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Napoleon
Release date 7th April 1927
Country : France
Running time : 220 mins (Coppolla version)
Genre : Epic
Starring Albert Dieudonne
Screenplay by Abel Gance
Directed by Abel Gance
The early life of Napoleon from his boyhood to the beginning of the Italian campaign.
More than any film I've probably ever seen Napoleon is a display of a director's virtuosity and vision. Its like a huge cinematic fireworks display using all the shots and techniques available to film-makers at the time. Gance as well invented plenty of his own, strapping the camera to moving objects and swinging it about like a pendulum.
Vivid and incredible are the only adjectives to describe the final scenes in widescreen. They are incredibly imaginative and to me show for probably the only time the true capabilities and potential of widescreen. Here the screen isn't shaped like a snake for the sake of it but the images have a narrative purpose, inviting you into the story. They are almost 3D in their effectiveness in doing this while still being purely cinematic.
Its likely a superhuman view of the man is what you would get from a French film on Napoleon and any historical inaccuracies (these right enough are hardly unusual in films of this sort) are more than offset I believe by the incredible way the story is told. The best European silent I've ever seen : no doubt.
Film historian Kevin Brownlow has restored this movie for over 20 years, his latest version lasts around 5 and a half hours.
DVD available in R4 from Universal Home Video :
http://www.dvdorchard.com
Release date 7th April 1927
Country : France
Running time : 220 mins (Coppolla version)
Genre : Epic
Starring Albert Dieudonne
Screenplay by Abel Gance
Directed by Abel Gance
The early life of Napoleon from his boyhood to the beginning of the Italian campaign.
More than any film I've probably ever seen Napoleon is a display of a director's virtuosity and vision. Its like a huge cinematic fireworks display using all the shots and techniques available to film-makers at the time. Gance as well invented plenty of his own, strapping the camera to moving objects and swinging it about like a pendulum.
Vivid and incredible are the only adjectives to describe the final scenes in widescreen. They are incredibly imaginative and to me show for probably the only time the true capabilities and potential of widescreen. Here the screen isn't shaped like a snake for the sake of it but the images have a narrative purpose, inviting you into the story. They are almost 3D in their effectiveness in doing this while still being purely cinematic.
Its likely a superhuman view of the man is what you would get from a French film on Napoleon and any historical inaccuracies (these right enough are hardly unusual in films of this sort) are more than offset I believe by the incredible way the story is told. The best European silent I've ever seen : no doubt.
Film historian Kevin Brownlow has restored this movie for over 20 years, his latest version lasts around 5 and a half hours.
DVD available in R4 from Universal Home Video :
http://www.dvdorchard.com
French Films on DVD
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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles
