A monumental masterpiece of silent cinema, Abel Gance’s 1927 fresco has been reedited many times, to the point that for a long time it was impossible to determine its original form. Director and researcher Georges Mourier and his team have now completed the restoration after sixteen years of hard work. This unedited 7-hour version was presented as a world premiere in an exceptional two-part ciné-concert on July 4 and 5 at La Seine Musicale.

“A monster” is how Georges Mourier describes Abel Gance’s Napoleon, a monumental fresco dating from 1927, which traces the life of the future emperor from his childhood through to the first stirrings of the Italian campaign. Georges Mourier, director and researcher in charge of restoring the film for the Cinémathèque Française, had to battle for sixteen years to tame the “monster”. An unruly “monster” which, over time, became a veritable cinephilic sea serpent. Abel Gance himself, drowned by the excess he had orchestrated, seemed to have lost the thread of a film whose versions he multiplied (there are said to be 22 different versions!). The filmmaker, who died almost forty-three years ago, had made Bonaparte such a fixation that he signed up to a veritable personal body of work: no less than three additional feature-length films in addition to the multiple edits of his original Napoleon. Among those lucky enough to discover this Napoleon, who could be certain of having seen the version closest to the one secretly intended by Gance? Not many. And besides, did this “perfect” film really exist? If so, wasn’t the material scattered to the four winds, long since lost or even too damaged to be used? All these questions dogged Georges Mourier for almost a decade.

Napoleon vu par Abel Gance - Premiere partie - La jeunesse de Bonaparte.1927.1080p.WEB-DL-Threnodyy.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	3 h 51 min
Size: 	8.14 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	4 941 kb/s
BPP: 	0.095
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AAC LC @ 96.0 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/E6F9694ABC144C9/Napoleon_vu_par_Abel_Gance_-_Deuxieme_partie_-_Napoleon_et_la_Revolution_francaise.1927.1080p.WEB-DL-Threnodyy.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/F6591FE86CCF9EA/Napoleon_vu_par_Abel_Gance_-_Premiere_partie_-_La_jeunesse_de_Bonaparte.1927.1080p.WEB-DL-Threnodyy.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/2D1748EA0C119BC/Napoleon.1927.Part.1.RESTORED.1080p.WEB.H264-FW.srt
https://nitro.download/view/3F754DF9E8E509E/Napoleon.1927.Part.2.RESTORED.1080p.WEB.H264-FW.srt

Language(s):None (apart from one song sequence in french) (French intertitles)
Subtitles:English

The post Abel Gance – Napoleon vu par Abel Gance [2024 restoration] (1927) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

In what must be the longest lapse of time between a film and its sequel, 70-year-old Abel Gance continues his nearly legendary, 1927 historical drama Napoleon with this tale of Napoleon’s life after his victories in Italy. The first half of Austerlitz delves into the private life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Pierre Mondy), the prodigal son of Corsica. The supreme commander of the French armed forces goes about his family life and dallies with Josephine (Martine Carol) and mistress Mlle. de Vaudey (Leslie Caron). He occasionally displays bursts of temper that presage some of the macho violence of the battle scenes in the second half of the film, after Napoleon has proclaimed himself Emperor. This sequel shows that Gance has not lost his directorial touch. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Austerlitz.(1960).DVDrip.ac3.sub.eng-fre.x264-bub.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 43mn
Size: 	2.82 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x436 ~> 1020x436
Aspect ratio:  	2.341
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 276 Kbps
BPP: 	0.292
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps (French AC3)

https://nitro.download/view/D4939FE09994EDE/Austerlitz.(1960).DVDrip.ac3.sub.eng-fre.x264-bub.mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English. French (muxed)

The post Abel Gance – Austerlitz (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
The beautiful Clarisse learns that she is going blind, and in order to prevent her lover Madére, a boatman, from sacrificing himself for her, she decides to break with him, pretending she no longer loves him. Madère angrily leaves, and Clarisse takes a job as a singer in a harbour bar to support herself and her crippled sister Mireille. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she wants to confess everything to Madère, but he has left on a year-long voyage with a new lover Giselle…

Blind Venus-KG.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 24 min
Size: 	5.23 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	5 002 kb/s
BPP: 	0.096
Audio
#1:  	French 2.0ch MP2 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/E304EB9DD76820C/Blind_Venus-KG.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/6BB4BD505B83683/Blind_Venus-KG.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Abel Gance – Vénus aveugle AKA Blind Venus (1941) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

If one were to gather the hundreds of books written about Ludwig van Beethoven, sift through each with a fine-tooth comb, and extract every simple mistake, wild speculation, and outright falsehood, the result would still be nowhere near as fabulous and artificial as this 1936 biopic, which rewrites the composer’s life story into a throbbingly melodramatic tale of genius ignored and love unrequited. Director Abel Gance, best known for his expansive silent classic Napoleon, wasn’t interested in the truth of Beethoven’s life, but instead the romantic ideal of a great man tormented by history; Gance’s Beethoven is merely a variation of the filmmaker’s beloved Bonaparte, triumphant yet scorned by his inferiors in the artistic realm rather than the political. (Needless to say, among the film’s many omissions is Beethoven’s bitter rededication of the “Eroica” Symphony.)

