Napoléon (1927)

I recently purchased the Blu-Ray off of Amazon. The restoration of this film was done over 50 years by film historian Kevin Brownlow. This five and a half hour long masterpiece chronicles the early rise of Napoléon Bonaparte.

Napoléon (1927) is my favorite film of all time. This film was meant to be the first of a hexology of films chronicling the life of Napoléon Bonaparte. Abel Gance ended up overbudgeting on the first of them and left us with what we have today. The film opens with a snowball fight at the military school Brienne which Bonaparte attended as a child. It ends with the first Italian campaign which is projected on a 4:1 aspect ratio.

The film uses a panorama technique akin to cinerama known as polyvision. This image was created by aligning three 4:3 cameras next to each other in order to make the panorama. When multiplying 4:3 three times you get this aspect ratio. In theaters this film was accompanied by a live orchestra playing beautiful music in contrast to three different silver screens lined up together to make a wider image.

This same technique was used earlier in the film at Brienne where we see nine screens projecting a pillow fight from nine different perspectives!

The same technique was used during a scene where a tempest at sea is contrasted and intercut with The Reign of Terror. In the Kevin Brownlow restoration of the film we can't see this. It was lost and eventually reconstructed to a single screen version where we can see different overlays and fast cutting across the screen.

The director of the film Abel Gance would never put down the pen and continued to build off of this film until 1971! Gance first made a sound version of the film released as Napoléon Bonaparte (1935) which was followed up with several other editions. During the 1935 version we actually do not see the triple screen finale at the end of the film. Later in 1955 Gance followed up with the 1935 version but with the triple screen finale. This then became a television movie in the 1960s which then lead to 1971 with Bonaparte et la Revolution. This four and a half hour Frankenstein-like biopic was made. You may be wondering why I am calling it a "Frankenstein biopic." Well Gance used footage from his other films such as Austerlitz (1960) where he stitched together different footage to make one sound film.