Cannes (AFP)
Abel Gance's "Napoleon", a masterpiece of silent cinema lasting more than seven hours that the Cinémathèque has been restoring for twelve years, should be released in theaters in 2023, with a musical recording entrusted to various prestigious orchestras.
The restoration of the images of this unclassifiable film whose reels have been scattered around the world over the decades, led by the specialist Georges Mourier, was coming to an end in recent weeks.
During the Cannes Film Festival, the Cinémathèque announced that an original musical score, assembling pieces from the repertoire, with sung parts, would be recorded by the National Orchestra of France, the philharmonic orchestra and the choir and the mastery of Radio France, "during several cinema concerts".
The film will then be able, in 2023, to be presented "to the public in its original splendor", underlines the film library, distributed by Pathé in theaters and on France Télévisions during several special evenings.
A major and unclassifiable piece of cinematographic heritage, "Napoleon" is revered by a number of film buffs and filmmakers, foremost among them Francis Ford Coppola.
Relating the youth of Napoleon, until the beginnings of the Italian campaign, the film, shown for the first time in 1927, in a version of seven hours, is carried by an epic breath, stuffed with visual and narrative innovations ( including a famous triptych ending, on three screens simultaneously).
The film has undergone several restorations over the decades, but those of the Cinémathèque are intended to be the most exhaustive and faithful to the original work.
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