Napoleon

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Andy F A stunning, innovative visual masterpiece documenting the early life and achievements of Napoleon. My only complaint is that at just under 6 hours it is way too short! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member It starts to drag in acts 3 and 4 as the narrative becomes less interesting. The younger years and rise to power were nicely depicted. The guy who plays Napoleon is excellent, depicting a stubborn, determined bullishness. The camerawork is brilliant for the period and though it became a slog, overall it was a worthy cinematic experience. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review William L Penny-pinching financiers, studio executives lacking vision, and the flammability of nitrate stock have robbed us of so much of the grand designs of silent film auteurs. Napoleon was never realized in Gance's planned format - an utterly sprawling chronicle intended to bathe every facet of its titular character's life in glowing sunlight - but what we can actually view today is stunningly visionary, wielding comprehensive technical proficiency (including overlaid imagery/superimposition and a consciously designed, often rapidly intercut editing style that could support multiple perspectives, as well as an early pioneering in montage sequences) with incredibly ambitious practical scale; the rolling of a turbulent see paired alongside the violent mass of bodies in the French Convention, the pursuit on horseback as Napoleon flees Corsica, in which the nightime pursuit is accentuated by mutliple shots from varied ranges, and the incredible Siege of Toulon, all of it an incredible feat for the time. To be totally honest, the film wears its intentions on its sleeve; there is no subtlety in its blatant hero worship of a man that millions called a tyrant, and the film feeds off a blatant French nationalism (which would end up assisting in the film's reemergence later on in the 20th century), but even where it takes some leaps with facts and romanticizes elements of the much-regarded general-emperor's life, it is done ably and with clear intent. There are cleverly dispersed moments of humanization peppered throughout to avoid focusing on Napoleon as an exclusively otherworldly or godlike figure, such as a man spitting out his drink at the wanted Napoleon's proclamation of pro-French sentiment in a Corsican tavern, or his flustered dressing in order to attend the wedding that he was disastrously late to. Some of these instances may chip away at the objective historical accuracy, but they are vital components of character design that was clearly understood well by the production team. As others have stated, the biggest problem with Gance's Napoleon is an incredibly obvious one: the story is never finished. What we have today is the best effort to recreate the vision of the first part of an intended six-part cinematic serial (the 5.5 hour Brownlow cut remains the standard, but the promised Netflix-sponsored restoration may usurp it with its supposed additional hours of content). And to think, this cut has to be actively fought for in the United States because Francis Ford Coppola wanted his version to be considered the 'official' one, and threatened lawsuits if he was challenged. But if the standard criticism of a five and a half hour film is that "there isn't enough of it", that's as towering a compliment as can possibly be received. A stunning (and to this day, still engrossing and entertaining) work of biography and a landmark in silent film whose American commercial suppression should be considered a criminal offense. And that massive triptych camera style to create one of cinema's first widescreen images, featuring hundreds of Napoleon's exuberant troops massing at the start of the Italian campaign - Kubrick was probably seething with envy. (5/5) Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/29/21 Full Review Audience Member I would have a difficult time trying to describe a movie-watching experience that was more boring than watching Abel Gance’s Napoleon. For one thing, I’ve never been that interested in history, so a film about the life of Napoleon from childhood through a good portion of his military career is already of no interest to me. Add to that the fact that it is a silent film, and I’m already starting to glaze over. Then there’s the kicker…it’s more than 5 hours long! Apparently there’s a cut of the film that is shorter, and I wish I was able to find that, because this was agonizing to watch. In 5 hours they could have encompassed the whole of French history for me, but they don’t even make it to the end of Napoleon’s career. Bored doesn’t seem to be a strong enough word for how I felt as I watched Abel Gance’s endurance test. I felt like I was the one who had been through war trying to keep myself awake and maintain any interest at all in which character would show up next (whose name I would inevitably forget.) Occasionally a block of text would appear on screen and I’d have to snap my mind back to the present and try to figure out what they were talking about and why I should care. I would gladly read thousands of pages of a text book over watching a movie like this again. I think film historians probably praise Napoleon because there were a number of innovative film-making techniques that were experimented with in this movie, and I appreciate that Gance made an effort to do something new and different that the world had never seen before. I just wish it wasn’t done in the format of a news reel that goes on longer than a marathon. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/15/18 Full Review s r 1001 movies to see before you die. Amazing visuals and great directing. Too long though. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Astounding. A mind blowing spectacle of breathtaking cinematic virtuosity that proves once and for all that film really hasn't innovated since 1927. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Napoleon

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