Amazon.com: Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece is absolutely indispensable for silent-film buffs or anyone interested in classic world cinema. From the future emperor's first strategic victory, a schoolyard snowball fight, to the climactic invasion of Italy, Napoleon truly rules! This is no static, antiquated relic. Among Gance's innovations was to free the camera (for one battle scene, he had it mounted on horseback!). The film's justly celebrated climax features a triptych of synchronized images that anticipates by more than 30 years Cinerama and widescreen. But more than a triumph of filmmaking, Napoleon is a triumph of film restoration and was a boon to the vital cause of film preservation. Gance's movie was long thought lost. But historian Kevin Brownlow, with the cooperation of film archives from around the world, spent more than a decade painstakingly reassembling it. Francis Ford Coppola's name (not to mention a reported quarter of a million of his dollars) helped find Napoleon the audience this film so richly deserves. The rousing score was composed by Coppola's father, Carmine. Viva la Gance! --Donald Liebenson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Manifique!
Upon seeing the restored and re-released film in 1981, I placed this silent at the top of my list of favorite foreign films from the silent era. The use of triptych, color, and daring camera angles is breathtaking! Gance was one of film's innovative pioneering geniuses. Although at times the acting is a bit stilted, the viewer must remember that these actors are turn-of-the-century schooled; today's acting style is far different and more relaxed. The electricity sparks between Napoleon and Josephine. Finally, Coppola's score is unforgettable, haunting, and touching. This film is one to add ... Read More
Rating: - in the heart of the master pieces
Not only the history of Europe takes place in the images of this movie but also it is decided through the steps of a man. Like would Pierre Teilhard de Chardin say: aristogenesis.
Rating: - Gance needed a figure as powerful as "Napoleon" to fulfill his dream of super cinema...
Abel Gance's 'Napoleon' was premiered on April 7, 1927, at the Paris Opera House, the first movie to be accorded such an honor... It was been shown on a triple screen and to full orchestral accompaniment, running slightly under four hours...
Impressive as it seems, it was conceived as the first of a six-part biography running many hours and tracing the life of Napoleon from childhood to the bitter end in St Helena... Fortunately-for Abel Gance who directed and for us-the project was only completed to that moment where Napoleon enters Italy at the head of the French army, and the later ... Read More
Rating: - THIS IS INDEED THE GREATEST FILM EVER!!!
...At least I thought so when I first saw this MASTERPIECE at the Colony Theater in Shaker Heights (Cleveland), Ohio back in the early 1980's ( I still have the program guide ). It ran nearly 4 hours!!! I was mezmorized. It was presented by Francis Ford Coppola of GODFATHER fame. The score was by Francis's father Carmine Coppola, which I thought was fantastic!!!
Please, Francis...if somehow you are preventing the future release of a superior version of this great masterpiece simply because of legal rights pending your father's score, then shame on you many times over!!! Get it done!!! You've ... Read More
Rating: - Abel Gances' 1927 Napleon
Abel Gance's epic is one of the most underated films in cinermatic history.I have been very fortunate to see the screening at the Barbican in London along with Carl Davies and the Wren orchestra.
Any one who was at that performance were moved to excitment and tears(of joy).To think that any one could cut 90 miniutes out of the film is appalling I am horrified that Mr Coppola,who up until now I respected as a film maker,could be so brutal and insensitive to Abel Gance's original. I for one will not be buying it,do not want to sound rude but he can stick it where the sun dont shine.
I am ... Read More
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