NAPOLEON Movie Review

Abel Gance's Napoleon, completed in 1927 and restored by historian Kevin Brownlow in 1980, remains one of the world's great film experiences. The picture follows the conqueror's life from childhood through his Italian Campaign, and in its execution the film is an astonishingly successful blend of traditional and experimental storytelling techniques; with its sweeping camera movements, rapid editing, tinting, grand special effects, and a final three-panel sequence that encompasses all of these techniques and combines them into more than the sum of their parts. Napoleon seemed in many ways to suggest the future of the cinema. Alas, following its original premiere, the film was carved into many different, shortened versions for export and conventional theatrical projection (the final sequence of the film, photographed in what Gance dubbed “Polyvision,” originally required three projectors in synchronization). Much of the original footage was reputed to be lost over the subsequent years, but Brownlow's dedication led to a premiere of a thrillingly restored four-hour version at the 1980Telluride Film Festival, with the 91 -year-old Gance triumphantly in attendance. (I was one of those lucky enough to be shivering up in the Colorado mountains at 3 a.m. when Napoleon ended, but it was hard to distinguish whether the goosebumps were from the cold or from the astonishment of seeing the restored final sequence, and then looking behind me and seeing Gance alone in a window, watching his recovered masterpiece with the rest of us.) Though Gance died the following year, Napoleon toured the U.S. under the sponsorship of Francis Ford Coppola, whose father, Carmine, composed and conducted a live orchestral score. Brownlow has returned a precious and irreplaceable treasure to all of us, and deserves our gratitude. (Gance reworked portions of Napoleon cleverly in his 1971 Bonaparte and the Revolution.)

NEXT STOP … Intolerance, Orphans of the Storm, Chimes at Midnight

1927 235m/B FR Albert Dieudonne, Antonin Artaud, Pierre Batcheff, Gina Manes, Armand Bernard, Harry Krimer, Albert Bras, Abel Gance, Georges Cahuzac; D: Abel Gance; M: Carmine Coppola. VHS, LV USH