Rating: 
Summary: 5-star film, but this isn't even the 3rd-best version of it!
Review: I was lucky enough to see the very latest restoration of Napoleon by silent film expert Kevin Brownlow at the Royal Festival Hall in London earlier this month (December 2004). Carl Davis was there in person to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a live performance of his own brilliant score. It was the most moving and overwhelming cinematic experience of my life and I doubt whether it can ever be bettered. The film is decades ahead of its time, the bravura editing and inspired direction reveal Gance as the true genius that he was.
However...
The very performance I attended was under legal threats from Coppola, who wished to ban its screening. Back in 1980-81, he and his Zoetrope Studio helped fund a restoration and he got his father to compose a score. He helped get the US audiences to recognise what a remarkable work of genius Napoleon really is, and all credit to him for trying to do so. This would all seem very well and good, but even in 1981 Coppola wasn't showing the best version of the restored film that he could have. He had cut it down from Brownlow's (then) latest version to fit the score his father had written. He also showed it at 24 fps instead of the intended (and more realistic - the movements are at a normal rate, not unnaturally sped-up) 20 fps. Throughout the 1980s, Brownlow and others in Europe kept finding better elements and more footage. Yet, Coppola's version was still being called "THE restoration" and not altered at all. Brownlow also found prints with more authentic editing, giving a much better idea of the order and number of cuts in many sequences (so many versions/reels of Napoleon have had inferior takes/editing put in by people other than Gance that it took time to discover the best and most authentic). It was becoming increasingly clear that Coppola's version was very much flawed and out-of-date with the new discoveries. In 2000, the latest and most complete version available (including the authentic tints, near-definitive editing in line with Gance's intentions, and the best print so far etc.) was screened in London. Carl Davis had altered and lengthened his magnificent score to match the latest version. Even after this showing in 2000, elements were still being improved to make the film as close as possible to Gance's intentions. The 2004 screening which I attended had a print that ran for nearly 5 and a half hours. Coppola's version runs for less than 4 hours and it hasn't been touched to include any improvements in print quality or more authentic tinting or editing.
The Coppola version of Napoleon, with a run time of 223 minutes (3 hours and 43 minutes) is out on DVD in Australia. I do not know when or even if it will come out on DVD in the US. Rest assured, it will NOT be the best version of this great film, or anything close to it. Coppola and Zoetrope sold rights to their version of the film to Universal in the 1980s and so now the issue of rights has become entangled with a major studio (Universal Studios, incidentally, destroyed all their silent film negatives in 1947 - a very [in]appropriate choice of distributor for a film whose failure and subsequent neglect was mainly due to a horrendous re-editing by studios [MGM] in 1927).
The Australian DVD, released by Universal, is filled with faults. Apart from inferior image quality (unlike the 2004 print, which was superb and scarcely a speck of dirt was visible any time during the whole 5 and a half hours), the final triptych sequence is horrendously cropped from 3.66:1 to 2.55:1 and isn't even adjusted for widescreen televisions. It's also exactly the same version from 1981 which, even back then, wasn't the best there was available. The music, admirable though it is, cannot compare to Davis' score (he has worked on many other silent film scores with great acclaim) - especially now that Davis has reworked the score for the latest version.
Coppola's efforts to suppress the latest restoration are a dreadful example of precisely the kind of money-driven censorship and selfishness that Napoleon has been dogged by for eighty years. Not just the 90 minutes of extra footage, but the score and print quality itself, makes the latest print by the BFI/BFA/Brownlow indispensable. Anyone who claims to have rescued this film (as Coppola did in 1981, even though Brownlow had been working for decades before then, alongside Gance himself, to remaster the film) and yet tries to ban a closer version to the original film is monstrously hypocritical. As much as I welcome any hope of seeing Napoleon on DVD, I recoil at the thought of thousands of people being forced to watch a terribly flawed and inferior version of this masterpiece. Even as I type, there are rumours of even more lost footage from Napoleon being found in Denmark - with any luck this will lead to an even better restoration than the 2004 one.
