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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Feb 1, 2016 13:49:33 GMT -5
Spoiler alert the film was actually released in 1927.  Kinda looks it, too.But this year a restoration literally decades in the making of a five and a half hour film - the longest cut released in living memory, although still not the lost nine hour cut of its first release - is being released in theatres also a live orchestra score and Sir Carl motherfucking Davis, one of anyone's go-to guys when it comes to silent film music. Being released by the British Film Institute for now with no word as anywhere else, but at least a home video release is definitely confirmed. Anyway enjoy this old trailer. And here's restorer Keith Bornlow talking about this a couple of years ago.  It's happening. |
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Post by usernametoolong on Feb 19, 2016 10:18:19 GMT -5
Douay-Rheims-Challoner Have you seen there was a screening with live orchestra at the Festival Hall in November?
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Feb 19, 2016 11:03:16 GMT -5
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Post by usernametoolong on Feb 19, 2016 11:06:59 GMT -5
A more regular cinema roll-out is planned around that time which I assume will play a bit closer to you, but since I know you do the occasional cultural trip. There's already a former Dissolver coming from Norway for it. |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Feb 19, 2016 11:24:21 GMT -5
There's that weird disconnect that the time between that movie coming out and now is almost as long as period between the historical events it depicts and the film getting made.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Feb 19, 2016 12:48:32 GMT -5
usernametoolong I do, hell I am going to London this year for a Glass opera. I might seriously consider doing the same here I would love a live orchestra.
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Paleu
AV Clubber 
Confirmed for neo-liberal shill.
Posts: 1,258 
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Post by Paleu on Feb 19, 2016 17:08:49 GMT -5
I saw one of the previous restorations, and while at four hours long is was definitely a bit of a slog (at points), the final triptych with the trois couleurs is really not to be missed. My only regret was that he was never able to finish the epic, since this first installment only covers some of the less recognizable and less interesting aspects of Napoleon's life, at least to me.
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Post by Douay-Rheims-Challoner on Jan 11, 2017 22:26:00 GMT -5
This is the trailer for the Brownlow's version of the film, which is the new release, and not to be confused with the Coppola, above (the chief difference in trailers would be the music, as Brownlow's uses Carl Davis' excellent score here.)
So it wasn't released in theatres in Ireland (at least, not yet) but I bought the Blu-Ray from the BFI.
And it plodded along, unspooling over five hours, rambling its way through the early events of Napoleon's life with no fireworks factory in sight (you want Egypt, Austerlitz and Waterloo, this is the wrong movie pal) and I was enraptured.
The final few sequences of the film demand to be seen in a special presentation, the three screens required for it is not something replicated on the home video release, but even then the implied scope of it is tremendous, and the entire film is this enormous sweep - epic in its scope, often historic in its detail, but mythic and poetic in its sensibilities - Napoleon is an icon being born during the film. At first he is just a boy playing games in a boarding school, but even there, he's tactically sound. And imagery keeps repeating around him, like an Eagle that is first introduced as his pet but is on one occasion intercut with his face to suggest his iron will.
It's not the complete film, but they only use one intertitle to describe a missing scene, so, it feels cohesive for a movie that's missing a few hours.
While it resolutely focuses on the less famous period of Napoleon's career, the prefiguring of his future through chance sights and hints plays out like any sort of prequel story (learning about Saint Helena in geography class, his ship being narrowly not-shot by Nelson.) And the mythic element of it definitely leans towards hero worship - this is a Napoleon of awe inspiring patriotism whose foes wilt before him like he is a religious icon (and one character actually holds on to a likeness of him as if it's a religious icon) - but these kinds of broad strokes can work so effectively for characterisation in silent film, and, as cinema, they succeed here.
I haven't felt like this since when I saw Metropolis and Ivan the Terrible for the first time in 2000 - the goddamn grandeur of the thing. Sometimes I think 1927 may be my favourite year of film, and movies like Sunrise, October, the End of St. Petersburg, Wings, Metropolis... and this... would be reasons why.
This might be the film I enjoy the most of any I see this year.
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