Napoleon Abel Gance

A massive six-hour biopic of Napoleon, tracing his career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign), his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797 (the film stops there because it was intended to be part one of six, but director Abel Gance never raised the money to make the other five). The film's legendary reputation is due to the astonishing range of techniques that Gance uses to tell his story, culminating in the final twenty-minute triptych sequence, which alternates widescreen panoramas with complex multiple- image montages projected simultaneously on three screens.

1802. Bonaparte, Premier Consul, signe dans l'allégresse générale la paix d'Amiens avec l'Angleterre. Sa famille, par ambition, et Talleyrand, par calcul politique, le poussent à se faire proclamer empereur. Mais les agissements de l'Angleterre, joints à ceux des empereurs d'Autriche et de Russie, le contraignent à devancer la guerre que ceux-ci veulent lui déclarer, et ce sera la bataille et la victoire d'Austerlitz. A. Gance a repris son empereur au moment précis où se terminait le « Napoléon » dont le public ne vit en 1926 qu'une version tronquée et mutilée, et qui, telle quelle, constituait cependant un chef-d'œuvre.

"Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood" commemorates the birth of an art that would transform the 20th century. This six-hour series is narrated by critically acclaimed actor/director Kenneth Branagh with music composition by Carl Davis, Philip Appleby and Nic Raine.