Napoleon

This is the first time I’ve ever seen the 7 hour cut version of Abel Gance’s masterpiece that is Napoleon. The last time I watched this movie it was the 5 and a half hour long cut, and I had to break it up into three different pieces. For this cut I knew I had to watch the entire thing in one sitting. To call it a surreal experience is to downplay it, I have trouble finding the exact words to describe what I’m feeling. I remember getting tears of joy when I read that this movie was getting a new 7 hour cut, and every one of those tears were well spent because this was just as, if not better than what I had ever anticipated. The cinematography and directing for this movie is just so incredible. And the quality of this 2024 cut of the movie is just mind boggling. As early on as the snowball fight I was completely dumbfounded by how marvelous this looked even though it was filmed almost 100 years ago by now. To bring it back to the cinematography, it was absolutely marvelous throughout the entire movie. The skill that Gance had to bring so much emotion into every scene even if there wasn’t a dialogue card present in certain scenes is just so skillful that I can’t even imagine how he managed. Of course the triptych scene is one of the best, but just before that when Napoleon visits the hall of congress at night and the previous figures of the revolution look down at him almost made me tear up. Now, as good as this movie was, I do have to say that the 5 and a half hour version is still slightly better in my opinion. The first reason, which isn’t really that big of a deal is that I believe the triptych scene was better handled. It felt more like it was looking into the future, and the supremely powerful scene where the French flag is recreated was present for more of the scene than in this more recent cut. The second reason is however so much more important in my eyes is the music. I was terrified when getting into this cut because I had heard so many awful things about the music that I thought this masterpiece would truly be ruined for me. I am happy to say though, that even though the music isn’t terrible it is slightly meh. Certain choices make no logical sense, but others do kind of hold up? Yet nothing can even beat the truly magical and goosebump raising soundtrack that is the Carl Davis recording. I could feel myself anticipating his music in this version, and then feeling a pang of pain when it didn’t show up. I so wish that this (mostly) cinematically superior cut had the much superior Carl Davis music to accompany it, but I guess it would make for a movie that was just too good so it couldn’t happen.