Beginning where every portrait of Beethoven the man must, with the identification of the Immortal Beloved, the film nominates (wrongly) Giulietta Gallenberg, née Guicciardi, reconstructing their brief passion as a lifelong obsession. During each of Beethoven’s struggles–with love, poverty, deafness–thunder cracks against the sky and the opening notes of the Fifth burst onto the soundtrack to punctuate the action. Meet the film on its own novelette-like terms, however, and it can be quite moving, not least for the magnificent presence of Harry Baur in the lead, who captures to perfection the tortured nobility the film foists upon its protagonist. Baur’s conception is as outsized as Gance’s, but also gentler and less sentimental; he humanizes what could have been a treacly salute to a marble statue. An unusual final credit places the actor’s name alongside the director’s, a touching admission by Gance at how indebted his film was to its star.

Beethoven's.Great.Love.1936.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 56 min
Size: 	1.79 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	718x572 ~> 762x572
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.203
Audio
#1:  	French 1.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/5190270A6F7BADD/Beethoven’s.Great.Love.1936.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/46AD2291EEB7099/Beethoven’s.Great.Love.1936.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU_-_eng.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Abel Gance – Un grand amour de Beethoven AKA Beethoven’s Great Love (1936) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Edith, a young French woman, is in love with a poet but is forced by her father into a marriage with a much older man. Edith is captured by the Germans and endures multiple rapes that result in her becoming pregnant. Edith’s husband initially thinks that the poet is the father of her child, and the story ends in tragedy with both men seeing action in the trenches.

“J’accuse” is a story set against the backdrop of World War I that is considered one of the most technically advanced films of the era and the first major pacifist film. Gance, who had served briefly in the military during World War I, decided to return to active service in 1919 in order to film real battle scenes to include in the project. The film was reedited and shortened for peacetime reissue in 1922, and has not been available since in its original form.

Lobster Films Studios, Paris, working in collaboration with Netherlands Filmmuseum have culled materials from the Lobster Collection, the Czech archive in Prague, the Cinemathèque Française, and the Netherlands Filmmuseum to make the best possible and most complete edition of the original 1919 edit of the film.

J'accuse!.1919.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 45 min
Size: 	3.68 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	794x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.378
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.262
Audio
#1:  	zxx 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Score by Robert Israel)

https://nitro.download/view/9A097CAD78796B8/J’accuse!.1919.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):French Intertitles
Subtitles:English

The post Abel Gance – J’accuse! AKA I Accuse! (1919) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Abel Gance’s Marie Tudor was produced by ORTF and broadcast on French television in two parts, on 23 and 30 April 1966. It is an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s play of the same name (1833), and was the first of two productions Gance made for French television – the second being Valmy (1967). Marie Tudor mines historical and literary material familiar from Gance’s earlier work. He had already turned to sixteenth-century history for his Lucrèce Borgia (1935) (which also echoed another Hugo play) and for his script for Jean Dréville’s La Reine Margot (1954) – likewise a literary adaptation (Alexandre Dumas’ novel of 1845). Though modest fare by Gance’s standards, Marie Tudor was one of the projects that marked his return to critical and commercial visibility in the 1960s – starting with Austerlitz (1960) and ending with his last film, Bonaparte et la Révolution (1971). This copy comes from the digital archive of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA).

3.01GB | 3h 21m | 720×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/FA20EFB94F2E344/Marie_Tudor,_part_1.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/A9434991912E327/Marie_Tudor,_part_2.mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:None

The post Abel Gance – Marie Tudor (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

from filmsdefrance.com:
Summary
Paris, 1315. The Tour de Nesle, a guard tower on the banks of the Seine, has become a symbol of mystery and fear. Each morning, at its base, the bodies of handsome young aristocrats are found floating in the river, all butchered by sword or arrow. One evening, two noblemen, Buridan and Philippe d’Aulnay, find themselves in the infamous tower, lured there on the expectation of a night of unbridled passion. Little do they realise that they are to be the next victims of a woman who is determined to take revenge against all men – Margaret of Burgundy, the present Queen of France. Although Philippe is killed, Buridan escapes, and intends to blackmail the Queen. Unless she makes him her prime minister, he will expose her crimes to Philippe’s brother and her husband, King Louis X. When she moves to eliminate Burdan, Margaret makes a terrible discovery…

Critique
In the twilight years of his career, the great avant-garde film director Abel Gance made a number of films which, whilst not as grand and artistically inspired as his early silent masterpieces, still compared very favourably with the work of his contemporaries. Of these, La Tour de Nesle is a film that still stands up remarkably well today – an ambitious historical drama based on the famous 1832 play by Alexandre Dumas.

Needless to say, the film isn’t to be commended on its historical accuracy. As any historian will tell you, the Alexandre Dumas version of French history is wildly fanciful, to say the least. However, this doesn’t prevent La Tour de Nesle from being an entertaining and, at times, highly poignant, piece of cinema. Whilst the characterisation and dialogue leave much to be desired, the plot (a murky tale of cruel revenge and political intrigue) is gripping, and the film’s artistic design is exceptional for a film of this period. Gance brings a strangely expressionistic touch to his use of colour and shade, something which adds to the darkly sinister nature of the plot, whilst imbuing the film with a striking sense of historical realism. A propos, Gance’s assistant director Nelly Kaplan makes her screen début in a small role, shortly before she herself embarked on a successful film making career.

© James Travers 2008

[email protected]

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	2h 0mn
Size:	1.95 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Not met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	702x572 ~> 762x572
Aspect ratio:	4:3
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	2 120 kb/s
Audio
French 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/78EA6BD1A690404/[email protected]

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Abel Gance – La Tour de Nesle AKA Tower of Nesle (1955) first appeared on Cinema of the World.