BACK-STORY: “Napoleon” is a silent classic
written, directed, produced, and acted in by Abel Gance. It is a French film that was released in
1927. It was planned as the first of six
episodes, but only the first was made because of cost. Just this first one was originally over six
hours long (in one of the many versions).
In spite of its importance in cinema history it did not do well in the
U.S., partly because audiences were making the transition to “talkies”. The film rose from the dead in 1981 when
after twenty years of searching the world for copies of the movie, silent film
historian Kevin Brownlow (the first film historian to win an Academy Award)
restored the movie. Recently it was
shown in Oakland (sponsored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival) to rave
reviews.
OPENING: The movie opens in 1781 at
Brienne College (more like a boarding school) in France. Napoleon (Vladimir Roudenko) is ten years
old. He is commanding a group of boys in
a snowball fight against a larger force led by two bullies. Little Napoleon is defending a snow fort when
the bullies hit him in the face with a rock-laced snowball (wait – can they do
that?) The enraged Napoleon leads a
counterattack that degenerates into a melee.
Napoleon’s leadership wins the battle.
One of his teachers comments: “He
is made of granite heated in a volcano.”
SUMMARY: Napoleon is charismatic,
commanding, and cocky, but he’s a Corsican with a weird accent and thus
isolated from the rest of the boys and picked on. His only friend is a cook named Tristan. Oh, and his pet eagle. When the bullies set the eagle free, another
melee results. Feathers fly (literally
because there’s some pillows involved).
Napoleon is kicked out, but his eagle comes back. (As it will cinematically throughout the
film.)
Jump to the
French Revolution and a twentysomething Napoleon (Albert Dieudonne). It’s the Reign of Terror and Danton is
hosting a raucous political gathering when copies of “La Marseillaise”
arrive. Everybody now! (The song will reappear throughout the movie
also.) Napoleon happens to be there, but
he’s not the singing type. He’s more the
calm in the middle of the storm type.
Napoleon tells the song deliverer “your hymn will save many a
cannon”. Say what?
Napoleon returns
home to Corsica and gets embroiled in island politics and has to flee in a
horse chase that includes a horse falling on its face. Napoleon escapes in a boat using the Frech flag as a sail. There is a storm because Gance wants to show
off his ability to film a storm on the sea.
He has a lot of ability. This
scene is interspersed with a stormy National Convention meeting. At one point the cinematography makes the
assembly look like waves. Cool. Napoleon is rescued by a ship that happens to
be carrying his brothers to France. Cut
to a British ship where an officer named Nelson urges the captain to sink
Napoleon’s ship. The captain tut-tuts
the idea since the ship is unimportant.
Or so he thinks!
Napoleon is sent
to command the artillery at the siege of Toulon. He ruffles feathers (figuratively this time)
because he’s Napoleon and everyone else is an idiot. He explains his plan using animation! (Damn Gance, is there anything you can’t
do?) The general laughs at artillery
until a cannon ball lands on his table.
I’m pretty sure this did not actually happen. Napoleon leads the night assault in a driving
rainstorm in one of the wettest scenes in movie history. The fighting is chaotic and
Napoleon is in the thick of it. There
are flashbacks to the snowball fight.
The movie now
shifts to what has been happening lately to the Reign of Terrorists – Danton,
Robespierre, Murat, and Saint-Just (Gance).
The famous Murat assassination in a bathtub is reenacted. Napoleon and Josephine (Gina Manes) are
arrested as counterrevolutionaries and imprisoned separately with the
guillotine awaiting . Luckily, Tristan
is working at the guillotine assignment center and eats the paperwork (that is
not a metaphor). The Reign of Terror
ends and the future lovebirds are freed and meet at a Victim’s Ball that
evolves into a 1920s speakeasy with flappers.
I thought I glimpsed a breast or two in the saturnalia. (Sorry, I did not note the time in the
movie.) Napoleon, as usual, remains the
calm in the middle of the storm.
Napoleon is in
love with Josephine. He gets acting
lessons to woo her, not realizing she doesn’t require hard work. Napoleon is two hours late for the wedding
because he is a workaholic and then leaves two days later to take command of
the Army of Italy. Before he leaves, he
visits the vacant National Convention hall and communes with the ghosts of the
Terror quartet. They tell him to carry
on and spread the Revolution. He pledges
to conquer and unite Europe.
CLOSING: When Napoleon arrives at his new
army, he finds it ill-disciplined and in terrible shape. The snooty generals threaten mutiny, but
Napoleon stares them into submission. He does this a lot - it's his super power.
“With his piercing looks, this little stump of a man frightens me.” The movie closes with the famous triptych
section that covers a lot of marching and fighting. I’m pretty sure Napoleon wins because he
stands on top of a mountain gazing at the end.
Napoleon’s movie life flashes before our eyes. There’s that eagle again.
RATINGS:
Acting - B
Action - 6/10
Accuracy - B
Realism - B-
Plot - B
Overall - B
WOULD CHICKS DIG IT?
Only if they are cinephiles. Or if they want to see a truly amazing movie. It’s more of a biopic than a war movie. It does have some romance in the Napoleon
/Josephine relationship.