This ongoing saga of restoration (and much credit is due to the person who seems to have the least legal rights out of the whole cast of those involved in the restored film: Kevin Brownlow) means that a DVD release of the Coppola version, with its many flaws, seems absurd and remarkably selfish and damaging. This film desperately needs to be released on DVD, but only in as close a form as possible to Gance's original masterpiece of 1927, seen by far too few people. That US rights-holders are trying to ban better versions with over 90 minutes extra in them is just another sad chapter in the story of this much-abused wonder of cinema. This is a magnificent film and deserves better than the shoddy and selfish treatment it has been given in America.
Rating: 
Summary: Why I didn't give it five stars
Review: I've read the other reviews. I agree with them, and I won't bother to repeat what they say. This is a great film. However, I chose to award the film four stars instead of five because of Gance's tendency to fixate and belabor. For example, the snowball fight scene at the beginning made its point long before Gance allowed the scene to end. Even people who don't have short attention spans might justifiably wonder when the movie is going to move on. Gance stops and smells the roses so much that in four hours he gets only up to Napoleon's first major campaign. Other directors could have gotten us up to Moscow and back in four hours (although perhaps they could be criticized for not stopping to smell the roses enough). If you are looking for a film whose plot sweeps you along, this is not it. (Don't get me wrong -- the music, scenery, costumes, camera action, etc. do sweep you along -- but not the plot.) If you are looking for a film that picks and finely crafts one scenario after another, this is it.
Rating: 
Summary: A MASTERPIECE AND A WORK OF GLORIOUS GENIUS
Review: In 1981 before a packed house at Radio City Music Hall this restored classic reappeared after being missing for fifty years. Accompanied by a huge orchestra in the landmark theater, NAPOLEON brough the house to its feet in cheers at the end, as its dying director, Abel Gance listened on the phone from France! And fitting it was. This account of the early life of the great French leader is a monument to moviemaking. The use of the camera, of montages, of all manner of visual techniques is a wonder to behold, not just for the sake of the technical but for building the emotion and drama of the story. The final scenes of Napoleon's invasion of Italy when the screen triples in size and in effect duplicates Cinerama brought gasps from the audience - and can not by experienced except in a theater. The musical score was a marvelous addition to it. This film belongs, literally, on the Top Ten of the Twentieth Century. If you can't see it in a theater watch it on video but try to imagine a full size orchestra and a sixty foot screen as was at Radio City Music Hall. A GREAT film, AND a useful addition to our history of Napoleon as it takes a different view from the usual anti-French British line. SEE IT!
Rating:
Summary: More than just Abel Gance's innovations in film technique...
Review: Most of commentary regarding this film has concentrated upon the special camera work which was in advance of its time. I'd like to draw some attention to the great acting. Vladimir Roudenko is quite mezmerizing as the taunted, lonely, and savagely proud schoolboy Napoleon. He gives a monolouge to his pet eagle - what he's saying would require French lip reading - but it is clear that he is confiding his grand visions of his future to it. This short scene manages to mingle great sympathy with some horror, for the boy's blazing eyes and emphatic speech recall that of Adolph Hitler in full cry (ironic in that this film was made 6 years before he came to power). When the school bullies release the eagle into the winter night, the fury of this boy is a sight to behold and effectively accompanied by Carmine Coppola's musical score. Also noteworthy are the performances turned in for the roles of Danton and Marat. Koubitzky's firey and raucous Danton is part Bacchus and part Satan. Artaud's Marat, chronically ill, seething, and bizarrely dressed, comes across as the most interesting of the 'Gods' of the Revolution. Van Daele's Robespierre is hamfistedly overplayed though in my opinion. On the whole, the movie suffers in that it ends on an overly long and gratituitous effects extravaganza as Napoleon invades Italy. Gance was unable to secure funding for additional installments, so the negative aspects of his regime and his downfall are left out.
Rating:
Summary: Vive la France!
