A monumental reckoning: how Abel Gance’s Napoleon was restored to full glory

But the story doesn’t end there. After the coming of sound, Gance reused sequences from his silent film alongside new material to form Napoleon Bonaparte (1935). In the 1950s, he returned to Napoleon Bonaparte and added the final triptych from 1927.

A few years later, Gance imposed more new material on to his Napoleonic palimpsest to produce Bonaparte and the Revolution (1971). The result of this successive tampering was archival chaos. ‘Opéra’ and ‘Apollo’ negatives were irretrievably mixed, and surviving prints existed in various states of textual incompletion or material erosion.

Into this situation stepped Kevin Brownlow, who began his project of reconstructing Napoleon in 1969. Working with – and sometimes without – the aid of the Cinémathèque française and the British Film Institute, he rebuilt Gance’s film from innumerable fragments and proceeded to revitalise the art of live cinema.

The following timeline cannot begin to do justice to the extraordinary scale of the work undertaken, or the complexity of the issues involved, but should suggest the significance of Napoleon’s commercial release this November.

At Telluride, Colorado, Gance attends a screening of Brownlow’s first major reconstruction of Napoleon. The director watches from his hotel window, standing during the final triptych sequence.

Despite the lack of music and the piercing cold of the outdoor screening, the event is a revelation for its audience. Francis Ford Coppola plans to present Napoleon with live orchestra, under the auspices of his company American Zoetrope and Robert A. Harris’s Images Film Archive. He commissions his father, Carmine Coppola, to write the music.

The BFI and Thames Television agree to present Napoleon with orchestral accompaniment in the UK. Composer Carl Davis is given three-and-a-half months to write a score for the film, which then runs nearly five hours.

Napoleon is shown with live orchestra at the Empire, Leicester Square, as part of the London Film Festival, prompting sensational reviews for Gance’s film and Davis’s score. Based on its success, Thames agrees sponsorship of a series of silent film restorations for live screenings and recorded broadcast.

Radio City Music Hall, New York, hosts the US premiere of Napoleon with Carmine Coppola’s score. To avoid crippling overtime bills, Brownlow’s restoration must be reduced to less than four hours, in part by cutting material but mainly by showing the film at a faster speed. Napoleon is a triumph in New York and elsewhere in the US, but Coppola’s music is poorly received. Coppola and Harris acquire world rights outside France.

Death of Gance.

After collaborating with the Cinémathèque française to incorporate newly discovered material into Napoleon, the French premiere of Brownlow’s now expanded restoration takes place in Le Havre with Davis conducting an extended version of his score.

The Parisian premiere of Brownlow’s restoration at the Palais des Congrès with Davis’s music. Surviving members of Gance’s cast take to the stage to receive an ovation. In the next decade, numerous live performances of Napoleon take place. (But the version distributed by Zoetrope remains the one Coppola premiered in 1981.)

Napoleon screens in Paris for the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Brownlow and Davis are each made a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Death of Carmine Coppola.

Using Brownlow’s version as a template, the Cinémathèque française presents a revised edition of Napoleon by Bambi Ballard. Composer Marius Constant compiles a score based on the work of Honegger. There are two screenings at the Grande Arche de La Défense in Paris. French press reports imply the music puts audiences to sleep. (The event costs $600,000.)

The London premiere of a new version of Brownlow’s restoration, produced as a collaboration between Photoplay Productions (Brownlow’s company, in which he is partnered by Patrick Stanbury) and the BFI. Now five-and-a-half hours long, the source material is substantially improved, the title artwork remade in authentic design, and for the first time the print has original colour tinting and toning. Again Davis extends his score.

The 2000 restoration is presented at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Udine, Italy. American rights-holders are reluctant to grant permission because it will not feature Carmine Coppola’s score, which they wish to extend to fit the 2000 restoration.

Death of Constant.

Two screenings of the 2000 restoration take place in London. American rights-holders threaten legal action, challenging the right to perform Napoleon in the UK.

Press reports announce the resolution of the longstanding legal battle over the film’s different editions.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival hosts the US premiere of Brownlow’s 2000 restoration and Davis’s score. (The total cost of these four performances is $720,000.)

The Cinémathèque française announces a new restoration of Napoleon, based on recently discovered material in their archives.

The 2000 restoration of Napoleon is shown in London.

Napoleon is shown in Amsterdam. The triptych is on a screen 40m wide.

The Cinémathèque française announces its restoration of Napoleon will be released in 2017. Music will be by the late Carmine Coppola, arranged by Francis Ford Coppola. (The history of Napoleon in the Cinémathèque’s press release mentions neither Brownlow nor Davis.)

The BFI, in collaboration with Photoplay, announces a DVD/Blu-ray release, and theatrical distribution, of a new digital transfer of the 2000 restoration of Napoleon, complete with a recording of Davis’s score.