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Napoléon (1927)

Director: Abel Gance

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From Time Out Film Guide

Bambi Ballard's latest restoration of cinema's supreme, grandiloquent epic (63 mins longer than the version premiered by Kevin Brownlow in 1979, tinted and with an extended three-screen climax) is the closest we're ever likely to get to Gance's original. Despite its simplistic view of Napoleon himself - seen from childhood to the fascistic start of his empire-building as a 'man of destiny', guided through hardships and loneliness by his 'inner eagle' - the film is completely vindicated by Gance's raving enthusiasm for his medium. All of the brilliant experiments with film language remain potent, from the montages of flash-frames to the bombastic poetry of the triptych finale; even the gags are still funny. The many highpoints include the hour-long siege of Toulon in torrential rain, won by strategies prefigured in the opening snowball fight, and Gance's own patrician performance as the cold-blooded Saint-Just. To see this with Carl Davis' score (lashings of Beethoven) played live is an almost unimaginably thrilling experience.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Abel Gance

Producer: Abel Gance

Cast: Albert Dieudonné, Gina Manès, Annabella, Nicolas Koline, Antonin Artaud, Edmond Van Daele, Pierre Batcheff, Wladimir Roudenko, Abel Gance full cast

Duration: 333 mins

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