Film: Napoléon
Director: Abel Gance
Country: France
Released: April 1927
Runtime: 330 minutes
Genre: Biopic
Studio: Gaumont
Influenced: Jean Vigo, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Sergei Bondarchuk, Martin Scorsese
1927 was a banner year for cinema, heralding the release of some iconic, groundbreaking films including The Lodger (Hitchcock), Metropolis (Lang), Sunrise (Murnau) and Abel Gance's epic retelling of the life of Napoléon. I haven't shared a YouTube version of this film because there's only one true way to watch it, which is the full 5 and a half hours of the beautifully restored Kevin Brownlow / BFI version. Its excellent score has lovely details like the Marseillaise motif that depicts the origins and adoption of the French national anthem.
What Abel Gance achieves with Napoléon is jaw-dropping, and so far ahead of its time, from his use of underwater cameras to the way he superimposes images and notably his unique "polyvision" finale, a triptych of moving images creating a dynamic widescreen image. I also love Gance's cinematic style; the way he introduces the three main characters of the French Revolution – Danton, Marat and Robespierre – is one of the film's many cinematic highlights, and so modern in its styling. Robespierre slowly peeling off his tinted glasses and staring sternly into the camera is a sublime moment. Antonin Artaud, who plays Marat, was a leading dramatist and actor of the time, renowned for his Theatre of Cruelty.
Hare are my notes act-by-act while watching the film (in two sittings):
Act 1 (1:54mins): We see Napoléon's early life at Brienne College and the story behind his association with the eagle. There's an iconic scene of Napoleon escaping Corsica by boat after being chased by soldiers on horseback and raising the French tricolore on his small dinghy as he sails away. In the same way that the storm engulfs Napoleon out at sea off the coast of Corsica, there is a storm brewing at the Convention that leads to the Reign of Terror, and Gance dramatises this historic connection by interspersing the footage of both events. At the end of the first act, Nelson appears to the tune of Rule Britannia and is persuaded out of sinking Napoléon’s boat by his captain.
Act 2 (1:04mins): Beginning of the Reign of Terror marked by Marat’s death and the Siege of Toulon (1793), where Napoléon joins the ranks as a young artillery captain. During the siege, he is appointed commander in chief of the artillery and goes on the offensive. The film does gets intensely, and sometimes hilariously, jingoistic here – one particularly laughable moment is when the servant Tristan Fleuri from Brienne College (who somehow ends up as a bar owner in Toulon) comments that Napoléon will save France one day. After the siege, Napoléon is promoted to brigadier general.
Act 3 (1:47mins): Introduction of Saint-Just character, rise of Robespierre and Danton’s death. Just after we see Robespierre reading a book about Cromwell, an arrest warrant is issued and this leads to Napoléon’s capture & imprisonment in a fort in Antibes. Napoléon is saved from the guillotine by document eater, La Bussière. We then see the ousting of Robespierre and end of the Reign of Terror during Thermidor (11th month of new Republican calendar with its 10-day weeks called décades) in July 1974. A year later, Napoléon returns to power as the army general tasked with seeing off the Royalist insurrection. His success earns him fame and promotion to Commander of the Interior and the attention of lover Joséphine. Just over an hour in to Act 3, the film has some very raunchy shots of women dancing. There's also an incredible shot of Josephine’s face superimposed on a globe that is being kissed by Napoléon, to symbolise his dual desire for sexual & military conquest.
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