Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

[La Clé du Ciel]

Great to hear you were able to see NAPOLEON with a live orchestra. This film is very special. It is precisely because it is so special that it must be seen by new audiences – freely and in the best possible version. Whilst I applaud Coppola's original intent of making the film known and seen in the US, the method by which he achieved it then (cutting it down, speeding it up, and still claiming its authenticity) and his continued blocking of a far better restoration now is utterly unacceptable.

As at your screening, the 2004 showings were amazing events. This film makes you want to stand up and applaud. Yet, Coppola is trying to prevent the world from experiencing this extraordinary film. As I've said before, that Coppola would deny audiences this momentous experience is unforgivable. The best version of NAPOLEON must be made available and also, as Brownlow wrote, “to make sure that it is shown, at least once a year, for ever.â€

[meanwhile]

Hear, Hear.

[Scharphedin2]

La Clé du Ciel -- just a note of kind thanks for these excellent posts, which I have read through a couple of times already.

The last one with the image comparisons was amazing, especially as Gance is still a completely dark continent for me. I have read about his innovations, and his mercurial approach to the camera work on Napoleon, and even just seeing these stills brings home just how much of an iconoclast Gance truly was.

I have often wondered, why Gance's work was so conspicuously absent in the voluminous outpour of films on home video in the last few decades. Apparently, there are very good reasons. I greatly look forward to reading your discussion on Gance's other work.

[Orphic Lycidas]

La Clé du Ciel -- I only discovered this topic today (oddly) and have been reading your posts with great interest. I became interested in Gance's "Napoleon" last year after discovering Dreyer's "Passion of Joan of Arc," also starring Antonin Artaud (very interesting guy). So far I have seen absolutely nothing - waiting for this Brownlow/Davis restoration to become available - but perhaps I will have to content myself with ordering the Australian Coppola version for the time being. I'm not sure I fully understand the legal situation (Coppola's copyright means ownership over the film itself, including all other edits/footage hitherto undiscovered??). It's too bad Coppola's living on Neptune nowadays. Is there any type of organization or movement or peition anywhere trying to get the real restored version out? This is a "What can I do?!" post.

[HerrSchreck]

Write letters to FFC, make phone calls to FFC, contribute to a legal fund... though it'd probably do absolutely zilch; we live in a bizarro time where the financial value of art has zoomed up thru the roof, and the perceived aesthetic value of art, it's psychological and social importance, has been beaten to shreds.

THE END OF THE WORLD... now that's a bizarro, rare Gance. I throw that on when I'm feeling trippy & drippy.

[La Clé du Ciel]

Lycidas, in answer to your query about Coppola I should say that he would like to think that he owns rights to the film beyond his own inadequate print. There was once hope that he would be happy with his short version and not try and claim rights to the fuller restoration. However, he has since made the demand that the additional footage be given to him and Zoetrope so they can create their own long version. What was hoped, at the very worst, was that Coppola would simply claim exclusive rights to show NAPOLEON in America (and thus show no other version than his) and not claim rights to any UK/European versions. Again, however, Coppola has extended his ambition to include banning ALL screenings of NAPOLEON using versions that aren't owned by him. The 2004 screenings in London took place despite vehement protests and threats of legal action from Coppola. He takes the view that the film must not be shown without his father's score. Given that can ONLY mean using the Zoetrope 1981 version (because Carmine's score can only be used with that much shorter version), this puts every other version of the film under threat from Coppola's belligerence and his lawyers. The absolutely absurd position is that his 1981 version is not even as complete as the 1980 Brownlow restoration, and yet THIS is the version that Coppola is claiming must be used instead of the 2004 restoration! According to his latest demands, even if Coppola actually had an extended print with an extended score, he'd still demand that no other version be screened.

