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Napoléon (1927) is an epic silent French film directed by Abel Gance that tells the story of the rise of Napoleon I of France.

It begins from his youth in school where he managed a snowball fight like a military campaign, to his victory in invading Italy in 1797. Planned to be the first of six movies about Napoleon Bonaparte, it was realised after the completion of the film that the costs involved would make this impossible.

Ahead of its time in its use of handheld cameras and editing, many scenes were hand tinted or toned. Gance had intended the final reel of the film to be screened as a triptych via triple projection, or Polyvision.

It was first released in a gala premiere at the Paris Opéra in April 1927. Napoléon had been screened in only 8 European cities when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to the film, but after screening it intact in London, it was cut drastically in length, and only the central panel of the widescreen sequences retained before it was put on limited release in the United States, where it was indifferently received at a time when talkies were just starting to appear.

Primary cast

• Albert Dieudonné as Napoléon Bonaparte
• Vladimir Roudenko as Napoléon Bonaparte (child)
• Edmond Van Daële as Maximilien Robespierre
• Alexandre Koubitzky as Georges Danton
• Antonin Artaud as Jean-Paul Marat
• Abel Gance as Louis de Saint-Just
• Gina Manès as Joséphine de Beauharnais
• Suzanne Bianchetti as Marie Antoinette
• Marguerite Gance as Charlotte Corday
• Yvette Dieudonné as Élisa Bonaparte
• Philippe Hériat as Antonio Salicetti
• Annabella as Violine Fleuri (and Désirée Clary)

Restorations

The film historian Kevin Brownlow conducted the reconstruction of the film in the years leading up to 1980 including the Polyvision scenes. As a boy, Brownlow had purchased two 9.5mm reels of the film from a street market. He was captivated by the cinematic boldness of short clips, and his research led to a lifelong fascination with the film and a quest to reconstruct it. At 9:00PM MT, Friday, Aug 31, 1979 Napoleon was shown to a crowd of hundreds at the Telluride Film Festival, in Telluride, CO. The film was presented in full Polyvision at the specially constructed Abel Gance Open Air Cinema, which is still in use today. Gance was in attendance and watched from the window of the New Sheridan Hotel. Kevin Brownlow was also in attendance and presented M. Gance with his Silver Medallion. His 1980 reconstruction was re-edited and released in the United States by American Zoetrope (through Universal Pictures) with a score by Carmine Coppola performed live at the screenings. The restoration premiered in the United States at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on January 23-25, 1981. Gance could not attend because of his health. At the end of the January 24 screening, a telephone was brought onstage and the audience was told that Gance was listening on the other end and wished to know what they had thought of his film. The audience erupted in an ovation of applause and cheers that lasted several minutes. The acclaim surrounding the film's revival in January brought Gance much belated recognition as a master director before his death only 11 months later, in November 1981.

Further restoration was made by Brownlow in 1983 and again in 2000, including footage rediscovered by the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Altogether, 35 minutes of reclaimed film had been added, making the total film length of the 2000 restoration five and a half hours. Also, the tinting and toning processes made by Pathé for the original film were recreated and used in the 2000 restoration.

The film is properly screened in full restoration very rarely due to the difficult requirement of three projectors for the Polyvision section; the last screening was at the Royal Festival Hall in London in December 2004, and included a live orchestral score of pastiche classical music arranged and conducted by Carl Davis. The screening itself was the subject of hotly contested legal threats from Francis Ford Coppola via Universal Studios to the British Film Institute over whether or not the latter had the right to screen the film without the Coppola score. Ultimately, the film did screen for both planned days, although there are suggestions that a fight is on the horizon.

The famous French actress Annabella (born Suzanne Georgette Charpentier) who plays the fictional character Violine in the film (personifying France in her plight, beset by enemies from within and without) attended the 1983 screenings of the film at the Barbican in London. She was introduced to the audience prior to screenings and during one of the intervals sat alongside Kevin Brownlow, signing copies of the latter's book about the history and restoration of the film.

Napoleon today

So far only Region 2 and Region 4 DVDs are available, using the largely outdated 1980 restoration, with the triptych being letterboxed. Despite this and the rare screenings of the film, it remains popular, gathering more than 3,000 votes on the Internet Movie Database.

See also

• List of biopics
• Napoleon in popular culture

References

1. Alternate versions for Napoleon (1927)
2. Jones, Rick (2004-12-04). "Napoleon - battle for the sound of silents". The Times. Times Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 2007-01-22.

External links

• Napoléon at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Napoléon (movie)
• The 2000 restoration
• Site Napo Ciné Pédia site based upon Napoleon on screen

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