Abel Gance's Napoleon - A Film From The Future

Video essay about Napoleon (1927).
Sources:
"A Revolution for the Screen: Abel Gance's Napoleon" by Paul Cuff
"Napoleon" by Kevin Brownlow
"Abel Gance" by Phillip M. Welsh & Steven Phillip Kramer

[@annyeonghaseyothisfight5897]

Imagine the masterpiece series we'd have today if he managed to complete his intended napoleonic hexology :(

[@chrysalissartorious7648]

I watch Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow in other films and just fiend to see how Gance would have presented it? Would He have perhaps dropped glimpses of young Napoleon's snowball fight into the mix?

[@joseludenaza7137]

The Last movie of Abel Gance was Austerlitz 1960, a movie that takes place on the coronation of Napoleon to the battle of Austerlitz, is not that good as 1927 film, but is beautiful think that the last movie of this great director was a spiritual secuel of this movie to end his career. (Sorry for my English I'm Spanish)

[@opsquash]

​@@joseludenaza7137because of you, I'm going to check out Austerlitz 😊 and your English is great!

[@cloty.diis05]

​@@joseludenaza7137 And Abel Gance's "Napoleon at Sant-Helena" (1972)?

[@saintgogeto675]

About that...

[@uhlijohn]

I saw Napoleon when it premiered in Chicago in the early 1980s at the Chicago Theater after its restoration and the film was accompanied by a full symphony orchestra conducted by none other than Carmen Coppola, father of the famous film director, Francis Ford Coppola. It was so long that it had an intermission and it bowled everyone over! I am shocked that that film does not get the attention it deserves!

[@MyTimeOutt]

I experienced the screening of this film back in 2011 @ the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. I kept hearing that this was a "once in a lifetime experience." I thought, NO--NO-NO!!! I returned the following evening & was as thrilled as I had been the first time. I needed the second viewing & got to shake hands with Carl Davis--the tears just streamed---why would I have cared about that? It was one of the most wonderful things from an artistic perspective I had ever witnessed--ranked up their with the original David of Michelangelo..which i circled for 45 minutes before I was nearly dragged away. You can't have a fast food mentality when allowed these encounters. You have to embrace them as fully as possible.

[@jamessheridan4306]

Personally, I won't be satisfied until they release an edition with Arthur Honegger's original score.

[@emiveridico]

This kind of analysis adds so much to the pathos of cinema as a whole, we need more takes like this and more people checking out Abel's work, thank you man.

[@hodor6994]

Daaaamn , a movie on 3 screens!…thats just too cool

[@Old_Scot]

I can remember when this film was restored in the 1980s and Carl Davis composed the new score written for it. It was considered a real moment in the history of cinema. I'm glad it's having another renaissance.

[@peter6914]

This has to be one of my all time favourite analysis on cinema, bravo.

[@EyeLean5280]

EXCELLENT! This introduction to Gance and Napoleon is itself a lovely little bit of filmmaking. Thank you.

[@cometblazt]

One of the most brilliant films ever made. Visionary, experimental, never ever seen kind of views. Beautiful movie. This analysis of the movie is also brilliant. Great video!

[@bartrosenberg]

I went to London in 2000 to see Napoleon "live" and again in 2012 to the Oakland, California showings. That's over $5000 seeing this film and worth every cent. And of course have the Blu-ray from BFI. That little picture of me is at a restaurant at Jack London Square in Oakland.

[@villas7073]

i think this is the best video essay i have ever seen, and it's also now my favorite one. i think i have transcended beyond space and time, to a plane of existence which is held together by the fellings and the sensations felt about me and the others around. i fell like i am drifting through thoughts and ideias centuries older then me, but also felling the future in these moments of enlightment. i fell like i am fading in and out of existence, in a limbo between the world around me and world of ideas. i am travelling across the universe in the speed of light while laying in bed, i am now hearing the great symphony of the universe singing to me a beautiful song, i am now the end and the beginning of life itself, i am now Napoleon.

[@robertmyers5269]

I had great good fortune see the film during the Zoetrope roadshow c. 1980. About 5,000 people at the Chicago Theater. Magnificent, and your essay brings new light to it. On a side note, I've seen every film on your 1927 image but for 'Invitation to a Voyage'. I need to add it to the queue.

[@gilbertgenao1217]

I saw it at Radio City Music Hall, Carmine Coppola directed the the orchestra, complete with intermission and all. It was a great experience for a movie lover.

[@justinficiu5193]

we need more content like this, great job man!

[@julietcunningham852]

I especially appreciate your comments on film extras and the Greek chorus. The chorus has the same function in 19th century grand opera (the political and religious themed operas, such as Meyerbeer's "The Huguenots", based on the lead up to the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre). For those who are curious, the best use of the chorus in this context is Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov". Thanks for letting us know how Gance fitted in with this history.

