This is a majestic film full of romantic passion. Napoleon is a controversial figure in history. If we only proceed from the historical evaluation of him, we cannot estimate the artistic value of this film. Abel Gance not only has problems with his historical view, but his artistic ambitions are also too great. He wanted to use the depiction of Napoleon's image to draw a huge mural for the unprecedentedly complex and intense period of social change in French history. Guns originally planned to shoot a series of Napoleon films. Starting from when Napoleon was a teenager, he devoted himself to revolution, expedition to Europe, from victorious to retreat, and after being exiled, he was not reconciled to fail, and finally died in the island of exile. With six independent films, he organically woven into a film epic of unprecedented scale. The first name he gave to this movie epic was "Napoleon in Abel Gance's Mind". This means that what he wants to make is not a historical film, but an epic film. The term "epic" in Greek originally refers to a long literary style based on the praise of heroic deeds. The purpose of Guns’s filming was not to make a fair historical evaluation of Napoleon, but to idealize and sublime Napoleon’s life, and to elevate Napoleon to something like Prometheus in ancient Greek mythology that brought light to the world. The height of the hero portrays him as a military and political artist who is good at judging the situation, a general with both ordinary feelings and superhuman perseverance. In short, Guns wants to use the film to weave a myth about Napoleon, and use the confusing and confusing film image to promote a spirit of heroism. However, the heroic image in Guns's film is too far away from the political careerist in history. It is no wonder that some people will be so disgusted with this film. For example, the editor-in-chief Roger Busino of the French "Cinema Encyclopedia" said This film is "purely naive and ignorant nonsense". In fact, Guns only shot "Napoleon". The original title of this film is "Napoleon and the Revolution". The other five titles are: "From Arcoule to Maringo", "From the Eighteenth of the Fog to Austerlitz", "From Austerlitz to the Hundred Days Coup", "Waterloo" and "St. Helena. In 1960, at the age of 71, he directed another spectacular Napoleon-themed film "Battle of Austerlitz". In that film, Napoleon had lost the aura of heroic ideals, and from time to time revealed "self The ugly state of "Mad Madness" shows that the image of Napoleon in Guns's mind has changed.
However, the accusation of the ideological defects of the film "Napoleon" does not lead to the denial of the film's artistic achievements. It is not unreasonable for some people to compare Abel Gance's contribution to film art with the French romantic writer Victor Hugo. Because during the forming period of film art, the creations made by Abel Gance in film language, especially the creations made by him using film techniques to promote a poetic and romantic mood, are indeed unprecedented and epoch-making. , Even super-epoch. And the film that gathers the great achievements of these creations is "Napoleon".
Abel Guns was born in a middle-class family in 1889. In 1911, he was attracted by the emerging art of film and raised funds to establish a film company to shoot the film "Sea Wall" with the theme of Dutch people competing for living space with the ocean. His anti-war film "I Accuse" (1919) showed his unique artistic talent. The film uses a novel and poetic film performance to create a shuddering group of soldiers killed in battle. After becoming famous, he filmed the film "Wheel" (also known as "Railway Rose", 1923) which became a classic montage. In 1921, Guns' film "I Accuse" was released in the United States. Griffith's appreciation for the creative talents of this young French director.
From the perspective of plot structure, the film "Napoleon" is composed of three parts. The first part is "Young Napoleon", which is not only the prologue of the film "Napoleon", but also the prologue of the other five films in the Guns plan; the second part is "Napoleon and the Revolution", which is the backbone and central content of the film "Napoleon" , The film itself can be named; the third part is "Italian Battle", which constitutes the end of the film. It does not describe the process of the battle in detail, but uses some battle scenes to make a summary of the relationship between Napoleon and the revolution, and for Napoleon From then on to the pinnacle of honor lay the groundwork.
The richness and effect of the film language used by Guns in the film "Napoleon" is amazing. Guns is good at painting. The composition of some of the big scenes in the film "Napoleon" reminds people of Dawei's huge oil paintings, which are both majestic and majestic in neoclassical and passionate romanticism. For example, the passage of Dandong’s speech at the Corderie Club, the sunlight from outside the window into the hall, through the thick stone pillars, together with the eager gazes of the crowd surging in the hall, focused on Dandong and De. Risler et al. The upper part of the picture shows the columns, walls and ceiling of the classically-styled hall with rigorous structure and majestic structure. The lower part of the picture shows the bustling people holding Republican flags or wearing republican soft hats. They are like undulating seas, stirring and stirring. The waves of revolutionary sentiment form a very strong contrast with the dignity of the buildings, conveying a very rich message of the times. Another example is the passage of Napoleon's tour of the three armies under the Alps. Abel Guns used three parallel screens to show unprecedented magnificence. Napoleon, a civilian-born general, rode a white horse from the far left of the screen in the middle. The majestic mountains were full of marching tents and fluttering military flags. Thousands of troops stood on the hillside and beside the road, all in unison. Napoleon on the horse cheered. As Guns said, the action of such a grand scene "must break through the limitations of the small rectangle of the ordinary screen." So he put into practice an amazing idea that had been brewing for many years: he put three screens side by side to double the width of the screen, which was the earliest "wide screen" idea and experiment in the history of film. This "wide screen" of "three paintings in one" was called "synthetic video" by a music critic Emile Villemouz at the time. It is also different from the later concept of "wide screen", because in addition to the big scenes like the above, where three screens are combined into a whole picture, there are also some "synthetic videos" where three screens display three different at the same time. Picture. This is Guns’s more unique concept. In his words, “the main melody of the story narrated by the screen in the middle is prose, while the screens on both sides are poetry”, which is an emotional and atmospheric rendering. For example, after Napoleon patrolled the three armies, the soldiers of the Republic marched into Italy. At that time, the picture in the middle was of soldiers marching forward holding hands and singing the majestic military song "People Pursuing Glory", using a middle shot. The screens on both sides are the panoramic view of the cavalry guards guarding the advance of the baggage troops. There are concrete images of the high-spirited soldiers here, as well as the mighty momentum of the march. Two types of pictures appear on three side-by-side screens at the same time It creates a kind of visual symphony. Another example is the passage in which Napoleon won the first battle in Italy. The film does not describe the process of the battle of Mondnot in detail. At this time, the middle one of the three screens is a close-up of Napoleon's head, and the screens on both sides are scenes of fierce battle, and Josephine's smile is superimposed on the scene of war. This method of expression is not only novel, but also truly conveys the complacency and the complex mood of missing the family of the newlyweds in the army, the joy of victory, the pursuit of ideals and the sustenance of love, and vividly conveyed to the audience. .