One of the central problems lies with the fact that Gance gave the rights to NAPOLEON away more than once. This is one of those cases where more than one body owns the rights to what is (or what should be) a single work of art. However, because of the multiplicity of prints/versions/scores of NAPOLEON, what might normally be a simple issue of a single body owning a single version has become a case of multiple bodies owning different versions. Failing a sudden and extreme change of position by Coppola, I fear this situation will remain in suspense.

Lycidas and Herr Schreck, LA FIN DU MONDE is indeed a rather bizarre oddity. Lycidas, you may like to see this image of Artaud from the test footage of LA FIN DU MONDE:



He's testing for the part that Gance himself would end up playing. The delirious lighting effect created for this shot is one of my favourites in Gance's work – it's a shame that I've not seen it used in any version I've seen of the actual film! This fascinating footage can be seen in AUTOUR DE LA FIN DU MONDE, the documentary put together from footage shot on the set of the film. I may have more to say on the film elsewhere… (btw, if anyone has seen any even vaguely “completeâ€

[HerrSchreck]

I'd have to get home and run a check. It's a VHS tape made by my old psycho friend who happens to get his hands on everything that's not supposed to be available. I'm at work now unfortunately, but I'll get back to you on this.

[La Clé du Ciel]

I've posted something on J'ACCUSE here viewtopic.php?p=79878#79878 if anyone cares to peruse…

[Anonymous]

Hi there, I just picked up a VHS off my library shelf the other day of Napoleon by Gance. I had never heard of it before, and knew nothing of the controversy. Anyway, I wrote an Amazon review, which I will post below. I am a musician, and I will say in my view, that Carmine's score is at best ok, certainly not good enough. And now that he's dead, and its at the wrong speed, Coppola is committing a crime against the cinema by trying to force his dad's score onto this film. Coppola knows this is one of the greatest movies of all time, and he wants his name, and his dad's name to be part of it. What an egomaniac to the point of insanity. Will he ever relent? I doubt it. Heart of Darkness and Vanity, indeed.

This is truly an unbelievable movie, one of the greatest movies of all time, no question. Every second of this movie you are sitting on the edge of your seat, and wanting to rewind it, and watch parts of it again, in slow motion. The acting is excellent, and the camera work, for the time, is mind-blowing. There is even some nudity, and shots of women dancing while nude under their dresses, in the party scene, where Napoleon meets Josephine. Talk about pushing the envelope. There is so much to this movie, one could write forever.

But, but but, here's the problem: Francis Ford Coppola is actively blocking us from seeing the entire movie! His version, has cut out 90 minutes out of this great film, and it appears that Coppola does not want us to see the entire movie? Why is this? Coppola knows this is one of the greatest movies of all time, and he got his father to write music for this version, so he obviously is practicing personal nepotism, to try and make his fathers music THE music of this great film. This is a tragedy, and is unethical, to say the least.

This is exactly like the Sofia Coppola nepotism disaster in Godfather III, when he cast his daughter who cannot act, and wrecked his own movie. Same deal here. He wants to force his dad's score down our throats, I guess, even at the expense of suppressing this movie. Carmine Coppola's score is pretty good, not too bad, but not great. For Coppola to SUPPRESS the full version of this great movie is beyond unethical. If he had any respect for this movie, he would release the long-full version, with 2 versions of the score. Why won't he do this? Is he afraid his father music won't cut it?

Anyway, I cannot express how angry I am that Coppola is suppressing this great movie, right as we speak, in 2006. I want to see the ENTIRE movie that now exists, and so does the world. Some major-league film critics need to try to "reason" with Coppola to get the full version released, and to try and get him to stop suppressing it. Otherwise, Coppola will severely damage his place in film history forever. What he is doing is not even about money. Its about him actively suppressing one of the greatest films of all time, for reasons of nepotism. Truly pathetic, and a crime against the cinema.

[Anonymous]

I'm new to this board so its going to take me awhile to find my way around. Like some others here, i was lucky enough to be in London in 2004 and to see Brownlow's new restoration of Napoleon along with the Davis score. I hadn't planned this, and my hotel was able to get me tickets at the last moment. It was incredible. Both the film (which was very long) and the music went beautifully together. The stamina of the orchestra was unbelievable.

