Elsewhere, I’ve written about my admiration for the cinematographers, PAs, and editors who helped create a true cinematic language. The tragedy of the silent era is that many of those innovators who—accidentally or not—expanded the cinematic vocabulary for years to come would never be known by name. They were told to get a certain result, and they got it, and they didn’t think to patent their idea or lay claim to it in any way. Film was a populist art form, especially in the early days. Yes, the director called the shots: but the cameraman created them.
This is an extension of that idea, a two-part series about one of the most impactful and referential films ever made: Abel Gance’s Napoléon.
Part One: How It Was Made
In the mid-1920s, the French director Abel Gance set out to film one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the cinema, the first part of what he envisioned as a lifelong project: a cinematic life of Napoléon.
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