Napoléon (1927 film)

Napoléon
Albert Dieudonné as Napoleon
Directed by	Abel Gance
Produced by	Abel Gance (executive in charge of production)
Written by	Abel Gance
Starring	Albert Dieudonné Antonin Artaud Edmond Van Daële
Music by	Arthur Honegger
Cinematography	Jules Kruger
Editing by	Abel Gance
Distributed by	Gaumont (Europe) MGM (USA)
Release date(s)	April 7, 1927
Running time	330 minutes
Language	Silent film French intertitles

Napoléon (1927) is an epic silent French film directed by Abel Gance that tells the story of the rise of Napoleon I of France.

It begins from his youth in school where he managed a snowball fight like a military campaign, to his victory in invading Italy in 1797. Planned to be the first of six movies about Napoleon Bonaparte, it was realised after the completion of the film that the costs involved would make this impossible.

Ahead of its time in its use of handheld cameras and editing, many scenes were hand tinted or toned. Gance had intended the final reel of the film to be screened as a triptych via triple projection, or Polyvision.

It was first released in a gala premiere at the Paris Opéra in April 1927. Napoléon had been screened in only 8 European cities when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to the film, but after screening it intact in London, it was cut drastically in length, and only the central panel of the widescreen sequences retained before it was put on limited release in the United States, where it was indifferently received at a time when talkies were just starting to appear.

Primary cast

• Albert Dieudonné as Napoléon Bonaparte
• Vladimir Roudenko as Napoléon Bonaparte (child)
• Edmond Van Daële as Maximilien Robespierre
• Alexandre Koubitzky as Georges Danton
• Antonin Artaud as Jean-Paul Marat
• Abel Gance as Louis de Saint-Just
• Gina Manès as Joséphine de Beauharnais
• Suzanne Bianchetti as Marie Antoinette
• Marguerite Gance as Charlotte Corday
• Yvette Dieudonné as Élisa Bonaparte
• Philippe Hériat as Antonio Salicetti
• Annabella as Violine Fleuri (and Désirée Clary)

Restorations

• The film historian Kevin Brownlow conducted the reconstruction of the film in the years leading up to 1980, including the Polyvision scenes. As a boy, Brownlow had purchased two 9.5 mm reels of the film from a street market. He was captivated by the cinematic boldness of short clips, and his research led to a lifelong fascination with the film and a quest to reconstruct it. On August 31, 1979, Napoleon was shown to a crowd of hundreds at the Telluride Film Festival, in Telluride, Colorado. The film was presented in full Polyvision at the specially constructed Abel Gance Open Air Cinema, which is still in use today. Gance was in the audience until the chilly air drove him indoors after which he watched from the window of his room at the New Sheridan Hotel. Kevin Brownlow was also in attendance and presented Gance with his Silver Medallion.

• Brownlow's 1980 reconstruction was re-edited and released in the United States by American Zoetrope (through Universal Pictures) with a score by Carmine Coppola performed live at the screenings. The restoration premiered in the United States at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on January 23-25, 1981; each performance showed to a standing room only house. Gance could not attend because of poor health. At the end of the January 24 screening, a telephone was brought onstage and the audience was told that Gance was listening on the other end and wished to know what they had thought of his film. The audience erupted in an ovation of applause and cheers that lasted several minutes. The acclaim surrounding the film's revival brought Gance much-belated recognition as a master director before his death only 11 months later, in November 1981.^[1]

• Another restoration was made by Brownlow in 1983. When it was screened at the Barbican Centre in London, French actress Annabella, who plays the fictional character Violine in the film (personifying France in her plight, beset by enemies from within and without), was in attendance. She was introduced to the audience prior to screenings and during one of the intervals sat alongside Kevin Brownlow, signing copies of the latter's book about the history and restoration of the film.

• Brownlow re-edited the film again in 2000, including previously missing footage rediscovered by the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Altogether, 35 minutes of reclaimed film had been added, making the total film length of the 2000 restoration five and a half hours. Also, the tinting and toning made by Pathé for the original film using the Keller-Dorian color process, were recreated and used in the 2000 restoration.^[2]

• The film is properly screened in full restoration very rarely due to the expense of the orchestra and the difficult requirement of three synchronised projectors and three screens for the Polyvision section. The last such screening was at the Royal Festival Hall in London in December 2004, and included a live orchestral score of classical music extracts arranged and conducted by Carl Davis. The screening itself was the subject of hotly contested legal threats from Francis Ford Coppola via Universal Studios to the British Film Institute over whether or not the latter had the right to screen the film without the Coppola score. An understanding was reached and the film was screened for both days.^[3]

• On July 14, 2011, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival announced their presentation, in association with American Zoetrope, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and British Film Institute, of Brownlow's 2000 restoration in March 2012 at the Paramount Theatre Oakland. The presentation features the U.S. premiere of the complete restoration and the U.S. premiere of Carl Davis' orchestral score, with Davis conducting members of the Oakland East Bay Symphony. The film's famous triptych sequences will be shown in full Polyvision, with three simultaneous projectors and a 70-foot screen. The film has not been screened theatrically in the U.S. with live orchestra since 1981, and there are no plans to repeat this presentation of Brownlow's complete restoration with Davis' score in any other American city.^[4][5][6][7]

DVD availability

Only Region 2 and Region 4 DVDs are available, using the largely outdated 1980 restoration shown at a speeded-up 24 frames per second, with Carmine Coppola's score, Francis Ford Coppola's shortened 223-minute edit, and none of the original film tinting. To suit home viewers watching on a standard-width television screen, the triptych portion is letterboxed.^[8]

See also

• List of biopics
• Napoleon in popular culture
• List of early color feature films
• List of longest films by running time

References

1. ^ Brownlow, Kevin (2004). Napoleon: Abel Gance's classic film. 1. Photoplay. pp. 217–236. ISBN 1844570770. 
2. ^ Alternate versions for Napoleon (1927)
3. ^ Jones, Rick (2004-12-04). "Napoleon - battle for the sound of silents". The Times. News International. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article398568.ece. Retrieved 2007-01-22. "Who owns Napoleon?" 
4. ^ "San Francisco Silent Film Festival to Present Abel Gance's Napoleon". Movie News: Top News Stories. Turner Classic Movies. July 14, 2011. http://www.tcm.com/this-month/movie-news.html?id=430711&name=San-Francisco-Silent-Film-Festival-to-Present-Abel-Gance-s-Napoleon. Retrieved July 17, 2011. 
5. ^ "Silent Film Festival to present 'Napoleon'". San Francisco Silent Film Festival. July 15, 2011. http://sfsilentfilmfestival.blogspot.com/2011/07/silent-film-festival-to-present.html. Retrieved July 17, 2011. 
6. ^ "Calendar of Events". Oakland: Paramount Theatre of the Arts. http://www.paramounttheatre.com/schedule.html. Retrieved July 17, 2011. 
7. ^ Gladysz, Thomas (July 14, 2011). "Napoleon's cinematic exile to end in 2012". SFGate.com. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/tgladysz/detail?entry_id=93197. Retrieved July 17, 2011. 
8. ^ "Napoleon (1927) (1929)". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Albert-Dieudonn%C3%A9/dp/B00005JMVP. Retrieved July 17, 2011. 

Further reading

• Kevin Brownlow, Napoleon, Abel Gance's Classic Film. New York: Knopf, 1983.

External links

• Napoléon at the Internet Movie Database
• Napoléon at AllRovi
• Napoléon (movie)
• The 2000 restoration
• Site Napo Ciné Pédia site based upon Napoleon on screen