Napoléon vu par Abel Gance

Four showings at the art deco palace Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland on March 24, 25, 31 and April 1 will be a landmark for cinemaphiles. From the opening snowball fight to the closing triptych of the eagle's shadow leading the Grande Armee, there was so much to love. Abel Gance takes you on a journey that your mind gets to ride with distinct pleasures. Robespierre in the John Lennonesque sunglasses, the teaching of the Marsailles, the dinghy with an escaping Napoleon and the General Assembly simultaneously in stormy seas, are but a few. I can't imagine I'll ever watch this on DVD after seeing it like I did. I certainly could never consider a sped up 24pp version. I watched Metropolis once like that and it just wasn't the same film. In fact criminal. So weirdly, I recommend the film but can't recommend seeing it unless a better format is available. I'm going to buy Carl Davis' score and play the film in my head from memory, which includes the crowd at the Paramount rising to their feet at the close shouting Vive La France! Vive La Gance!

Modern film-goers are used to explication, to having everything explained for them. The art of visual story-telling -- where images and action indicate the emotional state of characters, rather than have the actor tell you how angry or sad or excited they are -- has almost been lost. But "Napoleon" is a masterpiece of visual art. (Writer-director Abel Gance was honored at the Telluride film festival a few years ago for this film. Far too late, in my opinion.)

The film tells the life of Napoleon Bonaparte -- the Corsican who adopts France as his homeland, rises to supreme general of the French armies during the Revolution and eventually seizes the seat of government itself (twice!). It starts out with a lengthy (if perhaps mythological) examination of Napoleon's childhood in a Catholic school. Snowball fights between Napoleon and two future foes portend the future. Napoleon's friendship with a pet eagle foreshadows his role as emperor of France. But even though these scenes represent more artistic license than history, they are tremendously well-acted by the young Vladimir Roudenko (as young Napoleon). Among the many innovations are some relatively naturalistic acting by the members of the cast and some jaw-dropping editing and montage sequences (especially during the brawl during the snowball fight and the fight in the sleeping quarters). Such innovative use of editing probably wouldn't be seen for another 30 or 40 years!

After almost an hour of this three-hour epic, we're transported to the period of the adult Napoleon -- acted with gravitas and iciness by Albert Dieudonne (who is among the cast's taller actors, just as Napoleon was in reality fairly tall, too). The film dwells extensively on the formative period when Napoleon first arrives in Paris during the late Revolution, focusing heavily on how the chaos in the city stamped into Napoleon the authoritarianism and dictatorial leadership traits that would emerge later in life. This is perhaps the highlight of the film. The editing and visual images create a swirling, spinning, mind-blowing effect that is extremely effective.

The film then focuses on Napoleon's return to Corisca -- whose people held allegiances to Spain and Italy as well as France, and where Napoleon faced imprisonment due to his French leanings. For anyone interested in learning more about the life of Napoleon, this segment is pretty eye-opening. It's followed by a sequence at sea that's amazingly effective in conveying the power and terror of a storm at sea. For its time, this film contained some powerful ocean footage (watch for those amazing low-angle shots, and the ingenious intercutting of the "angry storm" of the French assembly and Napoleon's tiny skiff tossed about on the stormy seas).

The final hour and a half of the film depicts Napoleon's rise in the army and his tenure as emperor of France. This is perhaps the portion of the film that most viewers would think of as "the story of Napoleon." But perhaps one of the reasons why this film is so fascinating is that it delves deeply into the formative episodes in Napoleon's early life and gives as much importance to them as to his later actions on the battlefield in Italy, his tenure as emperor, and his subsequent exile, return, and exile. And the film does so without being heavy-handed, un-subtle or overly expositive.

A restored version of "Napoleon" is making the rounds in the US in cinemas and on television. It contains a new musical soundtrack by Carmine Coppola, which is fairly good (although at times repetitive and too loud). The film was restored and re-edited by Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope studio. Zoetrope added some tinting (the ocean scenes are all blue, the "angry mob" scenes are all red) that is interesting but perhaps not quite the "restoration" some viewers might have had in mind.

