Silent cinema near its end experienced explosion of creativity with numerous film makers bringing levels of innovations in style and technology that wouldn’t repeated ever again. All that progress was halted, and in some areas even reversed, with arrival of sound. Many of those last grand silent films nowadays look incredibly modern and decades before their time. One of the grandest is Napoleon, 1927 French historic epic written and directed by Abel Gance.
Gance originally envisioned this film as the first of the six that would chronicle extraordinary life of French military leader and statesman Napoleon Bonaparte. In the end, he managed to secure finances only for first part, but this first part, which covers Bonaparte’s early life and rise to glory during French Revolution and First Coalition War is more than epic enough. Plot begins in 1783 when teenage Napoleon Bonaparte (played by Vladimir Roudenko) is attending Brienne College, military school for sons of nobility, and where he first displays superior intellect and military skills. Nine years later adult Bonaparte (played by Albert Dieudonné) is an unknown artillery officer with a rank of lieutenant. He supports Revolution and abolition of monarchy, but he is displeased with chaotic violence and becomes convinced that Revolution can survive only if it is led by strong leader. He comes to native Corsica only to find most of his countrymen turns against Revolution and France and instead, like Corsican leader Pasquale Paoli (played by Maurice Schutz), prefer to join British and other European monarchies that want to invade France and crush its republican regime. Napoleon and his family are persecuted by Paoli’s supporters and Napoleon is forced to flee to mainland France. In 1793 Napoleon is put in charge of French artillery during the siege of Toulon, major naval base that had been captured by British during counter-revolutionary uprising. Despite scepticism of his superiors and bad morale of the army, Napoleon recognises enemy’s weak spot and devises appropriate plan for taking down British main stronghold. The action succeeds, British are forced to retreat and Napoleon is hailed as hero. His refusal to support Maximilien Robespierre (played by Edmond van Daële) and his bloody Reign of Terror would get him to prison to await execution as a traitor, which is the same fate is expected of divorced noblewoman Josephine de Beahurnais (played by Gina Manès). Both are saved by Thermidor coup that replaces Robespierre with moderate republican leadership which includes Paul Barras (played by Max Maxudian) and sets most of the condemned prisoners free. In 1795 Napoleon distinguishes himself by defending new government from royalist uprising. In March 1796 he marries Josephine and soon afterwards goes to his new post – commander of Army of Italy. He finds ragtag, undermanned, underfed, underequipped mass of soldiers but he quickly turns them into force capable of invade Northern Italy and strike powerful blows against superior enemy that would finally confirm Bonaparte’s reputation of military genius.
When he was making Napoleon, Gance was using almost all silent cinema techniques that existed and in many ways improved on them. They include use of handheld cameras, fast cutting, extensive close ups, superimposition and various special effects. In any case, few film makers would combine them with such intensity. Result is the film which, apart from the lack of sound, doesn’t look like it was made in 1920s and many of its segments look like they are MTV videos made decades later. But the most important innovation Gance brought to Napoleon is the thing that doomed it – Polyvision, an attempt to create widescreen image by shooting single scene with three different cameras and later shown with three different projections. The experiment is used at the very end of the film, when Napoleon triumphantly leads troops in his first campaign of conquest and enjoys his first major moment of glory. But this technique, which preceded Cinerama and introduction of other widescreen techniques, meant that each theatre would need to install extra projectors. That made Napoleon very impractical and unprofitable for theatre owners. Despite being well-received by critics, it was relatively seldom seen.
Another reason for that is unusually long length that some might find excessive. Gance, who appears in the film playing radical Jacobin leader Louis de Saint-Just, apparently tried to deal with all the grand events of the period that involve founding of the First Republic, introduction of song that would become known as Marseillaise, Corsican question, Terror, Siege of Toulon, Thermidor, 13th Vandemiere and start of 1796 Italian Campaign. Gance has mercifully decided not to show initial stages of Revolution, but the original version of his film had, according to some sources, almost nine hours of running time. As such, Napoleon was subjected to numerous cuts, some even by Gance himself and, like in so many great silent films, isn’t available any more in original form. Thankfully, British film historian Kevin Bronwlow has spent almost five decades of his life trying to pick up missing pieces and provide proper restoration. The results of his efforts is five and half hours long.
Those who are patient enough to sit through film are going to be awarded not only by extraordinary display of film making skill but also by an interesting story trying to portray fascinating chapter of history in an interesting way. Gance is more successful in some aspects of its than others. It is intriguing to see all those events from Napoleon’s perspectives and see events in this film in light of future (like the scene that young Napoleon gets strangely melancholic when his teacher mentions island of St. Helen). But grand politics and battles seem to take more important stage than Napoleon’s personal life. Napoleon’s romance with Josephine compared with this looks like an afterthought. Gance, who liked to describe himself as pacifist, in this particular film reveals himself more like a French patriot. And his treatment of one of France’s greatest national icons at times looks very much like a hero worship characteristic for certain regimes and ideologies that were becoming in vogue during 1920s. But, Napoleon is, despite all those possible controversies and minor flaws, an extraordinarily powerful piece of cinema. Three decades later Gance returned to Napoleon and used him as protagonist of a Austerlitz, film that could be described as sound and colour sequel of his best known work.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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