In yesterday's post I mentioned the connection between Galliano and Abel Gance’s Napoléon.
Galliano can at times be an excessive and extravagant designer, but Gance was definitely his cinematographic equivalent.
A genial director who loved baroque, melodrama and experimentation, Gance had a passion for using deforming lenses (check out La folie du docteur Tube, 1915) and could be considered as a visionary artist.
Napoléon vu par Abel Gance (1926-7) is definitely his most famous work. The film is a sort of biography of the emperor, from his adolescence to his campaign in Italy in 1796-97.
Gance had in mind to release six episodes, but he eventually managed to shoot only the first one. At the time he was supported by producers and bankers who put together at the time a fabulous sum, 18 million of francs.
For the film Gance experimented with what he called the Polyvision system, a trick that allowed him to widen the screen and accommodate three images from three interlocked films.
Albert Dieudonné starred as Napoléon Bonaparte, Gina Manès as Joséphine de Beauharnais, controversial writer Antonin Artaud as Marat and Gance himself as Louis Saint-Just.
Originally only one part of the film was screened in April 1927 at the Opéra de Paris; Francis Ford Coppola restored a 4 hour-long copy in 1981, but there is also a 5 hour and 13 minute-long version by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill available.
I’m posting here a short clip that can offer further inspirations fashion-wise, check out the stripy lapels of the uniforms for example or the big bows. The film costumes were made by Mme. Augris, Mme. Neminsky and Charmy Sauvageau, though Joséphine's costumes were by Jeanne Lanvin.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=6604699654624365123&hl=en&fs=true
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