultaneous Tricolor tinting.

Though I donït know this for certain, it would not surprise me if this movie showed up on top-10 lists of many serious film buffs. That is, film buffs who have actually seen a few films besides the latest Tom Cruise, and therefore have basis from which to comment. (...). Film buffs long familiar with major films like Intolerance and Battleship Potemkin and The Red Balloon and the Warners 1940s _films noirs_ and Bondarchukïs War and Peace (the largest feature film ever made, by several measures) and La Ronde and 8 Â and Shadows of [Our] Forgotten Ancestors and Witness for the Prosecution and All Quiet on the Western Front and Olympia and Grand Illusion and the Powell-Pressburger spy dramas and Green for Danger and Mon Oncle and A Man for All Seasons and It Happened One Night, that sort of thing.