I had also seen the film when it was run up here (Toronto) around 25 years ago when I was still in school. I remember it being great back then, but honestly don't recall the difference in what the picture looked like in comparison. I believe both had color. The music to both versions seemed to work really well. I think Carmine Coppola was conducting here, but I'm not positive.

So here are my questions. How can we get Criterion to put this out on DVD in both versions? I've read that Universal owns the US, and maybe the Canadian rights, and Universal has allowed Criterion to put out some other films. Is there someone that we can call or write to suggest this?

Also I keep reading that Coppola cut the film, is holding back the longer version from being seen, but I haven't actually found anything on line that says this except for some comments by Mr. Brownlow. I would really hate to find out that this is true. Also, why would he not want it to look as good as the version that I saw in London. I was going to buy the Australian dvd, but after reading comments here, decided not to, and to wait for the newer version.

With everything else that he must be doing, I can't believe that Coppola spends a whole lot of time thinking about this, and it doesn't make any sense that he would want to hurt the film. That's why I'm wondering if anybody has any information except what we keep hearing. Are these just rumours or are they true? And how do we know? I really don't want to have to turn my discs of Godfather into coasters. Who do I write to at Criterion?

[rollotomassi]

Understandably a lot of emotion on this subject. Let's clarify. Last year Kevin Brownlow tried to get the full version of Napoleon, that he prepared in 1980, shown in London with Carl Davis conducting his score. Coppola refused to sanction it, prompting Brownlow to compare him to Josef Goebbels (a bit over the top, but I feel his anger and frustration). The fact is Francis Ford Coppola believes his father Carmine Coppola was a genius, and in an act of supreme nepotism will ensure only his cut, with his ghastly tints, a missing hour and half of footage, and with his father's one dimensional score will ever be released. This is the version on US VHS, Australian, Spanish and Far East DVD.

I myself have a hush-hush, can't copy folks, for home viewing only 5½ hour version with Davis' score on DVDR, with the tricolor sequence intact. There is only one way this can be done.

The film was last shown in the Brownlow version with the Davis music on British TV on Channel 4 in July 1989 as part of the French Revolution bicentennial celebrations. This version, however, though in original monochrome with the Davis score that opens with Mozart's immortal 25th Symphony in the Brienne schoolyard, was altered for video so the tricolor and widescreen tripych was altered to straight 4:3.

What I and a colleague did, for our own viewing, was to take the ending from the DVD version, admittedly with the Coppola music, and, using a special computer program of said colleague, digitally recorded the Davis music from the old VHS finale and supplanted it over the Coppola score and then pasted the sycnhronised ending - tricolor ending with Davis music to the end of the film.

This is by no means perfect, as of course there title captions for advert breaks permeate the print, and at the point the picture goes widescreen I have to manually reset the picture, but I now have it transferred to DVDR on three discs. It's nowhere near what it would be like if restored to DVD, but it's as good as I think I'm ever going to see.

The best you can hope to do is somehow find someone with an extenstive video collection in the UK who may have taped it way back in 1989 to copy it for you and then do as I did. I made the mistake of copying my version for a friend who then tried to sell it on ebay and was instantly in trouble. Needless to say I gave him a pasting down.

I hope some of you who only know the Coppola version can get lucky as I did.

[HerrSchreck]

You're, unless I missed something, mislabeling the 2000 resto as the 80 or 89? This is the BFI Sponsored most recent resto which we've been anguishing over Browlow's obviously failed attempts to get out on disc. There is material in the 2000 restoration--plus better footage of well known stock-- that hasn't been seen since 27.