Review: One of the really great screen gems, the 1927 silent Napoleon is both stunning and quite memorable. Made between the wars in war torn France, it is heavily patriotic much in the same vein as Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky...drawing from past events and characters to encourage nationalism, which isn't always a bad thing!It portrays Napoleon as a very human yet distinct messianic figure, full of prophetic utterances, images, and even a call to enter the promised land at the end of the film! The acting ranges from very good to typical silent film fare...a bit theatrical, since the actors spent the majority of their careers on the stage in the early days of cinema. But overall, it is quite good with memorable characterizations, especially the part of Napoleon as both child and adult. The camerawork is amazing, close-ups, extreme long shots,superimpositions, hand held, on horseback, or swinging over a riotous crowd...and of course, the "polyvision". There are so many vivid images here..from the young dejected Napoleon trying to sleep on a cannon on the school attic in winter, Toulons, Napoleon asleep on the field of battle while being promoted, a sea storm worthy of most films for the next half a century and intense battle sequences. There are moments that are intensely patriotic and prophetic along with several that are genuinely comical. The score added by Carmine Coppola in the early 80's is also quite memorable. A score for a four hour silent film requires something of near Wagnerian proportions, and Coppola does well in creating a coherent score filled with French patriotism and some of the classics as well as his own inventions. The opening titles are vivid. A vigorous drum corp approaches steadily as a horn fanfare builds dramatically and with growing dissonance, building in intensity and finally blazing out in a glorious major chord....and the strings don't appear until the Napoleon theme, proud, youthful and full of optimism. This is one of the great cinematic feats of the century, as well as being one of the great restorations of all time. It is great to watch....and hear!
Rating:
Summary: WHY THE "CENSORSHIP"
Review: One of the saddest stories in film history is the blighted career of Abel Gance, a filmmaking genius whose work is virtually unknown and unavailable, even today. Gance, to some degree, was the master of his own fate, since he seems to have lost his nerve after *Napoleon* flopped in America. That we have *Napoleon* at all today is thanks largely to besotted fan Kevin Brownlow, who spent years combing flea markets and film archives for any scrap of the original--a fair bit, we are told, was irretrievably lost, but the bulk of the film is here (the offical BFA print is about 45 minutes longer than the version released by Zoetrope, by the way). Why not 5 stars? Maybe because a video version cannot hope to reproduce the awesome power of the three-screen ending--even wide-screen TVs don't give you the overwhelming sense of marching with Napoleon's army at the film's end. I was fortunate to have seen this film in a symphony hall with a live orchestra on its re-release, and the video is a pale souvenir of that experience. Maybe, also, because there are long stretches that don't quite hold up as well as they did in 1927--the political stuff is thrilling, as are the battle sequences, but there is, for example, a lengthy sojourn in Corsica with Napoleon's family that goes nowhere, and is pretty conventional silent-film fare. Gance's film suffers at times from naive hero worship and slushy sentimentality, even as it is cinematically daring and revloutionary. Still, at over 4 hours, you expect some bits to drag--see this film, if you can, for the recreation of the French Revolution (including an audacious silent-film rendering of the first public performance of "La Marseillaise"!), for the exellent "double storm" sequence, and for the glorious finish. See it, also, for some unforgettable character sketches--Robespierre and Antonin Artaud's Marat are brilliant, as is Gance's own portrayal of the ruthless St Just. With all its flaws, it's still astonishing, especially set against Kevin Brownlow's own story of the restoration. In the DVD age, it would be nice to see a DVD version of the BFA Napoleon, as well as what's left of Gance's other magnificent silent films.
