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Revision as of 13:26, 11 September 2004
Napoléon (1927) is an epic silent French film, directed by Abel Gance about the rise of Napoleon I.
Ahead of its time in its use of handheld cameras and editing, many scenes were hand tinted or toned. Gance had intended a lot of the film to be screened as a triptych via triple projection, or Polyvision. 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.
When it was first released, Napoléon had only been screened in eight 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 being put on limited release in the United States.
The film historian Kevin Brownlow supervised the reconstruction of the film in 1980 including the Polyvision scenes. This reconstruction was re-edited and released in the United States by American Zoetrope with a score by Carmine Coppola. 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.