From his obsession with the Emperor of the French, filmmaker Abel Gance gave life to a titanic project. In 1927, he revealed Napoleon seen by Abel Gancean ambitious but incomplete film about childhood, then rise and the Revolution, which ends with the Italian campaign. A work that is both captivating and innovative and will forever mark the history of cinema. For almost a century, moviegoers around the world have wanted to see the (very) feature film in its complete version, lasting 7 hours, with a final scene arranged in a triptych. Thanks to the crazy restoration work of enthusiasts, France 5 is broadcasting for the very first time (after a previous deprogramming), in two parts, the film in its original version, Friday November 22, 2024 from 9:05 p.m.
Napoleon seen by Abel Gance : un revolutionary film in the history of French cinema
Abel Gance thought big. Very big. It tells the story of Napoleon's life, from his childhood at Brienne school – where he was mistreated by his peers, but already distinguished himself as a war leader during snowball fights – to his entry into Milan . Nearly 100 years since Ridley Scott entrusted the character to Joaquin Phoenix, the director offered actor Albert Dieudonné the role of his life, and at the same time granted himself that of Saint-Just, a former politician nicknamed L' Archangel of Terror. Around them gravitate an infinity of characters and extras, including two black actors, playing their part to perfection. A fact rare enough at the time to be highlighted. “Make the spectator an actor, involve him in the action, carry him into the rhythm of the images”this was the director's project. For hours, he plays with color filters (yellow, red, purple, orange, blue), chiaroscuro, cardboard, juxtaposes images and plans, introduces kinds of holograms and above all: explores polyvision ( name that he himself had given to the triptych), or the broadcast of a sequence cut on three different screens. Technical feats that have spanned the ages, not without help.
The thousand and one lives of Napoleon by Abel Gance
The director has been reworking his film all his life. In 1935, for example, he gave a voice to his previously silent characters. Five other restored versions – but incomplete – have followed one another since 1953. Between 1953 and 2000, Henri Langlois, Marie Epstein, Kevin Brownlow and Bambi Ballard took over to restore all its beauty and singularity to this work. But it was in 2008 that the Cinémathèque française asked Georges Mourier to undertake the most extensive work. For 6 months, the director and researcher sorted the contents of nearly 1,000 boxes containing thousands of vintage reels. In June 2012, he unveiled a first low definition montage of the “monster”then in 2017 the digital restoration begins. The latter, revealed for the first time on television on France 5, took care to respect the experimental dimension of the film, while restoring all its dynamism. Voices and music were synchronized to the images, and missing scenes were found and reconstructed. Hard work which restores all its former glory to this hypnotic work, the length of which cannot frighten film buffs and the curious.