HISTORICAL ACCURACY: “Napoleon” is not meant to be a documentary. Since most people do not know much about his
childhood and early career, you get the basics here. Gance certainly gets the personality right. He also does a good job in filtering in the
Reign of Terror and its personalities. It helps to have a rudimentary knowledge of the French Revolution.
The
Brienne College section rings true.
Napoleon was treated as an outsider.
However, he did not win the big snowball fight. Just kidding.
His return home is well done. His
mother did love him and the family did revolve around him. He did get caught up in the island’s
politics, but they were boring and confusing so I can’t vouch for the movie’s
accuracy. I’m pretty sure he did not
escape in a dinghy and almost die in a storm only to be picked up by a ship
carrying his brothers which was spared Nelson’s destruction because of a
clueless British captain.
The Toulon section is fine. Napoleon did come into his own at the
siege. He did push for the attack on the
redoubt which cracked open the British position. He was in the thick of the fighting and was
actually bayonetted (which is strangely not shown in the movie).
Napoleon did get put under house
arrest during the Terror, but was not imprisoned. I found no evidence that Josephine was put in
prison. I’m pretty sure they were not
spared the guillotine because someone ate the documents. The scene at the Victims’ Ball is based on
the legend that relatives of guillotine victims would get together to celebrate
their survival after the death of Robespierre.
These were supposedly wild affairs that were orgiastic in nature so the
movie is pretty close, if they ever occurred.
The whole Josephine romance smacks of
whatever the French equivalent of Hollywood is.
The movie does accurately depict that she was Barras’ mistress before he
passed her on to Napoleon. Napoleon was
infatuated with her and did write her copious love letters.
The Army of Italy part is too
simplistic. The basics are right. The army was in bad shape and greatly
outnumbered. Napoleon did show a lot of
“l’audace” by going on the offensive. It
would have been cool if Gance had chosen to reenact the Bridge at Lodi incident
when Napoleon led his troops across a fire-swept bridge and thus cemented his
charismatic hold over his men. Speaking
of which, where was the “whiff of grapeshot” episode. A modern filmmaker would not pass up the
opportunity to blast a mob with cannons
CRITIQUE: You don’t have to go to film school if you see this
movie. Plus it is slightly shorter than
film school. Gance throws the kitchen
sink at this movie. Quick cuts,
close-ups, hand-held, superimposition, multiple exposures, POV, blurred
action. The only thing I did not see was
slo-mo. The variety is amazing. There is even a variety of tinting. Some scenes are blueish, some are brownish,
and some are greyish. The cinematography
is mesmerizing. Some scenes build to a
crescendo of action. The bells and
whistles overcome the flaws, of which there are a few. Some scenes are too long. The first half (up to the death of Murat) is
stronger than the second half.
 |
| Gance |
And then after all
this, he closes with the famous triptych section. Gance called the technique “panavision”. It anticipated Cinerama by thirty years. The Italy invasion scenes are projected by a
trio of projectors on a widened screen.
Here variety comes to the fore again.
Sometimes it’s a widescreen view.
Sometimes the left and right images are mirrors of each other (why?). Other times three different views are on
screen.
The acting is typical for a
silent movie. Those facial expressions! And the close-ups. Basically their faces express like the
Japanese inflect in their movies. I had
a hard time not laughing a few times.
They are so earnest! There is
some intentional comedy of the slapstick variety like the Fathers getting hit by snowballs. Both Roudenko and Dieudonne are excellent as
Napoleon. The rest of the cast are
satisfactory. The score is worth
noting. The version I watched used the
score developed by Carmine Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola’s father) which incorporated
classical music sources. It fit the
movie very well and adds to the experience.
The theme of the movie is
destiny. Napoleon is destined to
rule. Gance was obviously a big fan of
his. The symbolismis pretty obvert. The eagle representing Napoleon's destiny and the French flag as his sail. The movie is patriotic and
hagiographic. It would have been
interesting to find out if that would have continued throughout all six movies.
CONCLUSION: Once again I am puzzled by Military History magazine’s
decision making process when it came to choosing the 100 Greatest War
Movies. Some of the movies seem obviously
chosen because of their cinematic importance (ex. Battleship Potemkin, The
General) instead of whether they are great war movies. If that is the reasoning behind the editors’
definition of “greatest”, how can “Napoleon” be rated at #37? Most film historians would place it among the
top ten greatest motion pictures of all genres. There
seems to be a disconnect here.
I will be interested to see
where it ends up on my 100 Best list. I
certainly enjoyed it and feel good about having seen it. It truly can be called a must-see for all cinephiles
and I envy those who were privileged to see it in Oakland. What an experience that must have been! This project has taught me to watch movies
more critically as to direction and cinematography. I am still an amateur in these areas, but
even I can see the brilliance of Gance’s work.
Most war movies you don’t notice the director’s technique and that’s
okay, but sometimes you want to marvel at the craft. This movie is marvelous.
You can watch the Coppola version on You Tube. Thank goodness for You Tube. Shame on you, Netflix.
