NAPOLEON new Reconstruction

[Dino Everett]

I just saw something that made my stomach turn. There was a brief interview posted yesterday about the upcoming screening of the new "french" reconstruction of Abel Gance's NAPOLEON and the head of the Cinematheque said the following, "And, after a century of more or less poor quality restorations, we were able to come up with a restoration that respected Gance’s wishes." There should never be a reason to essentially bad mouth the work of someone else, simply because you think your version will be better. If they were so upset about the quality of the earlier versions why didn't they help Brownlow? They state that they have only been working on this for 15 years.

https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2...c-restoration/

[Juergen Kellermann]

Here a little short film with more information on the restoration...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MshMhgNSR3k

You can switch on auto-translate, which works quite well.

The Wikipedia entry also gives details on the previous restorations, incl. Kevin Brownlow's, who edited and re-edited his version several times, to make it more accutrate. He did have help from the Cinematheque Franchise, i.e. in 2000 they provided him with newly discovered scenes for his restorations...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoléon_(1927_film)

The new French version is 7:05 hours long, compared to Brownlow's 5:30 hours version.

[Dino Everett]

He did have help from the Cinematheque Franchise, i.e. in 2000 they provided him with newly discovered scenes for his restorations...

This just proves my point even more that there is no reason to badmouth (ie: "more or less poor quality restorations") Brownlow's work since they themselves had a hand in them. They could very easily say "incomplete" versions but to say that the versions that Brownlow has previously exhibited are POOR QUALITY is inexcusable in my opinion.

[Brian Fretwell]

I wonder if that "More or less poor" is a bad translation from French, not meaning "more-or-less" and more "good and not so good" depending on how much of the film was available at the time.

[Chris Bird]

Have to agree with Dino on this. I'm biased, as I was lucky enough to work on the 2000 Brownlow restoration, as his assistant editor on the final stages. The quality was excellent, as can readily be seen on the Photoplay/BFI Blu Ray issued in 2016 from that version. The last time it was projected on film was in Amsterdam in 2014. The triptych (three strips of film running on three interlocked projectors) was 130 feet wide, and the quality was great even at that size.

Kevin knew Abel Gance well, and consulted multiple prints in the Cinematheque Francaise and elsewhere, as well as the original script, to put together the best version possible at that time.

My wife (who also worked on the 2000 restoration) and I are both going over to Paris in July to see the new restoration, but irrespective of what new footage has been found for the new restoration, all the archivists and early cinema enthusiasts in the world will always owe a huge debt to Kevin Brownlow for devoting his life to this film. The only reason people even know about this film is because of the decades of work he did to restore and promote it.

[Mike Newell]

A typical case of somebody blowing their own importance and ego. If it hadn’t been for Kevin Brownlow there wouldn’t have been anything left to restore at this point. No surprise they make this announcement at Cannes.

[Andreas Benz]

...
The new French version is 7:05 hours long, compared to Brownlow's 5:30 hours version.

According to a post on Nitrateville not that many new scenes were discovered but they rather slowed down the whole film from 20 fps to 18 fps. The Brownlow version only had the snowball fight at the beginning at 18 fps and the rest of the film at 20 fps.

[Dominique De Bast]

I wonder if that "More or less poor" is a bad translation from French, not meaning "more-or-less" and more "good and not so good" depending on how much of the film was available at the time.

The expression in French is "restaurations plus ou moins boiteuses" (Napoléon vu par Abel Gance en ouverture de Cannes Classics, interview de Frédéric Bonnaud - Festival de Cannes (festival-cannes.com)), which could be, in this case, translated by "restorations more or less incomplete", "more or less imperfect". I believe, as Brian suggests that Frédéric Bonnaud was not refering to the picture quality but to the editing.

[Dino Everett]

"which could be, in this case, translated by "restorations more or less incomplete", "more or less imperfect".
That seems very plausible, but in a case such as this where they have spent so much money, the messages put out should at the very least have been better controlled....Still very interested/nervous to see it....Mainly nervous about the speed change...

[Dominique De Bast]

"they have spent so much money, the messages put out should at the very least have been better controlled...

That may be a different cultural approach. It's said that in the USA, half of the budget for a film goes to the promotion. That's absolutely not the case in Europe. But that's just my guess.

[Ken Finch]

I agree completely with Chris Bird. I very much doubt it would have ever seen the light of day again were it not for Kevin Brownlow. Also think the musicians in the orchestra must have been exhausted playing over three hours without a break, not to mention cast iron bladders!.