Netflix (illustration) -

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The streaming giant is taking a further step in heritage cinema.

Netflix announced Thursday become a patron of the French Cinematheque, and help him to restore a piece of history of the 7th art,

Napoleon

 Abel Gance.

No financial amount has been specified: "the Cinémathèque française has committed to a confidentiality clause regarding the amounts received from its generous patrons and donors, to which Netflix is ​​no exception," said the communications director of this institution of cinephilia, Jean-Christophe Mikhaïloff.

The catalog of the new wave

But symbolically, this support for the restoration of a monument of French cinematographic heritage is important for the multinational: Netflix, like the Cinémathèque, intends to show that it supports "the preservation and the influence of French and international cinematographic heritage and (wants) to promote its transmission ”, according to a joint press release.

The partnership concluded with the Cinémathèque will also extend to the organization of screenings, conferences and master classes.

Netflix, whose success is shaking up the global economy of the 7th art, had already sought to give pledges to French cinema, in particular by signing with MK2 during the first confinement a partnership to distribute a vast catalog of French auteur films, including François Truffaut, Jacques Demy or Alain Resnais.

"The reconstruction of a lost work"

With this first foray into restoration, he tackles a monument in the history of cinema:

Napoleon

, by Abel Gance, with Albert Dieudonné and Antonin Artaud, was screened for the first time in 1927. This silent film moreover of seven hours has many visual innovations and has been the subject of several restorations.

The current one was undertaken in 2008 by the Cinémathèque, which hopes to see it complete by the end of 2021, the bicentenary of Napoleon's death, for a budget of around 2 million euros.

It is "both a restoration but above all the reconstruction of a lost work", after "thousands of hours of research and analysis of missing film elements found in the four corners of the planet" , argued Jean-Christophe Mikhaïloff.

Entire sections of the film - famous in particular for its technical inventions, including the “triple screen” - have irreparably disappeared, because the film has been repeatedly cut and re-edited.

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  • Patrimony

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  • Napoleon

  • Jean-Luc Godard