Napoleon by Abel Gance restored by Kevin Brownlow and digitally remastered under the auspices of the bfi.

I'm seeing this in three weeks. Incredibly excited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6504eRh5h6M

I'll ask for the correct spelling of Napoleon via mods. Ha.

Is this in Glasgow, jed?

Yes. The 8th of January at the Gft. It's booking now.

BFI are doing a screening last week of the year, was thinking about it too

Thanks Jed, will be there.

Excellent!

Came across a review of it in the LRB: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/michael-wood/at-the-movies

Great experience seeing this today (although I didn't see Ward Fowler). The first two parts and the last are truly great. The Josephine section doesn't stand up as well but the performances of the kids in part one are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. the three screen finale is astonishing. It got a very load and long round of applause, which is a very rare thing!

The child Napoleon and the adult one are both incredibly charismatic and do an excellent job of communicating just what a singular man he was.

I was there! Didn't see you either jed (was right down at the front), but I had to scuttle off to catch a bus as soon as the film finished. Thought it was a great shame they didn't show this in cinema one, but it was great to attend a sold out showing.

Def agree that the Josephine section was the weakest, perhaps because it lacked a lot of the visual pyrotechnics of the other sections. All the multiplied images reminded me of Kenneth Anger's work, and I wonder if he knew this film when he was making eg Inauguration of the Pleasuredome; the final tricolour triptych also brought to mind Gilbert and George. And yes, young Napoleon and his wild-haired antagonist were remarkable - the long running time allowing Gance to really celebrate and study so many great faces in this film (Robespierre with his pock-marked cheeks and dark glasses, the adult Napoleon like a gothic rock star with his lank hair and black-rimmed eyes). Some of the hand-held shots seemed incredibly modern (especially Violine at her shrine to Napoleon) - you could immediately see the influence on the French New Wave.

I saw this in November & the first thing I did when I got home was look for Robespierre gifs

Screening to coincide with the rubbish Napoleon.

https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/imax/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=napoleon-imax-1927-intro&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=

This movie is my white whale. I want to see it on a big screen before I die (that and Tarkovsky’s Solaris in 180 mm Sovscope).

I really want to see it on a big screen too. Not sure I can do it this time:-(

i saw them do the big triple screen thing at the bfi in i guess 2016? it felt like spectacle in a way that doesn't seem possible anymore. definitely go if you can. i don't know what this other napoleon film is except i've somehow absorbed the knowledge that its 'historically inaccurate'

ridley scott's napoleon is bad bcz he DISDANES historians and so did not read this important thread: old-timey pictures of the sphinx which are terrible

Lol

Plax it's this: “I enjoy food! Destiny has brought me this lamb chop”: time to savour ridley scott's NAPOLEON

happy for Mr Ridley to delight his fans as long as i can restrict my engagement with him to the memes

saw this at the Shrine Auditorium in the 80s with the three screens. really remarkable

The BFI BD is brilliant, but to see it as it was intended on three screens would be mind-blowing.

That BFI BD is great, and the special feature that allows you to watch the triptych as a triptych (if you have three players and three screens) is brilliant even if most of us are unlikely to play it. I would've kept mine but I sold it when the definitive, DEFINITIVE restoration was nearing completion. Just mind-boggling to think there's more to the film.

Made it :)

Was the finale on three screens?

Yup. BFI IMAX is also a massive screen.

It was pretty amazing. Might post more on it sometime

Lol@

Director Stanley Kubrick was not a fan of the film, saying in an interview "I found it really terrible. Technically (Gance) was ahead of his time and he introduced new film techniques – in fact Eisenstein credited him with stimulating his initial interest in montage – but as far as story and performance goes it's a very crude picture."

I would say the one thing that really struck me was Gance's handling of crowds. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd matter, or be made to count, more on the screen. Maybe it was his way of panning to and away from a number of faces then back to the mass of people.

But then there were those very one on one moments, laughably done when Napoleon goes to "talk to the sea"

The script was often funny:

"Give me bread, olives and silence"

I really like the early shots of him hanging around with his horse. apart from the triple screen moment, those are the bits that stick in my head most

every few years kevin brownlow finds more lost footage and splices it back in: another hour is added to the running time and another screen to the finale

i have been telling ppl i saw this in the mid-80s -- in my memory at a big fancy screening at the coliseum theatre with carl davis plus orchestra -- but i checked w/my sister the former film student and she says she never saw it with me at that time, so now i am doubting it all a bit. i can still picture very vividly elements from a small number of scenes, including the chandelier swinging wildly over some heated meeting during the revoution, and crossing choppy waters in a boat, and *maybe* of the triple screen? -- but not (for example) of sitting for 3-4 hours

That's right.

I was reading about it's troubled shoot and very strange afterlife.

https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/abel-gance-s-napoleon-monumental-restoration

xp - there were four intermissions. Also a guy was meant to be talking about his Napoleon book, but think he couldn't make it on time. He was selling his copies outside the screen.

It's this guy. He sat in the row in front of me for one of the parts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Zamoyski

As I am off work for a couple of weeks I might see another epic silent or two. Maybe 'Greed'.

I saw the snowball fight in a university film course and it was as great as everybody says it is

my parents had a friend in shrewsbury in the 60s and 70s who would sometimes talk about about this amazing film she had seen in paris as a teenager in 1927 and never forgotten -- at which point it had just become this strange lost legend which no one else (in shrewsbury anyway) knew anything about

but then it was suddenly in the news again and she was vindicated and delighted, especially as everyone now loved it (it had been controversial and considered difficult and a bit crazy at time of release). gance lived into his 90s and got to view the restoration and the hubbub, which is nice. my parents' friend also lived into her 90s, so maybe that's what happens when you make or watch this movie. we shall see (whether or not i saw it in the 80s)

Yup.

I would say all parts are strong. On a single viewing you could be forgiven to flagging at the Josephine section but that ball with all the legs flapping about is fucking great.

Gance himself is having a lot of fun playing Saint-Just (if I ever act that's what I'm playing).

Kubrick hating on it is perfect xp

I forgot the snowball scene was this. I had it in my head that was a Dreyer film!

Gertrud I believe

IIRC Orson Welles didn’t think Gance was a great filmmaker, and though he didn’t mention this film, the implication was that it was no exception. (This can be seen in the Q&A footage shot for his unfinished film on the making of The Trial. Someone asked him about Gance in light of his recent passing, and he gave a hard assessment that he was apologetic about giving - he clearly had no ill will against Gance but he simply didn’t think that highly of his work.)

Gance was making up a language and technique kind of like Welles was. Possible similarities in how their visions were misunderstood.