Rating:
Summary: Dated, but Still Fascinating
Review: One of the saddest stories in film history is the blighted career of Abel Gance, a filmmaking genius whose work is virtually unknown and unavailable, even today. Gance, to some degree, was the master of his own fate, since he seems to have lost his nerve after *Napoleon* flopped in America. That we have *Napoleon* at all today is thanks largely to besotted fan Kevin Brownlow, who spent years combing flea markets and film archives for any scrap of the original--a fair bit, we are told, was irretrievably lost, but the bulk of the film is here (the offical BFA print is about 45 minutes longer than the version released by Zoetrope, by the way). Why not 5 stars? Maybe because a video version cannot hope to reproduce the awesome power of the three-screen ending--even wide-screen TVs don't give you the overwhelming sense of marching with Napoleon's army at the film's end. I was fortunate to have seen this film in a symphony hall with a live orchestra on its re-release, and the video is a pale souvenir of that experience. Maybe, also, because there are long stretches that don't quite hold up as well as they did in 1927--the political stuff is thrilling, as are the battle sequences, but there is, for example, a lengthy sojourn in Corsica with Napoleon's family that goes nowhere, and is pretty conventional silent-film fare. Gance's film suffers at times from naive hero worship and slushy sentimentality, even as it is cinematically daring and revloutionary. Still, at over 4 hours, you expect some bits to drag--see this film, if you can, for the recreation of the French Revolution (including an audacious silent-film rendering of the first public performance of "La Marseillaise"!), for the exellent "double storm" sequence, and for the glorious finish. See it, also, for some unforgettable character sketches--Robespierre and Antonin Artaud's Marat are brilliant, as is Gance's own portrayal of the ruthless St Just. With all its flaws, it's still astonishing, especially set against Kevin Brownlow's own story of the restoration. In the DVD age, it would be nice to see a DVD version of the BFA Napoleon, as well as what's left of Gance's other magnificent silent films.
Rating:
Summary: A genuine classic
Review: Remarkable, engrossing epic that was something of a life work for its inspired director Abel Gance. Re-issued after restoration, with much fanfare, in 1981. The story deals with Napleon's youth and early successes, rather than his Empire days. Indeed the making of this movie was an epic seemingly as long and inspired as its subject. Among a torrent of innovations, Gance had cameras mounted on moving objects such as firing cannon; shot a segment in color and another in a '3-D' process similar to those popular in the 1950s (but in 1927!) but decided that he didn't like these effects after all; and pioneered wide-screen film, with three adjacent cameras making contiguous images, in outdoor segments seen in the later parts of the 1981 release. The hell of it is, this film is not about film technique but rather about the story and the actors. Gance himself appears as the revolutionary leader Louis Antoine de Saint-Just; Albert Dieudonné in the title role is possessed by his character, whom he well mimics in appearance; and you won't forget Robespierre, peering at the world and his colleagues through his sinister dark glasses. Although released on black-and-white film, many scenes are tinted (in, naturally, the Tricolor blue-white-and-red), with some of the three-camera wide-screen segments underscoring this point via simultaneous Tricolor tinting. Though I don't know this for certain, it would not surprise me if this movie showed up on top-10 lists of many serious film buffs. That is, film buffs who have actually seen a few films besides the latest Tom Cruise, and therefore have basis from which to comment. (...). Film buffs long familiar with major films like Intolerance and Battleship Potemkin and The Red Balloon and the Warners 1940s _films noirs_ and Bondarchuk's War and Peace (the largest feature film ever made, by several measures) and La Ronde and 8 ½ and Shadows of [Our] Forgotten Ancestors and Witness for the Prosecution and All Quiet on the Western Front and Olympia and Grand Illusion and the Powell-Pressburger spy dramas and Green for Danger and Mon Oncle and A Man for All Seasons and It Happened One Night, that sort of thing. --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition
Rating:
Summary: Not only a movie.....
Review: The best movie I have EVER seen !
Full of power, camera experiments, emotions, force, battles....
You cant describe it, only feel it.
Everytime I was depressed, I watched this movie and it
killed depression.
I hope they will release it on DVD sometime.
If you have the chance, buy the Laserdisc box, its expensive,
but this is a movie for eternal times.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing and Unforgettable, even in Video
Review: There are very few movies I've had to watch again immediately after a first viewing. Napoleon is one of them. I came to this movie expecting to force-sit through it. What I found was a compelling, moving, endlessly fascinating work of art, rich with emotion and humor, and surprising for the overall quality of acting. Even without the many technical effects, this would be a great film. With them, it offers a platform for a host of questions as to why so few films since this film have celebrated the possibilities of the medium so fully and gone the full length of risk-taking. If you are at all interested in the history of film, or film as medium, by all means see this video. I'm sure it can't measure up to a theatrical showing, but it's all we have unless we get lucky and a showing comes to town. The scoring is not bad for this silent, either; I found it rousing in the right places, with some good choices from symphonic works (I believe Berlioz and Beethoven) along the way.
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