Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

[denti alligator]

Good point. None of this clear at this point. I sorry not to be near Paris in July. Here’s hoping for a swift appearance on Blu-ray or even UHD!

[MichaelB]

Netflix has to be a dead cert.

And I did a few quick calculations and worked out that 220+205 minutes at 18fps equates to 198+166 mins at 20fps. So that's conceivably where 61 of the extra 90 minutes comes from.

[La Clé du Ciel]

does it mean that some of the extra 90 minutes includes additional footage for previously seen sequences? In other words, only a couple (?) of totally new sequences, but also significant additional "new" footage interpolated into well-known sequences.

From the few extracts I have seen, I imagine that this is the case – many familiar sequences will be slightly (or significantly) longer and there will also be some important new material. This is very much what characterized the successive Brownlow restorations from the 1970s to the 2016 BFI release. (Though there are also instances where scenes were removed or substituted rather than added/expanded.)

And I did a few quick calculations…

Me too… I think the only definitive way of comparing different restorations would be via physical length (i.e. metres), which is usually omitted from press releases and advertising. I’ve not seen a precise figure for the CF restoration, but an estimate can be made from the given length and framerate. At 18fps, the total of 425 minutes for the CF restoration would equate to c.8830m. For comparison, I believe that the latest Brownlow/BFI version is c.7540m, shown (mostly but not entirely) at 20fps. If this version were projected at 18fps, it would run to 363 minutes – i.e. about an hour short of the CF restoration.

According to Georges Mourier’s 2012 essay on the history of the film and its restorations, the edition of NAPOLEON “improperly” referred to as the “definitive version” (i.e. a reduced version of the longer Apollo version, assembled for export in November 1927) ran to 9600m. Mourier has since referred to this version as “la Grande Version”, though I’m unsure where this name comes from. Either way, it seems to be a blueprint for the CF to work from (or else, it is the version they can best approximate with the material they have). Unless they have since revised their estimate of the original length of the “Grande Version”, their final restoration still falls c.770m short – i.e. about 37 minutes (at 18fps).

I’m sure there is much yet to be said about the rationale behind the various restoration choices, including that of framerates. (Mourier’s 2012 article, for example, uses 20fps to calculate the film’s various running times. The restoration team has clearly changed their minds since then.) Given that both a book and (I believe) a documentary will be released to coincide with the release, I’m sure more answers will be given then – plus, of course, the experience of seeing the restoration in full…

[Stefan Andersson]

Cannes Classics webpage incl. downloadable press kit:
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/na ... bel-gance/

From the press kit, a description of the French-language book to be released May 16, 2024:
"Un livre de référence NAPOLÉON VU PAR ABEL GANCE - ÉDITIONS DE LA TABLE RONDE
Ouvrage collectif – 340 illustrations - 312 pages – format 17x21 – 29 € - En librairies à partir du 16 mai.
Pour rendre hommage au travail titanesque de reconstruction du film, ce livre de référence
adopte un principe original de maquette, qui donne la primeur aux images du film et déroule
l'essentiel des sept heures de l'œuvre d'Abel Gance, depuis son carton initial jusqu'à son terme.
Avec des textes qui éclairent l'aventure du film et son histoire, et des documents d'archives
inédits."

This means the book is an hommage to the restoration, and contains:
- the essential of the film, in pictures, from main title to end
- texts re: "the adventure and history of the film"'
- unpublished archival documents

Here is a 2021 mention of Georges Mourier writing a book about the restoration:
https://www.telerama.fr/cinema/napoleon ... 869558.php

[Stefan Andersson]

New articles about the film:
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2024 ... storation/
-the original Apollo version ran 9.5 hours, later cut to 7 hours ("grande version", the one now restored)
-the Opéra version was 11 hours and 44 minutes
-OCN was sent to the US, never returned

https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/ ... _3246.html
Opéra version 3 hours 47 minutes
Apollo version 9 hours 40 minutes
"Grande version", 7 hour release version

[Stefan Andersson]

New French article:

https://www.cnc.fr/cinema/actualites/re ... ce_1429506