Although there is only the last part of the film "Napoleon", that is, "Departure to Italy" is shown on three screens at the same time, the concept of "synthetic video" has already appeared on a single screen. For example, when Napoleon was a boy, he started a pillow fight with his classmates in the dormitory of the military academy. The entire screen on the screen suddenly split into four small screens, and then into nine smaller screens. Each small screen displays a different angle of action. What follows is that each small screen appears Different overprinted images. The effect of this peculiar technique, in the words of Guns himself, is "to create a kind of information synthesis that is conducive to the formation of climax. The screen as a mirror can be turned into a refraction prism or a mosaic of light and shadow."
This concept of light and shadow mosaic requires strict editing and the accuracy of the viewpoint of the picture. In this respect, Guns deserves to be a master who dares to innovate, has meticulous ideas and skillful techniques. For example, the scene of Napoleon floating in the sea, the scene of fighting for revolutionary leadership with the two factions in the Paris National Assembly, was alternately cut through by Guns in a rhythmic parallel montage, forming the famous "double storm". Paragraph, placing Napoleon in a vortex of natural storms and political storms. The storm is used as a metaphor for the political situation, and the "storm" itself is a metaphor. Guns made a fuss about the "viewpoint" when filming the parliament scene. He installed the camera on the large chandelier in the parliament hall and let it swing from side to side on the heads of the extras who played the members. In this way, the extras were excited. The action is like a dizzying, endless wave, concretizing a metaphor used by Victor Hugo in the novel "Nine Years" (Hugo once wrote: "Being a parliamentarian is to be A wave in the ocean").
For "viewpoint", Guns has more original pursuit. He said: "We must make the audience a participant in the plot; we must involve the audience in every aspect of the development of the plot; we must suck him into the rapids of the picture." To this end, Guns placed the camera on the cart and tied it. On the photographer's chest, the knot is tied to the saddle of the running horse, and even fixed to the knife holder of the guillotine! In order to capture the "viewpoint" of the waves, he installed the camera in a floating sealed box; in order to capture the "viewpoint" of the cannonball, he set the camera on the projector and let it shoot along the parabola like a cannonball. Scenery that "saw".
As an early explorer of film art, Guns made unprecedented, multifaceted and bold explorations and experiments in the film "Napoleon" on the performance potential of film art. Some techniques may seem too exaggerated to us today, but in general, they have greatly enriched the vocabulary of film expression. It is precisely because of this that films can retain their moving power no matter at that time or in the future. The famous director Henry George Cruz wrote in his review article: "This is the most inspiring film image we have never seen before." Unfortunately, "Napoleon" was released shortly after the American film "The King of Jazz". "The sound film announced the demise of the silent film." Guns was temporarily unable to raise funds to accompany Napoleon with sound, because such a complex film, such a majestic scene and fine and changeable picture editing, required sound commensurate with it, otherwise it would only destroy the overall artistic effect. It wasn't until 1935 that he paired the film with stereo which he called "omnidirectional sound". Those passages of the "synthetic video" of "three paintings in one" had no choice but to cut love, because Abel Gance couldn't solve the "three paintings in one" audio processing. In 1952, in a desperate state of mind, he even burned most of the "synthetic video" paragraphs of the films on both sides of the screen. In 1969, he reorganized the film "Napoleon" at the appointment of French Minister of Culture André Malraux to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's birth. In 1971, the film was edited again and released under the title "Napoleon and the Revolution". But neither the 1935 version nor the 1971 version is as exciting as the seven-hour original. In 1979, after years of hard work by film historian Kevin Brownlow, a new version of "Napoleon" that was closer to the original was released at the Colorado Ryder Film Festival in the United States. It is a pity that it is incomplete, only three hours. In November 1980, London premiered another new version, which was relatively complete and lasted about five hours. It became a major event in the international film industry at that time. The most successful screening was held in 1981 by the famous American director Francis Coppola at the New York Municipal Radio Music Hall. Francis Coppola's father Cumming Coppola personally directed a 60-person symphony orchestra to score the film. This is a rare successful screening in the history of film. After more than half a century of vicissitudes, the film "Napoleon" once again aroused the cheers and praise of film lovers from Europe to America. American film director George Stevens said: "Neither before Guns nor after Guns, there has not been such a huge energy and passion on the screen." Film master Charlie Chaplin
Abel Guns won the French National Film Award in 1974 and the French Caesar Honor Award in 1981. These praises are to commend all his achievements since he engaged in film. In 1981, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded Guns the highest award and appointed him an academician. On November 10, 1981, the great image architect passed away in Paris for a long time. He left many film plans to be filmed, which he called the unfinished "church of light and shadow".
View more about Napoleon reviews
