Napoleon

Abel Gance's film covers Napoleon from childhood to the Italian campaign and does it with techniques that did not exist in 1927. The camera is strapped to a sled, a horse, a pendulum and at one point a cannon, and the snowball fight is cut like a battle. The most famous passage is at the end: three projectors run side by side and the image lands on the screen three panels wide, which is the widescreen idea attempted thirty years early. When the film was finished nobody could operate that system, and it circulated in fragments for decades. Without Kevin Brownlow's long restoration work we would not have it in this form. Depending on the version it can run five and a half hours. Who it is for: viewers interested in silent film history and formal experiment. Who it is not for: anyone without patience for the length and the historical context.