Trivia for
Napoléon (1927) More at IMDbPro »

• Restored in 1981 after twenty years' work by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow.
  
  
• A copyright dispute over which music soundtrack should be performed with "Napoleon" exists between Zoetrope Studio/Francis Ford Coppola and the BFI/Kevin Brownlow/Carl Davis. When Brownlow assembled the original restored version in 1981 two scores were eventually produced, one (for the American market?) by Carmine Coppola (Francis' father) and another (for the UK market?) by Carl Davis, veteran of many new scores for old silent movies. Prior to two live performances of the Davis score in December 2004 to accompany a new 5hr+ restoration of Napoleon, Coppola attempted to prevent the performances going ahead without his late father's score on the grounds that his family owns the copyright over the film, even though Carmine Coppola's score was written for the short 4hr restoration. In the end the performances went ahead with Davis' score being used, although the dispute remains unresolved. Brownlow commented on this issue (comparing Coppola's behavior to that of Goebbels) before Davis himself conducted the two London performances. (Davis was recovering from a foot operation and was brought on stage in a wheelchair.)
  
  
• Director Abel Gance was worried that the film's finale wouldn't have the proper impact by being confined to a small screen. Gance thought of expanding the frame by using three cameras next to each other. For the first time, cinema utilized a rectangular image (with an approximate 4.00 : 1 aspect ratio). This is probably the most famous of the film's several innovative techniques. Though American filmmakers began experimenting with 70 mm widescreen in 1929, widescreen didn't take off until CinemaScope was invented in 1953.
  
  
• The snowballs in the snowball fight scene were actually balls of cotton. During shooting, one of the child extras threw a real one with a rock in it. It his Vladimir Roudenko square in the face and broke his nose.
  
  
• In the snowball fight, at least one of the school boys is played by a girl.
  
  
• In addition to its pioneering use of widescreen, this film also has a lot of handheld camerawork. The filmmakers experimented heavily with small, handheld, motorized cameras to heighten the dramatic effect of many scenes.
  
  
• In the scene with the ghosts of Parliament, there are at least forty exposures used to create the effect. For one shot during the pillow fight, there are about sixty. The multiple exposures were done on an optical printer and required painstaking craftsmanship.
  
  
• Abel Gance remembered one scene that was removed by the censors, that of the civilian execution by soldiers. The camera is used like a bullet, zooming towards one human target, then another, then another. The sequence is lost, although a still photograph does survive.
  
  
• Several cast and crew members were severely wounded as a result of an unscheduled explosive detination. Among the injured was director Abel Gance.
  
  
• Some footage shot in dual-strip 35mm 3-D format, though this wasn't included in the final release print, nor any subsequent re-release version. Sources suggest this footage still exists.
  
  
• Abel Gance had cameramen shooting behind-the-scenes footage for nearly all of the production. Most of this still exists and appears in Kevin Brownlow's documentary, Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite (1968).
  
  
• Joseph-Agricola Viala was a thirteen year old from southern France who had distinguished himself fighting for the revolution. He was killed attempting to prevent Royalist supporters from crossing the Durance River.
  
  
• Sections of the film are entitled Vendémiaire and Thermidor. These were two of the new names given to the months of the year in the French Republican Calendar. Thermidor covered the equivalent of mid July to mid August, a Vendémiaire covered mid September to mid October.
  
  
• Pozzo Di Borgo was Pasquale Paoli's principal aide when he was President of Corsica.
  
  
• Pasquale Paoli (or Pascal Paoli) was a Corsican who fought for Corsican independence from Genoa and France (after Genoa had sold Corsica to France in 1764). Bonaparte's family supported Paoli original campaign until Paoli was defeated. He fled to England returning in 1790 when he was elected President. Paoli supported the revolution initially but reverted to the royalist party , when he disagreed with the issue of the king's execution. Napoleon served in the Corsican National Guard at this time., splitting with Paoli and denouncing him as a traitor when he learned of Paoli's royalist leanings. Paoli eventually fled back to England in 1795. He remains a symbol of Corsican independence.
  
  
• Originally produced by Giuseppe Barattolo (1882 - 1949) who had to pullout due to the Italian film industry's financial crisis (Rome, 30th January 1924).
  
  
• Shown in its entirety and presented by Francis Ford Coppola in New York's Radio City Music Hall on 23rd January 1981.
  
  

Related Links