Napoleon (PG.)
Directed by Abel Gance.
Starring Albert Diedonne, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daele, Alexandre Koubitzky, Antonin Artaud. 1927, silent, mostly black and white. 330 mins
Gance's silent five and half hour epic about the first half of Napoleon's life is a marathon run as a sprint. Probably much like yourself, I've been burned by raves about silent masterpieces only to experience pure tedium, but Napoleon really is the cinema going experience of the year. The only proviso to that is that we were only shown about half of it on a Sunday morning at the NFT and at the cinema with intermissions it is going to eat up the best part of eight hours. If you find it all too much then nip out but make sure you return for the closing sections which is presented in a triptych, three separate but linked screens, that sometimes are deployed to show an epically wide image, or to show different contrasting and complimentary images. The effect is overwhelming, better than a month of IMAX or 3D.
Napoleon is gob smacking throughout, made with an almost fevered level of invention. An opening sequence of the school boy Bonaparte organizing his troops in a snowball fight escalates into a frenzy of fast cuts. Sequences are shot through various filters, blue, yellow and red. There's even some very early examples of handheld shaky cam.
And Silent Cinema is absolutely the best format for this kind of biopic because the necessities of the form undercut the tendency towards pomposity. Gance’s view of Napoleon is pure hero worship, constantly associating him with an eagle, but Diedonne’s Napoleon resembles Marty Feldman dressed up as a member of Slade while the various horseback chases are mounted at Keystone speed. Which all works in the film’s favour: rather than have a staid vision of a unique individual of destiny rising to meet some preordained triumph, the Great Man theory of history, the film presents history as being forged out of chaos and confusion which occasionally allows a figure to emerge and catch a wave and ride it an unprecedented distance. And though this surely is not Gance what intended, from the viewing platform of the second decade in the 21st century, it does seem a very plausible vision.
Directed by Abel Gance.
Starring Albert Diedonne, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daele, Alexandre Koubitzky, Antonin Artaud. 1927, silent, mostly black and white. 330 mins
Gance's silent five and half hour epic about the first half of Napoleon's life is a marathon run as a sprint. Probably much like yourself, I've been burned by raves about silent masterpieces only to experience pure tedium, but Napoleon really is the cinema going experience of the year. The only proviso to that is that we were only shown about half of it on a Sunday morning at the NFT and at the cinema with intermissions it is going to eat up the best part of eight hours. If you find it all too much then nip out but make sure you return for the closing sections which is presented in a triptych, three separate but linked screens, that sometimes are deployed to show an epically wide image, or to show different contrasting and complimentary images. The effect is overwhelming, better than a month of IMAX or 3D.
Napoleon is gob smacking throughout, made with an almost fevered level of invention. An opening sequence of the school boy Bonaparte organizing his troops in a snowball fight escalates into a frenzy of fast cuts. Sequences are shot through various filters, blue, yellow and red. There's even some very early examples of handheld shaky cam.
And Silent Cinema is absolutely the best format for this kind of biopic because the necessities of the form undercut the tendency towards pomposity. Gance’s view of Napoleon is pure hero worship, constantly associating him with an eagle, but Diedonne’s Napoleon resembles Marty Feldman dressed up as a member of Slade while the various horseback chases are mounted at Keystone speed. Which all works in the film’s favour: rather than have a staid vision of a unique individual of destiny rising to meet some preordained triumph, the Great Man theory of history, the film presents history as being forged out of chaos and confusion which occasionally allows a figure to emerge and catch a wave and ride it an unprecedented distance. And though this surely is not Gance what intended, from the viewing platform of the second decade in the 21st century, it does seem a very plausible vision.
