Napoleon (1927)
"Napoléon" (original title)

A film about the French Field Marshal's youth and early military career.

Director:

Abel Gance

Writer:

Abel Gance

Stars:

Albert Dieudonné, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daële

3 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Albert Dieudonné	...	Napoléon Bonaparte
Vladimir Roudenko	...	Napoléon Bonaparte enfant
Edmond Van Daële	...	Maximilien Robespierre
Alexandre Koubitzky	...	Danton
Antonin Artaud	...	Marat
Abel Gance	...	Louis Saint-Just
Gina Manès	...	Joséphine de Beauharnais
Suzanne Bianchetti	...	Marie-Antoinette
Marguerite Gance	...	Charlotte Corday
Yvette Dieudonné	...	Élisa Bonaparte
Philippe Hériat	...	Antonio Salicetti
Pierre Batcheff	...	Le général Lazare Hoche
Eugénie Buffet	...	Laetizia Bonaparte
Acho Chakatouny	...	Pozzo di Borgo
Nicolas Koline	...	Tristan Fleuri

Storyline

A massive six-hour biopic of Napoleon, tracing his career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign), his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797 (the film stops there because it was intended to be part one of six, but director Abel Gance never raised the money to make the other five). The film's legendary reputation is due to the astonishing range of techniques that Gance uses to tell his story, culminating in the final twenty-minute triptych sequence, which alternates widescreen panoramas with complex multiple- image montages projected simultaneously on three screens.

---

Plot Keywords:

military | corsica | french revolution | campaign | snowball fight | 

---

Taglines:

Abel Gance's 1927 Masterpiece [reissue]

---

Genres:

Biography | Drama | History | War

---

Details

Country:

France

Release Date:

17 February 1929 (USA)

Also Known As:

Abel Gance's Napoleon

Filming Locations:

Briançon, Hautes-Alpes, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ciné France Films, Films Abel Gance, Isepa-Wengeroff Film GmbH

Technical Specs

Runtime:

240 min 222 min (DVD edition) 330 min (2000 restoration) 235 min (1981 restored) 313 min (cinémathèque française print)

Sound Mix:

Dolby (1981 re-release) Mono Silent

Color:

Black and White Black and White (tinted) (some sequences)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The snowballs in the snowball fight scene were actually balls of cotton. During shooting, one of the child extras threw a real one with a rock in it. It his Vladimir Roudenko square in the face and broke his nose.

---

Goofs

One of the Corsicans in the inn states "Our fatherland is Italy with the Duke of Savoy". The Duchy of Savoy had ceased to exist in 1713 (eighty years earlier), when the Duchy acquired the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Duke then bore the title of the King of Sardinia. Italy was a geographic place not a political entity at this time.

---

Connections

Edited into Bonaparte et la révolution (1972)

User Reviews

Vive Napoleon! Vive Abel Gance!

January 23, 1981. Radio City Music Hall. Nearly midnight. One of the most thrilling experiences of my life. "Napoleon", restored, and reconstructed, not seen for over fifty years, was debuting in front of 6,000 people packed into the great theater with Carmine Coppolla conducting a huge orchestra rising up on the lift as lighting cast fifty foot shadows of the conductor on the walls. The score was magnificent. By the end of the film when the tryptyches stretched the size of the screen to triple size filling the glorious famous sunburst proscenium, Radio City Music Hall erupted in a standing ovation - and Kevin Brownlow, who restored the film, at that very moment from the theater had Abel Gance (soon to die) live on the phone from France to hear the ovation! Just incredible. Glorious. The film is a masterpiece of the Twentieth Century. And a must see. The best scene was the battle in the Convention between the Girondists and Jacobins superimposed on Napoleon's escape from Corsica in a sea storm. Staggering editing and camera work. It is a tragedy for us all the the remaining chapters of Napoleon's life were never put on film as Gance planned.