
Directing
Abel Gance
Born 1889-10-25 · Paris, France
Abel Gance was a French film director, producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and Napoléon (1927). He was born in Paris in 1889. In 1909, he acted in his first film. He also wrote scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, fatal at the time, but he recovered. In 1911, with some friends he established a production company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films. With the outbreak of WW I, rejected by the army on medical grounds, he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film d'Art until 1918, making over a dozen successful films. Charles Pathé underwrote his next film, J'accuse (1919), in which Gance confronted the waste and suffering which the war had brought. In 1920, he developed La Roue. He brought an unprecedented level of energy and imagination to the technical realization of his story, employing elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of rapid cutting which made the film highly influential. The finished film ran for nearly nine hours, but was edited down for distribution. In 1921, Gance visited America to promote J'accuse. He met D. W. Griffith, whom he had long admired. He was also offered a contract with MGM but turned it down. He then embarked on his greatest project, a six-part life of Napoléon. Only the first part was completed, tracing his early life, through the Revolution, up to the invasion of Italy, but even this occupied a vast canvas with meticulously recreated historical scenes and scores of characters. The film was full of experimental techniques, combining rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition of images, and, in wide-screen sequences, shot using a system he called Polyvision needing triple cameras (and projectors), achieved a spectacular panoramic effect, including a finale in which the outer two film panels were tinted blue and red, creating a widescreen image of a French flag. The original version ran for around 6 hours. A shortened version received a triumphant première at the Paris Opéra in April 1927. Throughout his life he kept returning to Napoléon, editing his footage, and as a result the original 1927 film was lost from view for decades. The dedicated work of the film historian Kevin Brownlow produced a five-hour version, still incomplete but fuller than anyone had seen since the 1920s. It was presented at the Telluride Film Festival in 1979, and the occasion brought a belated triumph to Gance's career, and made his name known to a worldwide audience. In the assessment of Kevin Brownlow, "...[Abel Gance] made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since". As well as his multiscreen ventures with Polyvision, he explored the use of superimposition of images, extreme close-ups, fast rhythmic editing, and he made the camera mobile in unorthodox ways – hand-held, mounted on wires or a pendulum, or even strapped to a horse. He also made early experiments with the addition of sound to film, and with filming in color and in 3-D. There were few aspects of film technique that he did not seek to incorporate in his work, and his influence was acknowledged by contemporaries and later by the French New Wave film-makers.
Acting credits
7.8A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.
Napoleon
1927
8.7A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.
Napoléon Bonaparte
1935
7.1Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Allan arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.
The Fall of the House of Usher
1928
7.3Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becomes an adult, Sisif grapples with whether to tell Norma the truth about her parentage.
La Roue
1923
5.2The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.
The End of the World
1931
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Autour de Napoléon
1928
8.0Blaise Cendrars' AUTOUR DE LA ROUE (1923), a behind-the-scenes short documenting the production.
Around The Wheel
1923
5.7A short silent documentary on the making of the 1931 Abel Gance directed film, "La Fin du Monde".
Around the End of the World
1930
7.0Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965 and 1971, and with sound synchronization from both the 1932 reissue and this version.
Bonaparte et la révolution
1972
6.5BBC documentary on the long and flamboyant career of French filmmaker Abel Gance.
Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite
1968
5.5This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon showcased Gance's talents with the camera, his use of multiple-images (like a split screen), and his handling of crowded action scenes -- all brought forward in this documentary by his later assistant, Nelly Kaplan. While Gance was shooting Napoleon in 1925-26, he and his crew were also being filmed for a documentary titled Autour de Napoleon. The only extant reels from that documentary are included in this film, as well as views of Gance's unique "triptychs" -- three different scenes lined up side-by-side across a super-wide screen to convey the effect of a panorama, or of three separate interludes. Nelly Kaplan put together this documentary using old footage, such as Gance filming the famous snowball fight at the Brienne military school and still photographs and excerpts from Gance's production diaries.
Abel Gance et son Napoléon
1984
A film about the life of Molière (1622-1673).
Molière
1910
6.0The life and work of Abel Gance as told by himself. Includes extracts from many of his films and considers his contribution to the cinema.
