Epic Film Restoration For 7-hour Napoleon Classic

In a mammoth restoration task for one of cinema's most audacious and elusive treasures, a team of obsessives has spent 12 years recreating the original seven-hour cut of Abel Gance's 1927 silent classic, "Napoleon"

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th May, 2021 ) :In a mammoth restoration task for one of cinema's most audacious and elusive treasures, a team of obsessives has spent 12 years recreating the original seven-hour cut of Abel Gance's 1927 silent classic, "Napoleon".

"It's an act of madness," admits Georges Mourier, head of the 2.5 million-euro (three-million-dollar) project.

When they began in 2008, he and editor Laure Marchaut had only planned to spend a few months tidying up Gance's archives in the basement of the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris.

But in the process, they realised that previous restorations had mixed up two versions shown at the original premieres: a short one for the general public (still some three hours long) and a longer version that Gance cut himself.

Piecing together the French director's original vision has been a mixture of detective work, digital wizardry and extraordinary dedication.

Despite initial excitement upon its release in 1927, the epic tale of Napoleon's early years struggled to find an audience, in part due to its gargantuan length, but also because it came just as the advent of sound killed off interest in silent movies.

Repeated attempts to re-edit the film by distributors, film historians and Gance himself meant reels were scattered around the globe -- some lost, some damaged, others mixed up or respliced, leaving up to 22 versions in existence.

"It's a Frankenstein film!" Mourier told AFP.

His team often had to work shot by shot.