[@erebepalatine3061]

Merci pour votre fabuleux commentaire sur Gance.

[@sattros7829]

the good thing about silent cinema, is that you can shout all you want to the actors without ruining the shot

[@paulf3999]

This is a very acute description. You've helped me put words on my viewing of this piece. Many thanks !

[@Paulmaxrobert]

An insanely illuminating analysis and incredible to think I came here because of graphic design (Jan Tschihold’s poster of Napoleon is iconic Bauhaus)

[@OneSpread]

I'm french and I really loved your video. I don't understand why, since 60 years (they made another napoleon movie in 1989 but a shitty one) they don't release a new one EPIC Napelon movie with today cinema's technology. In France today, we are loosing a lot of our past values, and I don't remember newspaper talked about the blu ray release of Abel Gance'es Napoleon.

[@h-a-y-k4149]

Because it is very very very difficult for his overcomplicated character

[@andrejparunovic6888]

They stooped making epic Napoleonic movies since the 1970s film, Waterloo. It was a flop - despite no apparent flaws. Audiences simply aren't interested in seeing epic historical battles and dramas. Fucking normies man.

[@h-a-y-k4149]

@@andrejparunovic6888 I didn't like Waterloo, especially for Napoleon's actor

[@marcl4000]

I think that there was, there is, maybe too many films about Napoleon? Sorry that S. Kubrick didn’t have time to do his version, it could have been epic, for sure. But Gance’s Napoleon is a masterpiece, ahead of it’s time with these three screens. The first time I saw the film it was a real «claque dans la gueule» (a slap in the face), wait, what, this film was made in 1927? It was the restored version made by the company of F.F. Coppola but I will get the recent restoration made by the BFI. (It’s a bit ironic that it’s the British Film Institute that have the rights on a film that have such an iconic french symbol...)

[@BetamaxFlippy]

@@marcl4000 The french were barely interested in saving "Le Roi et L'Oiseau", no wonder they're not really worried about the further back catalogue...

[@petera2788]

Excellent breakdown... I bought the film because of your breakdown. I absolutely love music metaphorical films. Thank you!

[@lucidatrium3200]

Thank you to the blessed soul that led me here from aspect ratio wiki page. Incredibly thought provoking review, I'm beyond excited to see this!

[@HalldinAnton]

Fantastic video essay, thank you for making this. Abel Gance is magnificient, picked up A Revolution for the Screen after watching this!

[@colevacheron7312]

Only just discovered this. Fantastic work and great observations/ideas

[@JosiahofSilverton]

I just discovered this movie today, and I need to see this.

[@grahamwade5932]

Owen Wilson sure knows a lot about movies, I was waiting for a 'Woww' for 15 minutes

[@TheAmazingBladezo]

Best film analysis I've encountered. A veil has been lifted. Every particle of this post is delicious nutrition to me, and I have a better understanding of my own work because of it.

[@logosicon]

Beautiful, just beautiful commentary on Napoleon (and Gance). Thanks, brother!

[@cojaysea]

Well I thank you for that wonderful piece

[@AlexisPena21]

Really enjoyed the video! Always enjoy your content. I'm looking into buying a projector to watch films on and this sounds like the perfect film to be the first!

[@whyalexandery]

Or buy three projectors! Great plan regardless.

[@HeroJournalism]

@@whyalexandery hey - can I ask where you got that behind the scenes footage of them filming?

[@stefanbatory2564]

Love your content dude

[@satnamo]

Music is a nice vibration on my eardrums; That is the music of light in words

[@wowmao]

this video is amazing

[@boroclan]

DUDE HELL YEAH THIS GOT ME PUMPED UP

[@eduardosturla]

Great essay. Came here becase of my Ridley-Scott-Napoleon anxiety. Been reading so much negative stuff. Napoleon is one of my favorite historical characters. Re-watched Waterloo yesterday. Old filmmakers had a touch which seems lost from modern Hollywood.

[@loge10]

Yes, but even the earlier film Waterloo, pretty mediocre despite high production values, prevented Kubrick from going forward with his own film about Napoleon -to me a great tragedy. What a film Kubrick would have made...

[@thetruefilmman]

Just one word OMG. what a masterpiece, Brilliant Analysis BTW Kudos

[@jsc5492]

Surprisingly interesting. Irritating too with so many questions left unanswered!

[@sergyorock33]

Best video on entire youtube. i cite this video for my grade project about 360 video.

[@soyanoli]

Great video!

[@JosephHuether]

Great essay!

[@user-mi4rm7ih6s]

Underrated ass channel tbh

[@chriskelly1890]

Most astonishing movie I've ever seen.