Abel Gance, Yesterday and Tomorrow
1963
Behind the camera
5.3French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one of history's most ruthless and ambitious crime families.
Lucrezia Borgia
1935
5.3French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one of history's most ruthless and ambitious crime families.
Lucrezia Borgia
1935
No synopsis available yet.
Jephté's Daughter
1910
6.6Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.
Austerlitz
1960
6.6Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.
Austerlitz
1960
NRA young girl marries a financier knowing he has only a short time to live, so she can inherit his money.Her lover, who has made a fortune away in America, returns and wants to hasten the financier's death.
The Right to Life
1917
NRA young girl marries a financier knowing he has only a short time to live, so she can inherit his money.Her lover, who has made a fortune away in America, returns and wants to hasten the financier's death.
The Right to Life
1917
7.8A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.
Napoleon
1927
7.8A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.
Napoleon
1927
6.4In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.
Four Flights to Love
1939
6.4In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for designing clothes, and he and his bride live in a blissful paradise, until the war breaks out and he becomes a soldier. Janine dies in childbirth and, no longer desiring to live, Pierre volunteers for a dangerous patrol behind German lines. While recuperating in the hospital from a wound he received on the mission, Pierre spends his time drawing sketches of dresses. He becomes rich and famous after the war. Years later, after devoting himself to his daughter, Pierre seeks a marriage with a girl no older than his daughter. A conflict develops and to ensure his daughter's happiness, Pierre sacrifices his own plans.
Four Flights to Love
1939
5.2A doctor, specialist in pediatrics, has no time for his wife Marthe. She seeks solace in the arms of his brother. Unable to keep up the charade, Marthe attempts to shoot herself, but it is her lover who is mortally wounded.
The Torture of Silence
1917
5.2A doctor, specialist in pediatrics, has no time for his wife Marthe. She seeks solace in the arms of his brother. Unable to keep up the charade, Marthe attempts to shoot herself, but it is her lover who is mortally wounded.
The Torture of Silence
1917
8.7A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.
Napoléon Bonaparte
1935
8.7A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.
Napoléon Bonaparte
1935
9.0Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. The Argentine film was heavily modernized, while the French version returns to Dumas' 19th-century milieu. Micheline Presle is excellent as Marguerite, the gorgeous courtesan who flits from man to man until she finds true love in the form of the much-younger Armand (Rolande Alexandre). Though he is willing to marry her despite her past, she is persuaded to forsake him, lest his reputation be ruined. The story then wends its way towards its famous tragic finale, as the consumptive Marguerite is permitted a few brief moments of happiness before her flame is permanently extinguished. Advertised as the seventh version of the Dumas classic, La Dame aux Camelias was certainly not the last.
Camille
1934
9.0Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. The Argentine film was heavily modernized, while the French version returns to Dumas' 19th-century milieu. Micheline Presle is excellent as Marguerite, the gorgeous courtesan who flits from man to man until she finds true love in the form of the much-younger Armand (Rolande Alexandre). Though he is willing to marry her despite her past, she is persuaded to forsake him, lest his reputation be ruined. The story then wends its way towards its famous tragic finale, as the consumptive Marguerite is permitted a few brief moments of happiness before her flame is permanently extinguished. Advertised as the seventh version of the Dumas classic, La Dame aux Camelias was certainly not the last.
Camille
1934
5.0A journalist attempt to stop a mysterious criminal : "Barbe rousse".
Barberousse
1917
5.0A journalist attempt to stop a mysterious criminal : "Barbe rousse".
Barberousse
1917
L'infirmière is a 1914 silent film.
L'infirmière
1914
One of two peasant brothers in love with the same woman escapes his grim country life and pursues a career as a Parisian sculptor.
Tillers of the Soil
1923
8.0Didier Méreuil, affectionately called Poliche, is in love with Rosine, a beautiful girl, so he does everything to please her. She does not love him, and accepts a seductive airplane pilot who proposes to her. One day, she discovers that the funny man is just a front behind which there is a serious Didier. She will try to make up and live with him - but the gap between them is already too large.
Poliche
1934
Le périscope is a 1928 film
Le périscope
1916
Le périscope is a 1928 film
Le périscope
1916