Tweet Abel Gance Napoleon

Here's a piece I wrote for LA Review of Books on the special pleasures of silent films, using hard to find clips from Abel Gance's Napoleon, called Dueling Revolutions. I'm curious to see what you folks make of it. (I wrote a piece on Chaplin that sparked some discussion here a few months ago).

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=774

Nice article, Jon! Gance sounds like a medieval historian with his quip that "he [wanted to] enter the temple of the arts through the vast portal of history." Most medieval historians, especially the ones who wrote poetical chronicles and histories wrote with that particular historical bent, something which has seemingly mystified "modern" historiographers for a couple of centuries. It gave the modern critics more material than the original material! Most forget that the "patrons" for most of the chronicles were family members of the major leaders of the history being written, and that the history was certainly skewed in favor of the family or the country from which they came.

Anyway, fascinating article. Thank you!

Here's a piece I wrote about the Oakland screening of Napoleon, featuring hard to find clips from the picture. An amazing experience, and the clips alone are worth the price of admission. Anyone else get to oakland?

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php? ... t=1&media=

Jon, I thought your essay was superb. I also sent the link to Kevin Brownlow and Carl Davis. Kevin replied that your article is great and that he wishes he had written it himself.

David Shepard

Your use of the emotion of the ‘hive mind’ during of performance as a drug made me think of the reference to the idea of Napoleon being the Woodstock for the silent film community. It hit me as just the right metaphor. I WAS THERE…I saw it the first night but a number of my friends saw it the last night and we all felt the power and the high. I would recommend you read the fantastic post of Eric Grayson and that of Donna Hill, Donna wrote of her experience, I wish I had her skill to express what I felt about the hours in the dark and my thoughts about a trip to Oakland to visit the past, Brownlow’s experience; Gance’s experience; all the way back to the experience of the Revolution. Thanks for the film clips, they are like a scrapbook has it been almost 4 months! Here are a couple of things I wrote and links to dr. film post and Donna Hills post at the article called Napoleon by Gance.

http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/gancenapoleon2012.htm
http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/napoleonbygance.htm

Marilyn Slater,

An exceptional article. The clips look great, although they are extremely short in duration. Was this by design? I mean that is all that Photoplay would allow you to upload? Just curious. I put up a clip close to 10 minutes, from the Thames Silents version a few years ago that I labeled 'THE BELOVED EAGLE" and someone quickly made a copyright claim. It was not Photoplay or Faber Music U. K. either. Her's hoping for a Criterion Blu-ray before to long. But I would certainly settle for THE WEDDING MARCH for now. Long awaited from them.

Great article Jon.

Although not strictly true that there is no DVD of this film - none of this full restoration, certainly, but the Coppola version is available.

[quote="Gagman 66"],

The clips look great, although they are extremely short in duration. Was this by design? I mean that is all that Photoplay would allow you to upload? Just curious.

As I wrote, I thought of Jon’s clips as reminders like a scrapbook, nothing more. Kevin Brownlow’s triumph was the ‘cinema experience’ more than the film of Napoleon; it was the accomplishment of the sharing – the music – the power of the large screen. Of course, to study the techniques that Abel Gance developed film historians might want to be able to stop and replay segments, which is far more convenient on a monitor but for entertainment, perhaps not. In the post done by Eric Grayson, he makes reference to watching Lawrence of Arabia on a cell phone and I think as an entertainment, Napoleon needs the whole experience but look I’m easy to please and I’ll take want I can get.

Gymnasts, jazz and Pete the Pup - how American audiences first viewed Abel Gance's masterpiece ...

Daily Star, Queens, NY, 26 January 1929

i think that the reason why the french cinematheque is restoring the film is that both brownlow and coppola agreed to have an outsider do the restoration as part of the deal to have the film shown in sf this past march/april.

Great article Jon.

Although not strictly true that there is no DVD of this film - none of this full restoration, certainly, but the Coppola version is available.

If you're lucky enough to have this and a player that permits a slower playback (as mine does), you'll see the film in a more proper speed, running four hours and fifty minutes (run at .8 speed). It seems a much more natural speed and I find the story even more exciting when viewed this way. At no point does the film seem too slow at this speed.
The musical score handles the speed change well since it was fast paced, keeping up with the original (much too fast) film speed. The original 1981 Radio City Music Hall Premire runtime had to meet the time restriction of four hours.

Wonderful article! I'm amazed at how well you described the sublime majesty of Napoleon. It's such a tragedy that so few have experienced it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!