[rollotomassi]

Obviously the 2000 restoration is a big improvement in terms of running time and quality, but there's no chance of ever seeing that unless Coppola pops his clogs, and I wouldn't quite wish that, even if after selling his soul to the Black Prince for the seven years of good luck that began and ended with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now his later career had been disposable.

The version I mean is the best version available prior to that, the 5½ hour version that played in London and Paris (it was the Coppola 4 hr version that played everywhere else). Not perfect, by any means, but still a million times better than the Coppola version... Sorry for any confusion.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your explanation. However, I'm still confused by one point. If Brownlow could show the film in London as he has been for years, why or how could Coppola all of a sudden try to stop his shows? Brownlow must have had the right or permission to do this, whether it came from C or Gance or somewhere else.

I actually read somewhere, and I should be able to find a link, that C went to the court and tried to get a stay or something to stop the show, and that the court turned him down. This could be rumor, but why now would he be doing this when there hasn't been a problem since like 1980? I understand why he might not want the competition of the Davis score in the US, but what does this have to do with London. See what I'm getting at?

[rollotomassi]

I see where you're coming from, and to be honest I agree with some of what you say, and memories of the report of the incident are very vague, but I think that it's not the extended version Coppola has a problem with, but using Davis' music, even though his father only wrote music for the 4 hour not the 5½ hour version. Brownlow refused, Coppola got miffed. The fact is that the film will never be shown in the extended version with Davis' music as long as Coppola lives. That much is certain. It's sad, but there you go.

It's sad that Gance's three masterworks are unavailable, La Roue and J'Accuse, too, having only his later failures available has allowed his reputation to plummet as critical opinion has always had much to do with availability. If the three became available, he'd be up with the greats again. I mean, it's like someone saying you can have all the Orson Welles films you like, but not Kane, Ambersons and TO Evil.

[Person]

Sorry, no DVD news, but I stumbled across a 5-minute interview with Brownlow from 1980.

[Mr. Jones]

It's old news, but I thought some of you would get a laugh at this. The punch line comes at the end. Do the French know what he is properly keeping away from us? Or is it that they're clueless this film even exists in effect to Coppola's irrational, evil doings.

[Person]

Oooh, the irony of life!

Imagine if... Steven Spielberg was blocking the release of the restored Metropolis? That's the gravity of Coppola's ass-hattery.

[ArchCarrier]

I don't know if it means anything, but Robert Harris just posted this on the Home Theater Forum:

There is no "rights issue."
Stay tuned.

[HerrSchreck]

I'd be stunned if another company beats the bfi to the punch getting this out. Though over on the Gance thread (far too scarce) member Le Cle du ciel recently stated that the Coppola issue petered out.. and that, now that there was nothing to combat, the relevant folks at bfi were sitting around in a coma with no plans to get it out. Money issues I believe.

Maybe they'll license it to others to gain funds for their own release?

But surely this would be a no brainer for CC?

[zedz]

But surely this would be a no brainer for CC?

But isn't it one of those - what do you call them? - non-talking films?

[HerrSchreck]

Yes I know... On one hand I know it's no (sound of gunshot... >flump<) King of Kings, but I always considered this one of those across the board prestige titles that crosses all taste and legend lines that CC would love to have in their collection. More of-- or at least as much of a-- a cap feather than/as an item of artistic urgency.

[MichaelB]

But surely this would be a no brainer for CC?

But isn't it one of those - what do you call them? - non-talking films?

CC could always release one of the talking versions...

(and destroy their reputation for integrity at a single stroke!)

[Darth Lavender]

CC could always release one of the talking versions...

(and destroy their reputation for integrity at a single stroke!)

I don't know about you, but I will only buy such a release if they get Vittorio Storaro to personally come in and reframe the triptych scenes to the proper 2:1 ratio.

[MichaelB]

I don't know about you, but I will only buy such a release if they get Vittorio Storaro to personally come in and reframe the triptych scenes to the proper 2:1 ratio.

Given that the aspect ratio of the triptychs is 4:1, I don't think that will do any damage.