{"id":203,"date":"2012-04-08T22:13:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T02:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=203"},"modified":"2020-12-06T21:32:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T02:32:26","slug":"kevin-brownlow-and-the-holy-grail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=203","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Brownlow and the Holy Grail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kevin Brownlow (right), and Abel Gance (1967)<\/p>\n

Seldom has a movie, particularly a silent film, been so enmeshed in legend and politics as Abel Gance\u2019s Napoleon <\/em>(1927).\u00a0 The French have their own restoration, there\u2019s a different version at MOMA, and there\u2019s yet a different cut made by Francis Coppola, who owns the rights to show it in the US.\u00a0 But the most famous, most complete version has been assembled by Kevin Brownlow, slowly, painstakingly, over the last 45 years or so.\u00a0 It hasn\u2019t been shown since the 1980s in the US.<\/p>\n

Attending a screening of Napoleon <\/em>has become something of a Holy Grail.\u00a0 The few European screenings have attracted viewers from all over the world.\u00a0 The challenge of mounting a showing is daunting.\u00a0 The film is about five and half hours long, and it requires a screen for three interlocked projectors with a triple-wide ending sequence. \u00a0Since it doesn’t have a recorded score, the film has an orchestral accompaniment written by Carl Davis, which he generally conducts himself.\u00a0 Just the thought of paying overtime and double overtime for the union musicians is staggering.<\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to attend a showing in Oakland, California on March 31.\u00a0 It was spectacular.\u00a0 The theater was breathtaking, an art deco gem called the Paramount, absolutely gigantic, and painstakingly restored.\u00a0 I\u2019d have gladly paid most of what I paid for admission just to look around the theater.<\/p>\n

So what about the movie, you ask.\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m getting to that…<\/p>\n

I try to keep the Dr. Film blog pages from getting too saturated with film theory and technical jargon. I strive to have the blog full of film lore for geeks, but I also want to encourage newcomers.\u00a0 With this film, I have a problem.\u00a0 I can\u2019t seem to discuss the movie without doing it in film geek terms.<\/p>\n

The problem with talking about\u00a0Napoleon <\/em>is that it diverges strongly from most other silents.\u00a0 The differences between it and the run-of-the-mill silent films of the period can only be explained and illustrated by using fancy film terms.\u00a0 So I will apologize in advance to any newcomer who may be reading this.\u00a0 I hope it is still rewarding to any newcomer, but if you find if rough going, I recommend skipping forward to another one of my blog articles.<\/p>\n

Napoleon <\/em>is part of a rarefied class of films made by half-crazy directors who went wild spending money and had crews and producers that would support it.\u00a0 It requires a charismatic director so dedicated to the film that people will follow him into the abyss.\u00a0 In a very real sense the making of a film like Napoleon <\/em>is like a Napoleonic campaign.\u00a0 Consider that Gance went to all the places that Napoleon did, with a similar sized crew\/army, and prop ammunition, etc.\u00a0 The logistics are quite impressive.<\/p>\n

Napoleon <\/em>joins the rank of films like Intolerance, Metropolis, Lawrence of Arabia<\/em>, Heaven\u2019s Gate<\/em>, 2001<\/em>, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen<\/em>, and a number of others.\u00a0 All of these have troubled production histories, bloated runtimes, maniacal directors, and out-of-control budgets.\u00a0 All of them are today considered at least minor classics, some major classics.\u00a0 Most of them were subjected to investor interference and extensive recutting.<\/p>\n

I am saddened by the idea that many of the people who saw Napoleon <\/em>did so without ever having seen another silent film.\u00a0 What makes Napoleon <\/em>unique is that it uses a number of fascinating techniques.\u00a0 Some ideas were used years later, others not at all.\u00a0 To see Napoleon <\/em>is to see one of the great experimental films ever made.\u00a0 There are parts of it that work brilliantly, other parts less so, but the ideas we see in this film are nothing short of staggering.<\/p>\n