[@dramares]

"Yo, forget what I said earlier... Abel's Napoleon is da sh#t son!... You a sucka if you miss it!" - STANLEY KUBRICK

[@jwanbesande2734]

I don't know if Napoleon is the greatest movie of all time, but it's definitely the most movie movie of all time

[@HorrorKid101VampiresLive]

You my friend, earned a subscriber. It's not much, but I'll have you know this is the greatest video I've seen on youtube, or at least my favorite.

[@loopdog8710]

You should make more youtube videos, this was amazing

[@voiceofliberty]

Wow thank you very much!

[@Purplestufff]

The last four minutes of this got me thinking: I’ve experienced Gance’s dream of the audience three times. Three pieces of media, each (I believe) at the zenith of their individual mediums: Twin Peaks, Evangelion, and Disco Elysium. Each long-form. Each fundamentally centered around deeply personal hardships of the same subject and seeing: abuse, depression and addiction in our current post-modern state. Through the long-form, multi-day way in which all 3 present themselves: Each forced me (gladly) into a still-perpetual state of thought that continues far past their endings. Of which, is to say, despite years and years of time’s passing, I still think of them at least once, each, every single day. Without hyperbole. Their ideas and lessons are part of me and inform the way I interact and think about the world. Beautiful, positive experiences. Ones that (arguably) did more work on me than years of therapy. Anyway, I hope to add this film (in triple screen) to that same roster of revelation someday.

[@Nobody___]

Great video, I just ordered the film on blu ray. hopefully it does Gance justice

[@lucasfowlerdp]

great video!

[@Man-ye4xm]

Wow, so he was basically pushing the limits of filmmaking. He himself is a film legend

[@william7398]

Wonderful video. Thank you.

[@ivangramajo]

exelente!!! todo es una profecional investigación

[@weansly5531]

I love Gance's films, glad someone made a video like this about one of his movies. I wouldn't say this didn't change the cinema. La Roue surely influenced soviet montage, in fact, I think I've heard some of the directors involved (eisenstein, pudovkin) thanked Gance in Paris way back when or something like that(?) (also, check out J'accuse! Best film of the 1910s and it's not even close)

[@walterfechter8080]

Brilliant!

[@tGoldenPhoenix]

Great video.

[@samspencer582]

This is a masterpiece and it´s pity that Gance only had the opportunity to make only this first part instead of all the six he wanted to do. Today I went to the cinema and watched Ridley Scotts Napoleon and I really liked it, but it was not as great as this, Gances Napoleon.

[@gianhet]

ridley's was one of the worst movies ive ever watched

[@cesarmadero05]

To be engaged in the movie is exactly where Scott didn't knew what Napoleon did in the world. He was charismatic... and the movie didn't felt to be as romantic as how he saw himself, and how the followers felt he meant for them.

[@RhiannonKrausz]

Great video

[@alaindeloinn5272]

Je ne sais pas ce qu'il m'arrive en ce moment, mais je suis attiré par tt ce qui entoure Napoléon, son destin, sa vie, l'histoire qu'il a laisser et pas seulement en France, un Jules César si près de notre temps et tellement en avance sur son temps, je suis même un peu triste qu'il ai fini sa vie ainsi : ( il pensait que ces plus glorieux ennemie lui aurait accordé un petit coin en Angleterre pour finir sa vie , peut-être trop risqué ..!

[@marceloadelar]

I've done three modules of History of Cinema in College and never heard of this. It's insane!

[@frankfarago2825]

Where did you go to school? We watched this in my first Film Studies class in the United States, at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), back in 1976.

[@FelixHureau]

Even in France it's not that well known, I've read tons and tons about this movie and have yet to see it. I read the full restauration will come out at the end of the year, hope I can finally discover it on the big screen !

[@josmdg]

You're in a shitty college then.

[@chrysalissartorious7648]

Can you get your tuition refunded?

[@SP95]

Great one

[@frankmessely2156]

So inspiring. Thanks!

[@greglorison7827]

For people who saw this movie, all of them said its best napoleon movie who have been done.

[@therearenoshortcuts9868]

truly ahead of his time he was trying to create VR 100+ years before it was actually created

[@kamuelalee]

Love it, "Who is this Gance guy and what does he want?" Oh the answer dear ones is simple: Immortality!

[@valeriarodriguezcastillo8546]

Amazing video essay, thank you so much!!

[@truongtholam8318]

Hoping for someday will find the 9hrs version

[@garethsmith3036]

Ok. I need to see this movie.

[@FelixHureau]

This video is too amazing to be true

[@LuisFernandoImperator]

Bravo!!!

[@haasklaw764]

Finding out about this movie literally made me question whether or not the Mandela Effect was real. It literally feels like someone went back in time and made it. Crazy

[@nco6893]

The information out of the video is immensely valuable

[@larskaaber9869]

great!

[@abeflama]

Great essay! Thanks for sharing

[@danlivni2097]

One of the best silent movies from 1927. I saw the full movie in 1991. A VHS renting store had the movie

[@MDonuT-of7px]

I had never heard of this before today, but will definitely ask around in my dorm if I can find two other people with screens that we can connect to watch this movie.

