A new version of “Napoleon” by Abel Gance

Napoleon seen by Abel Gance

At 9:05 p.m. on France 5 then on the france.tv platform

Completely restored and rebuilt, the Napoleon by Abel Gance is broadcast this evening on France 5 in two parts and will be available for thirty days on the france.tv platform. An event worthy of the undertaking which presided over the rebirth of this masterpiece of silent cinema, which had not been seen in its original version since its release in 1927.

This “large version”, dear to the filmmaker, lasting seven hours, and divided into two eras, retraces seventeen years of the Emperor's life from his years of training at the military school of Brienne to his first victorious campaigns, including the French Revolution.

Modernity of its images and special effects

It took sixteen years for the team led by Georges Mourier, under the aegis of the Cinémathèque française, to reconstruct the work in its entirety. Equipped with a new musical score composed for the occasion, screened during an exceptional film concert at La Seine musicale at the beginning of the summer, then briefly in theaters in the Pathé network, the film will now be visible to all. Having become legendary, this Napoleon seen by Abel Gance is as much a lyrical evocation of the almost sacrificial destiny of the young republican lieutenant as it is a witness to the incredible technical inventiveness of its author. And we are struck, almost a century later, by the modernity of its images and its special effects.

A sort of blockbuster from the early days of cinema, intended to equal – already – the American blockbusters of DW Griffith (Birth of a nation, Intolerance)the film does not skimp on the epic and spectacular action scenes (the flight from Corsica, the siege of Toulon), nor on the editing and cutting effects intended to immerse the viewer in the story. Tinted images, subjective camera, superpositions, triple screen to give a panoramic effect: Abel Gance has all the daring, revolutionizing the cinematographic grammar of the time. His film definitely has nothing to envy of the indigestible contemporary version delivered by Ridley Scott.