Napoléon by Abel GanceYesterday I went to the cinema to see a film that ran over three hundred and thirty minutes. The silent, black and white, now ninety year-old movie was not a prospect I was expecting to enjoy. Hollywood pumps out so much trash today, it is a common occurrence to get bored and check the time during the long drawn out hours, and yet after several breaks and five immensely immersive hours I realised that I had barely wondered what the time was once during the entire show. In the late twenties, Abel Gance, a prolific French filmmaker, had planned a six film series of seven hour long biopics on the French national icon, Napoleon Bonaparte. The first film, was to detail Napoleons early life, exploits in Corsica, and his ascension through the ranks post revolution, concluding with the Italian campaign. To audiences in 1927, used to short films, often with relatively little narrative, usually slapstick comedy, or a clever optical effect, such an epic seems preposterous, and sitting in the cinema waiting for the film to begin I was similarly inclined, until I realised that this really was not that different to the long running TV series so common today. Pessimistic, I stare as the screen lights up, and within thirty seconds I am engrossed. The film begins with a nearly twenty minute long… snowball fight. The sequence displays Napoleon as a child, showing his potential as a master strategist, leading charges into the crisp white banks of snow, the intertitle reads “ten against forty”. The children shun him for his uniqueness and the schoolmasters marvel from afar, commenting that he will go far. The actor playing young Napoleon, Vladimir Roudenko, truly has a gift, every second he is on the screen you feel a profound intensity, you feel like you are witnessing history. Much of the film is outrageous propaganda. It continues to follow Napoleon through a lens thoroughly tinted with the tricolour. It details the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom as a foul display of British colonialism rather than an attempt to free them from oppression, and Pasquale Paoli (the Corsican liberator from French rule, think George Washington), as an evil dictator purely interested in personal gain, rather than the bastion of democracy, liberator of the Corsican people, enlightened thinker he was. While the intertitle reads “what happened next was nothing short of a fantasy adventure” He tears down the French flag from the Corsican shore, declares “this is too great for you” and the escapes on horseback and then on a boat, using the French flag as a sail. One hates to break a nice spell, but in fact, at that time Napoleon was a fervent Corsican nationalist, organising riots and attacking French troops. If you have a sense of humour you would appreciate the nonsense when Napoleon is on a ship spotted by Nelson, who asks if he should blow it out of the water, but is told it has a worthless cargo that will be insignificant. The rest of the film (over three hours mind), is utterly spectacular. Every moment is filed with emotive acting, direction and cinematography that puts the best of modern films to shame, and a battle sequence that no doubt would break the bank of a small nation, such is the detail and scale. Money is not an object. So much about the film is brilliant, such as a shot of a swinging chandelier above a crowd paralleling the swaying of a dingy on the rolling waves, or a sequence where Napoleon is writing letters and handing them out to messengers on horseback, or a beautiful montage where we see a triumphant Napoleon grinning, cut to a child Napoleon also victorious, every frame changing, all spectacles remarkable today, unimaginable feats when the film was released, finished off by the beautiful and clean restoration by Kevin Brownlow. The film concludes with two more cameras being brought in to get a widescreen experience. The camera tilts up to reveal literally thousands of troops lined across a mountain top. Napoleon, now leader of France, delivers a speech to his men as they march into the Italian valleys to the sound of the French national anthem pouring down our ears and then… then as Napoleon stares into the horizon, the three camera shots turn red, white and blue, and a superimposed image of the globe spins as it catches on fire and Napoleon in the centre flame fades to an eagle soaring over the world, and in that moment, it is impossible not to feel insanely nationalistic. You want to be French. The pure, distilled, refined propaganda has got to you. Napoléon is a masterpiece. It is a testament to brilliant filmmaking. One of the things that allows it to work so well is that, the silent movie, with actors doing their jobs exceptionally, make you briefly wonder whether it is a film after all. Something in the back of your skull believes that is it in fact a documentary, real archive footage. The spell is magical. In some ways it is poetic that in order for Napoléon, to be the near perfect cinematic experience that it is, there could not be the sequels. The budget was so huge that despite very moderate takings at the box office, the studios did not allow any follow ups. And yet the film may not need them. It totally succeeds at what it set out to do, to portray the life of the young impetuous, brilliant Napoleon. One could levy minor criticism at it for overuse of Beethoven, and some parts that do not mesh perfectly with English audiences, but why try to smear such a wonderful achievement. One could watch other films on Napoleon, such as Waterloo and believe they are continuation of the same characters. Napoléon is a perfect portrayal of an important man who shaped history, regardless of personal opinion, and this investigation into his character during his early life is unmissable. Napoléon should become a staple of the cinematic diet, it’s a must see. Please watch Abel Gance’s Napoléon. Leo Buckley - 2017 Napoleon's snow fortYoung Napoleon, portrayed by Vladimir RoudenkoNapoleon in his boatNapoleon, portrayed by Albert Dieudonné The Italian ArmyThe screen is split into a triptych like the French flag.
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