Watch "Napoleon." You'll be very surprised at how modern the film is. Compared to other silent films of the 1920s, with the undercranked action, overly emotive acting, fantastic plots and theatrical make-up and costumes, "Napoleon" is years ahead of its time. Silent films require concentration to watch. "Napoleon" will keep your interest.

... and remarkable even in it's current, truncated form. The film details the early life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Albert Dieudonne), from his unpleasant childhood in boarding school to his early military life during the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror, through to his first military victories and marriage to Josephine (Gina Manes). Also featuring Annabella and Abel Gance as Saint-Just.

Gance seems to have taken note of every cinematic technique of the previous 30 years of the medium, combining them all into a breathtaking, exhaustive epic that transcends the time of it's making while being wholly of it, as well. This could not exist with such strength as anything but a silent film, I feel, as the reliance on visual stimulus forced Gance into finding new and exciting ways to express emotion and mood. His early use of montage editing and super-imposition of imagery is stellar. The use of handheld cameras adds to the immediacy of the revolutionary scenes, conveying a newsreel touch that seems far advanced from other films of its day. The sets and costumes are very impressive, as is the cast of thousands. Dieudonne resembles Olivier's Richard III more than any other screen Napoleon that I've seen, but it works, and I wonder if this is the image I'll conjure in the future when thinking of the French military genius.

This movie has a storied existence, with multiple running times and edits throughout the decades. Gance's original version is said to have run over 9 hours, but subsequent edits ran as short as 115 minutes (the 1929 US release). Noted British film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow has made it his life's work to try and restore the movie as closely as possible to Gance's original vision. The version that I watched was the recently released BFI version, supervised by Brownlow, and it ran 333 minutes, or about 5 and a half hours. It's definitely a must see.

Abel Gance's 'Napoleon' was premiered on April 7, 1927, at the Paris Opera House, the first movie to be accorded such an honor… It was been shown on a triple screen and to full orchestral accompaniment, running slightly under four hours…

Impressive as it seems, it was conceived as the first of a six-part biography running many hours and tracing the life of Napoleon from childhood to the bitter end in St Helena… Fortunately-for Abel Gance who directed and for us-the project was only completed to that moment where Napoleon enters Italy at the head of the French army, and the later and less pleasant aspects of his spectacular career were left unfilmed... The Little Corporal, after all, is a less controversial figure than the Emperor…

Gance needed a figure as emblematic and powerful as 'Napoleon' to fulfill his dream of super cinema…

'Napoleon' is a masterpiece of excess:

• The child Bonaparte keeps a pet eagle and wins a snow fight while at school in Brienne... In this sequence, the frame splits into nine subliminal images; as Napoleon watches his men entering Italy, the screen expands on each side to form a breathtaking panorama, then changes into three coordinated views of the scene…

• The National Convention seems to sway and rock as Napoleon makes his escape from Corsica in a storm-tossed sailboat…

• The Gallic of cabaret singers, Damia, leads French troops into battle personifying 'La Marseillaise'…

'Napoleon' is like one grand musical composition. It throbs with life…

That was Gance the great filmmaker who thought that film could do everything and who said to Kevin Brownlow: 'For me, the cinema is not just pictures. It is something great, mysterious and sublime.' Brownlow is known now not only as an English filmmaker and film historian but also as a great restorer of silent films, notably Abel Gance's 'Napoleon.'

January 23, 1981. Radio City Music Hall. Nearly midnight. One of the most thrilling experiences of my life. "Napoleon", restored, and reconstructed, not seen for over fifty years, was debuting in front of 6,000 people packed into the great theater with Carmine Coppolla conducting a huge orchestra rising up on the lift as lighting cast fifty foot shadows of the conductor on the walls. The score was magnificent. By the end of the film when the tryptyches stretched the size of the screen to triple size filling the glorious famous sunburst proscenium, Radio City Music Hall erupted in a standing ovation - and Kevin Brownlow, who restored the film, at that very moment from the theater had Abel Gance (soon to die) live on the phone from France to hear the ovation! Just incredible. Glorious. The film is a masterpiece of the Twentieth Century. And a must see. The best scene was the battle in the Convention between the Girondists and Jacobins superimposed on Napoleon's escape from Corsica in a sea storm. Staggering editing and camera work. It is a tragedy for us all the the remaining chapters of Napoleon's life were never put on film as Gance planned.