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- The snowball strategy. The film begins with the hero conducting his troops in a battle. But this is Napoleon the schoolboy, and the weapons are snowballs.
- The pillow fight. Another schoolboy scuffle, but this time in the dormitories. One of the young extras recalled the experience as a “splendid brawl” and Gance captures the playful excitement of the fight (Jean Vigo paid tribute in his 1933 classic Zéro de conduite), in a stunning, multifaceted sequence.
- The Corsican horses. In Napoleon, Gance hoped to take the audience from a mere spectator to a player in the action. Handheld cameras were a few years away from reality, though, and the cumbersome alternative was for his cameramen to wear heavy, motorised cameras strapped to their chests, connected by a cable to a portable generator on a truck.
- The Club des Cordeliers. Many of Gance’s background players were striking workers from the nearby Renault factory, and he fired them up with enthusiasm before shooting, feeling that extras needed to be in a trance-like state to inhabit their roles.
The film features Gance's interpretation of the birth of the song "La Marseillaise", the national anthem of France. In the film, the French singer Maryse Damia [ fr ] portrays the spirit of the song.
Nov 22, 2023 · Gance is directing a scene in which a crowd is taught ‘La Marseillaise’. He is observed exciting his extras into a state of frenzy by making them sing the national anthem 12 times “in crescendo”.
Now we get the first shot of her reaction to “La Marseillaise” after it’s begun. You can see it on her face and in the deep breaths she takes: she knows. She knows what this means for Victor, for his cause, for her, for their relationship.
Napoléon is Abel Gance's masterwork, a major historical epic about the early years of Napoléon Bonaparte, from his school days in 1781 to his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797. This was supposed to be part the first part a cycle of 6 films covering the whole life of Napoléon, to be called Youth.
Jun 23, 2024 · In his “proclamation” of 4 June 1924, addressed to all his contemporary and future collaborators, Abel Gance concluded: “Today it is for the public to tell us whether we achieved our goal.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves!
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In his great works of the preceding years, such as J’accuse! and La Roue, Gance works in his themes and motifs in the form of overlays, juxtaposing rather than combining them. In Napoléon – especially in the “Apollo” version – in full mastery of his art, he reaches new heights of dazzling virtuosity.