[@Blandeer]

I'm not sure I could say I agree wholly with your points, but I can agree 100% with the message of your video. I would say that Napoleon, and Apocalypse Now meld both Experience + the Dramatic rather than being a versus. You say it yourself best at the end, Gance wanted to create a movie that was really a world. A VR type of situation, but what calls us to action, what makes us feel like Napoleon isn't only the experiences the film brings us through but the dramatic elements that we can relate to ourselves. I would go as far as to say it's not as much as "becoming" a character but realising that the character is not too different from ourselves. Taking them out of history or mythology into the real world and saying "This person was capable of this, and so are you." from their they feel emboldened. Overall you succeed in sharing your message and point of the video. That Abel Gance's Napoleon was a film far ahead of its time, and in many aspects could still be considered a pathway to the future of film. That movies are emotions, they are experiences, they are meant to be enjoyed and inspired by everyone. Wonderful work.

[@joegambitt7414]

If I could choose to be someone else I will choose to be Napoleon and I'm sure that if Napoleon could choose to be someone else he would choose to be Napoleon again, great video bro

[@TheWchurchill4pm]

@Joegambitt he’d choose to be Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. He’d probably think he could’ve conquered Persia and India.

[@sanssucreajoute6554]

​@@TheWchurchill4pmNapoléon was better than Julius and Alexander and he knews it before his death

[@mkII.]

While i would agree with most of your review of this masterpiece, i would argue the point that it did not change cinema. Perhaps not in the grander scale of the intended epic nature of the work but in its influence of later directors styles. Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers directed by Oliver Stone, and Coppola's Apocalypse Now. All feature scenes and sequences visually striking and similar to this great work of art.

[@LordVader1094]

Similar, but never surpassing.

[@outthefryinpan]

Very interesting takes on a wild movie. Good video!

[@BijuViswanathfilmmaker]

thank you . well researched and informative

[@HeroJournalism]

2:47 - WOW, where did you get that BTS footage?! That's amazing to see

[@roxyjuly]

one of my dreams is to see this film with three screens ❤️

[@radiootoo]

Now remastered as a miniseries!

[@mbooyah]

Thank you for not doing the wave. I liked the video, too.

[@isammolina4842]

Extraordinario!!!👀👏👏👏👍💖🌹🍃🌹🍃🎥🎬💎💎💎💎💎

[@pongi777]

oh WOW!

[@ryandonagheylovescash4710]

First saw this on British TV in the 1980’s- an absolute masterpiece and the greatest revolution in cinema.

[@oobrocks]

Probably silent movie’s apex. Incredible film

[@bmcgoo6027]

Thanks for the critique of this amazing piece of cinema. Not sure about your a m e r i k a n editing style, but there are some excellent points.

[@lindanorris2455]

most people do not have the attention span to watch this nor the intelligence nor the tenacity to sit through this film.

[@beautykilledbeast]

Which orchestra performed and who conducted at the screening you attended?

[@Daniel-Rosa.]

Well, hot damn. You may have just inspired me. This is the year I watched WINGS - later I saw Limite and Sunrise, sure, but Wings was necessary. Chaplin, the little I knew of silent cinema, was not enough. After that... Everything I read had 1927 Napoleon cited in it. The hype was off the roof. Now I thank God that your excitement also comes across in this video. (side note: Never again make me read words onscreen while listening to different words in audio at the same time. Many video essayists do this, and they're all sinners. EveryFrameAPainting may be the only inculpable of this sin. Anyway: Text, or Narration, only one at a time, never both ^^) I loved it!

[@MK-zj8sc]

what are the films at 11:05?

[@RR75_]

I wanna know ur opinion of the newest adaptation of this film.

[@loge10]

Excellent and emotionally involving analysis of this film and its place as film art. I felt deep pathos as I considered filmvs future and I pray that virtual goggles are not it. Would that Stanley Kubrick had gotten to make his own film of Napoleon, but the timing was poor due to the release of the mediocre film Waterloo.

[@stevevalk4074]

I thought this was an extraordinary and exceptional analysis of the film. The project I am currently involved in is focusing on (Next Cultural Institutions) this essay of yours. Would love to contact you about this. The Next Cultural Institution as we are conceiving it would be "an institution from the distant future".

[@jamessheridan4306]

I saw the 1981 restoration of this film at Radio City Music Hall with full orchestra conducted by Carmine Coppola. The most breathtaking film-going experience of my life. Sadly, this video (viewed on my cell phone) is as close as I'm likely to get to ever seeing this latest restoration. Sadder still is the verbal piddle that accompanies it.

[@tonybo312]

Included the get real clip from david lynch so you know there's a little film snobbery. Liked the analysis though and this video gave me greater context of the film