Austerlitz

I believe the reason after so many votes that no one has decided to offer a review of this film is because it appears so hard to define it as a film. This is much more a tedious, detailed account of Napoleon's victory at the battle of Austerlitz. The film focuses so much on the strategic underpinnings of the battle that is almost seems more like watching a risk or stratego game than a film. From the political maneuvering of how the French and Russian forces came to the battle to the strategic genius that was Napoleon this film does not offer much in the way of character development, acting, or even special effects. What the film does offer is a historical recount of how battles were fought in the early 19th century. The only interesting cinematic points of interest is to look for a young Jack Palance as a Russian General and a scene stealing Orson Welles as an American inventor. Also this was one of the last films directed by the French "DW Griffith" - Abel Gance.

Austerlitz (1960) was the battle that made Napoleon Bonaparte not only one of western civilization's greatest generals, but it solidify his position as Napoleon I "The Emperor of France". I saw this film many years ago on video. The colors were washed out and it was cropped big time. Besides these faults, the movie was great. If there's a movie that needs to be restored it's this one. A film of this magnitude and the grand scale it was presented on needs to be shown it is original glory.

NAPOLEON was restored recently. It's only fitting that the film that the same director spent his entire life on have one of it's sequels be remastered and preserved in the same way.

Highly recommended.

...and to "Napoleon" whose life Gance transferred to the screen in the silent era.Sandwiched between two very underrated Gance works ("la Tour de Nesles" and "Cyrano et D'Artagnan" )it is a return to "real " "true" history.I will go as far as to write that Gance impressed me much more when his movies dealt with fictionalized history (the two mentioned movies,but "j'accuse" too)."Austerlitz has something academic ,conventional.It has nothing of Gance's madness.The first part is a stream of stars from Martine Carol to Claudia Cardinale ,from Jean Marais to Orson Welles (in a part which reminds us how Gance was interested in the development of science through the centuries ,à la Jules Verne,we find this interest in "Cyrano" and "J'accuse" too).THe lead is a good actor but he might be ,on an international level, the least known of them all:Pierre Mondy's name is buried in the cast and credits and although he is on the screen from the beginning to the end,his name is not bigger than that of Welles who appears barely five minutes.Ah fame! The first part has only one sequence where we find back the inventive Gance:we do not attend the coronation in Notre Dame ;the marechal de Ségur (Jean-Louis Trintignant) tells the whole story with the model in front of a strange audience:servants ;then the "mamma " ("pourvu que ça dure!=lets hope it lasts!") ,Napoleon's mother (Elvire Popesco) enters and her tears begin to flow .Although David put her in his famous painting she did not attend the ceremony.

The second part is more historically interesting ,but if you are not fond of military strategy ,you may stop yourself yawning.Fortunately a soldier of the old guard of Napoléon (un "grognard" )played by Michel Simon brings a bit of life among these troop movements.

Last but not least:I have always asked myself why a convinced pacifist such as Gance (his two versions of "j'accuse" may be the strongest anti-war films ever)could be so fascinated by a warrior such as Napoleon.

This is two different movies stuck together. In the first part Napoleon is introduced in a very informal way, showing him debating hats with his personal valet. For a moment I thought it was going to be a comedy... Then the plot takes a more serious turn, with Napoleon in Paris, undecided about seizing power and proclaiming himself emperor. I watched the original French version, which includes several scenes in English, showing the British plotting against Napoleon and the events leading to the execution of the duke d'Enghien.

Still in Paris we are shown Napoleon's greedy family and mistress, and his coronation (luckily only narrated) and then the story finally marches (literally) toward the battle of Austerlitz. Several scenes show the Russians and the Austrians preparing for war and debating in French, as the only common language and then the battle itself, which is a long and slightly boring series of scenes lasting over one hour, with a bit of battle, then Napoleon talking strategies with his generals, more battle, strategies discussed by Russians and Austrians and again battle and Napoleon.

Napoleon won this one, considered as his greatest success and Gance wraps up the movie on a patriotic and chauvinist note, with the Marseilles blasting on screen.

Despite the sumptuous costumes and the many stellar cameos, the film is uneven in tone and contains some weird scenes: the opening with Pierre Mondy as a peevish Napoleon is bizarre as is the scene with Napoleon in a bathtub discussing with his ministers; Napoleon encounters with his lover are superfluous as is the meeting with Robert Fulton (played nonetheless by Orson Welles in a useless cameo); the coronation narrated to the servants with the help of puppets is beyond bizarre and even the battle drags on forever, without an apex.

I was under the impression for ages that Abel Gance only made one Napoleon film (all the way back in 1927), and that he wanted to make five or six, but never got the chance. It turns out this isn't entirely true. Not only is Napoleon (1927) long enough to be two or three films in one (it's like 5.5 hours long), but Gance got to make a sort-of sequel in 1960, with the also epic-length The Battle of Austerlitz.

This 1960 film is about half the length of Napoleon, but that still puts it at approximately 170 minutes. It also feels like two movies in one, with a lot of political drama being the focus of the first half, and then the second half centering on planning for the titular battle alongside showing some of it.

I thought the second half would be a good deal more engaging, but I think The Battle of Austerlitz starts quite well, staying pretty engaging for maybe the first half of its first half. Things don't necessarily pick up in a big way once the second half starts, though. It's a bit plodding in different ways to the first half, and it becomes apparent at a point that even the battle parts aren't really going to be about depicting exciting battles. If you come in hoping for something similar to the 1966/67 War and Peace or Waterloo, you'll probably come away disappointed.

The methodical approach to it all (across both halves), while dry, is somewhat admirable. Abel Gance isn't doing nearly as many adventurous things with the camera this time around, which can be disappointing after having watched his 1927 film, but I guess there's sound now, and it's a new approach. The transition from making a silent Napoleon film to making a more traditional one with dialogue was more seamless than I'd been anticipating, and Gance would've had to have been fairly old while making this. I think he did a decent job, all things considered.

Still, this is probably just a curiosity piece for those who were intrigued by and liked Napoleon, or just anyone who's interested in any film about Napoleon Bonaparte. There sure are many of them; I keep coming across new ones all the time, and honestly, I don't think I've seen any I could call flat-out bad yet.