Consider these:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Silent films tended to be cut with a slower rhythm that modern films are.\u00a0 Gance has several sequences in Napoleon <\/em>that are cut with lightning speed, just as fast as a modern Michael Bay film.\u00a0 Gance had the intelligence to use this technique sparingly, so that the confusion of \u201cchaos cinema\u201d used in action sequences today is minimized.\u00a0 What does happen is that we get the effect of being \u201cin the fight\u201d while still clearly understanding what is going on.<\/p>\n

\u2022 A brilliant little sequence uses a technique I\u2019d never seen before.\u00a0 Napoleon sees Josephine and finally gets a chance to meet her properly.\u00a0 He\u2019d met her briefly a number of times before.\u00a0 Gance gives us a closeup of Napoleon, and then flash cuts of their other meetings, and then back to Napoleon reacting.\u00a0 In the space of a second, we understand what\u2019s going on in Napoleon\u2019s head as he works this out.\u00a0 Amazing technique.\u00a0 No flashbacks, lap dissolves or anything.\u00a0 The only other time I\u2019ve ever seen anything like it is during a scene toward the end of Charade <\/em>(1963), but that usage is fundamentally different and is actually cut slower!<\/p>\n

\u2022 Moving camerawork was difficult in 1927.\u00a0 Film stock was slow, which meant that a lot of light was required to keep anything moving in focus.\u00a0 Furthermore, most cameramen were using hand-cranked cameras, which naturally limited mobility.\u00a0 Gance gleefully breaks all convention here.\u00a0 Motorized cameras, handheld camerawork, cameras on seesaws, on wires to create smoother shots.\u00a0 It all looks rather seamless and more like some of the work we see today with Steadicams and the like.\u00a0 Gance had no such things.\u00a0 Perhaps the Germans were doing a bit more with the moving camera at this time, but Gance integrates it wonderfully into the film, less as a stunt and more as a real storytelling device.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gance\u2019s Polyvision, with three interlocked cameras, used at the end of the film, is amazing.\u00a0 Gance could have met with Henri Chretien, creator of the Hypergonar process that eventually became Cinemascope.\u00a0 That would have given him the widescreen process he craved.\u00a0 What he came up with was equally brilliant.\u00a0 The interlocked projector technique, which he called Polyvision, is extremely similar to Cinerama, which debuted publicly in 1952.\u00a0 But even here Gance does things differently.\u00a0 Cinerama always apologizes a little for the join lines between the panels, trying to minimize them as much as possible.\u00a0 Gance embraces the whole idea.\u00a0 While Cinerama always used single shots (the same scene spread across each of the three screens), Gance will happily have a different shot on each screen, or a mirror of the right screen on the left screen.\u00a0 Sometimes Napoleon will be seen in closeup in the center panel while a long shot is seen on the side panels.\u00a0 This would never <\/em>have been done in Cinerama!\u00a0 At the end of the film, he even tints each screen to match the French flag in a sequence that is as bravura a piece of filmmaking as I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

Is it excessive?\u00a0 Sure it is.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole point.\u00a0 If I can make an analogy that\u2019s used frequently, Gance starts Napoleon <\/em>like an organ with all the stops pulled.\u00a0 You\u2019d think he had nowhere to go.\u00a0 What he does is to effectively build more stops through the end of the picture and use those.\u00a0 Yes, it is wearing, and yes, there are sequences that are so long that any producer would scream <\/em>to cut them back.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I can understand why people have wanted to cut Napoleon <\/em>down to a manageable size for years.\u00a0 Gance himself recut it and recast it with sound.\u00a0 He remade it with sad results.\u00a0 But if we look through history, Intolerance <\/em>was long and was recut.\u00a0 <\/em>That was DW Griffith\u2019s picture, one of the directors Gance revered.\u00a0 Metropolis <\/em>was recut extensively.\u00a0 2001 <\/em>was recut.\u00a0 Brazil <\/em>was recut.\u00a0 Lawrence of Arabia <\/em>was recut.\u00a0 Each of these films was long and excessive, made by an obsessed director.<\/p>\n

