Napoleon

Nelly Kaplan

• Publisher: British Film Institute
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780851704661
• eBook ISBN: 9781838717247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Abel Gance's film, restored through the efforts of Kevin Brownlow, is discussed here by Nelly Kaplan, who was Gance's assistant and then, later, with such productions as 'The Pirate's Fiancee', a film director in her own right. Each volume in the 'BFI Film Classics' series contains a personal commentary on the film, a brief production history and a detailed filmography.

LEAVES FROM SATAN'S BOOK . . .

The following extracts from Gance's scripts of Napoléon are taken from the original Nelly Kaplan collection.

EXTRACTS FROM THE SCREENPLAY OF NAPOLÉON:

SCENES LOST, NOT FILMED, OR NOT INCLUDED IN THE FILM

A.	THE TOULON FIRING SQUADS (a sequence lost to this day: notes – technical secret)
787^2	The commanding officer lowers his sabre.
787^3	The 100 rifles are fired at the same time. New technique (written in red on the original only).
	I shall only say here that for the first time cinema will attempt to open up one of its new and magic horizons and that the inexpressible emotion which will ensue, unprecedented in my view, from the fact that this new technique will not find its equivalent, in intensity, in any other art-form. I am determined to stress here at least the prime importance of the idea.

The Toulon 'Fusillades' (The hostages still standing)

Gance's hand-written gloss:

787^A	Shot of Violine. Camera turns, seems to focus on her in 10 images.
787^3	Tech. exc. The 100 rifles facing the camera lens resound all at once (100mm lens). And here, using an absolutely new technique, the camera will, to the end of this series of scenes, become the victim itself, and all the stages in the death agony will be played by the camera itself.

When the rifles fire, the camera suffers a terrible jolt and then begins to shake violently, while soldiers can still be seen shooting and others can be seen dropping their weapons and fleeing in panic; then a prism makes everything whirl, the pictures become first clear-cut and then flowing. All this while the camera drops little by little as the young girl [Violine] is falling to her knees.

The Toulon 'Fusillades' (The hostages lying shot)

There's a sudden flash and the terrified soldiers stretch out their hands as if begging pardon, then all is veiled; more images of Bonaparte; the speeded up dying of a flower, then Bonaparte again; all this happens in a whirl, only just, only just, another jolt, the camera is 30cm from the ground. The soldiers are seen to be advancing, their eyes full of compassion. The camera slowly, slowly slides down to the ground; the images get gradually smaller. On the ground another little jolt, then a final, fluid flash: flowers, Fleuri, Marcellin and Bonaparte, then a grey swirl, speed in all directions, then black punctuated by spiralling trails, then violet, then black cut by white for 2 metres only. We shan't have seen Violine for a second during this scene and yet we have witnessed every stage of her horror. What other art, in truth, apart from music, has the power of such possibilities?

Gance's hand-written glosses to paragraphs 1 and 2 of 787

Have Violine play this if the technique doesn't work as expected.

For Zette [one of Gance's collaborators]: have a cannon go off without warning her.

788	A cloud passes across the sun. Everything grows dark.
788^2	Dining room of the convention members. Icy cold. The glasses they clink together tremble in their hands. Fréron puts cotton in his ears.
788^3	A half-drunk Salicetti on the balcony of the window of the dining-room screaming: 'Let all who are still alive show themselves. The Republic forgives them!'
789	Bonaparte takes his hat off to these dead bodies. He looks at what we cannot see.

Gance's hand-written gloss to 789:

The sun is hidden. Bonaparte is at the beginning of the wall behind the soldiers who have just been killing. He has little Marcellin in front of him. And he lifts Marcellin down. The sun is hidden. He hears Salicetti and leaps among the soldiers.

789^2	The camera which was on the ground slowly rises to 30cm as if the wounded girl might benefit from this late reprieve, then to
	50cm where we notice that she's not alone, that many of the wounded have risen up near her.
789^3	Salicetti looking out from the balcony . . . [Gance's gloss: sun hidden].
790	Violine is indeed getting up [and in Gance's hand: with almond blossom in her hair. The almond-tree will be broken (sun hidden)].
790^2	Salicetti looks on sadistically and shouts: Subtitle – 'Fire!' [and in Gance's hand: 'Aim!' (careful, sun hidden)].
790^3	The 100 rifles are about to fire, but Bonaparte has jumped in f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Resumé of 'Napoléon'(1925)
• Paroxysms
• Writing the Screenplay
• Casting
• Preparations for Filming
• Fiat Lux
• The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules
• 'Napoléon's' 'Avatars'
• Sysyphus
• Gance's Inventions
• Leaves from Satan's Book
• Credits
• Bibliography
• Also Published
• eCopyright