Again, that\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

This is why I laud Kevin Brownlow for restoring Napoleon <\/em>as it was.\u00a0 He\u2019s fought the good fight against recutting it to fit modern tastes, to fit cinema runtimes, to anything other than the best we can approximate Gance\u2019s vision.\u00a0 This is why that, to this day, Napoleon <\/em>still stands out from the crowd.\u00a0 It\u2019s not commercial.\u00a0 It never was.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like any other film, silent or sound.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t intended to be.\u00a0 It is what it is.\u00a0 Even Coppola\u2019s cutting and speeding-up of Napoleon<\/em>, which was intended to minimize the overtime for the musicians, compromises Gance\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

Napoleon<\/em> felt, to me, a lot like a David Lean film (Lean, director of Lawrence of Arabia.<\/em>)\u00a0 It also had a strong influence from DW Griffith (Intolerance<\/em>) in terms of narrative structure and editing.\u00a0 But it also had an avant garde feel.<\/p>\n

The acting was brilliant, particularly Albert Dieudonn\u00e9 as Napoleon.\u00a0 Davis\u2019 score was an inspiration, based on pieces of music from each period in Napoleon\u2019s life.\u00a0 The theater, presentation, and ambience were all top notch.<\/p>\n

Out of all the brilliance of the evening, I still need to single out Kevin Brownlow.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t call soft-spoken Mr. Brownlow obsessive.\u00a0 I would call him dedicated to doing the right thing.\u00a0 He\u2019s suffered slings and arrows for years from people who didn\u2019t care to have Napoleon <\/em>restored.<\/p>\n

I give him a special tip of the Dr. Film fez.\u00a0 Without Kevin Brownlow, we\u2019d be missing a key piece of movie history.\u00a0 It\u2019s a glimpse of a cinema that was, a cinema that never would be, and a cinema from the mind of a genius.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A still from the triptych: look carefully, and you can see where the 3 images join<\/p>\n

Special side note:<\/strong> Much was made of the idea of putting Napoleon <\/em>out on DVD or Blu-ray.\u00a0 I, for one, hope it never is.\u00a0 What I hope for is a well-publicized successful roadshow of the film in major cities across the US.\u00a0 I know that theatrical exhibition is pass\u00e9 today.\u00a0 I still think Napoleon <\/em>should be seen in a theater, with an audience, and if possible, with a live score.\u00a0 Brownlow mentioned that Stanley Kubrick wanted to borrow a print of Napoleon <\/em>to watch on his flatbed viewer (a small-screen device used for editing films.)\u00a0 He told Kubrick that this was a bad idea, given that the film lost most of its impact on a small screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like watching Lawrence of Arabia <\/em>on a phone,\u201d Brownlow said.\u00a0 (Mind you, I believe Mr. Brownlow would happily release the film on DVD just to get it out there for people to see.\u00a0 It is my own opinion, not his, that it shouldn\u2019t be on video.)<\/p>\n

For the record, I won\u2019t watch Lawrence of Arabia <\/em>on anything but a big screen, and I think Napoleon <\/em>deserves the same respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin Brownlow (right), and Abel Gance (1967) Seldom has a movie, particularly a silent film, been so enmeshed in legend and politics as Abel Gance\u2019s Napoleon (1927).\u00a0 The French have their own restoration, there\u2019s a different version at MOMA, and there\u2019s yet a different cut made by Francis Coppola, who owns the rights to show … Continue reading “Kevin Brownlow and the Holy Grail”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,4],"tags":[83,84,41,80],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-views-and-reviews","tag-kevin-brownlow","tag-napoleon","tag-review","tag-silent-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}