The legendary French emperor Napoleon is going to be reborn on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea! Napoleon (1927), based on his rise, will be screened in the classical section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. It will have its world premiere at Cannes Classics on May 14 at the Grand Théâtre Lumiere in the Palais de Festival building in Cannes, southern France.
‘Napoleon’ is considered an important monument of the silent era. It took more than 16 years to restore the film, directed by France’s Abel Ghos. It is one of the most memorable restorations in the history of world cinema.
The 7-hour-long ‘Napoleon’ is divided into two different eras. As part of its extraordinary restoration process, various sources have been used to rediscover the original story. The duration of its first part is 3 hours 40 minutes. This version will be shown at the Cannes festival.
According to the official website of the Cannes festival, the reconstruction and restoration of ‘Napoleon’ has been made possible by the extraordinary and passionate efforts of the Cinematheque Française in Paris with the support of the French National Center of Cinema (CNC), a French government agency.
French director Georges Mourier and his team worked frame-by-frame and reviewed nearly 100 kilometers of film. The re-editing of the original version of the film was made possible thanks to director Abel Ghosn’s editing notes and correspondence he exchanged with the cinematographer, found in the National Library of France.
‘Napoleon’ was an ambitious project. It has technical and aesthetic innovations. Director Abel Goose used a camera mounted on a horse to film the scene. There was also a three-frame streak ending at the same time.
On April 7, 1927, the then French President Gaston Dumarg attended the premiere of ‘Napoleon’ at the Paris Opera. It featured a host of stars and thousands of extras. The film impressed the audience and the critics.
In the 1980s, Abel Ghosn’s film attracted interest from French filmmaker Claude Lelouch, American director Francis Ford Coppola, silent period historian Kevin Brownlow, and Cinémathèque Française president Costa-Gavras. The original version of the film has not been screened since 1927. It was known as the ‘Grande Version’.
Reels of the film have been found in the Paris theaters Cinematheque Française and Cinematheque du Toulouse, the government agency French National Center of Cinema (CNC), the private organization Cinematheque du Corse, as well as in Denmark, Serbia, Italy, Luxembourg and New York. With the advent of Sabak films, the reels spread to different parts of the world and some were lost or destroyed. The film was then edited several times. 22 different versions have been found so far.
Honorary Palme d’Or
Since 2015, the prestigious Palme d’Or has been awarded at Cannes. The legendary American director, screenwriter and producer George Lucas will receive it at this year’s event. The honor will be handed over to him at the closing ceremony at the Grand Théâtre Lumiere in the Palais de Festival building on May 25. French TV channel France Two will broadcast the event live.
The ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ franchises are the brainchild of George Lucas. In 1971, his directorial debut ‘THX 1138’ was screened in the Director’s Fortnight parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival.
Alongside George Lucas, Japan’s Studio Ghibli will be awarded the honorary Palme d’Or. This is the first time that any organization is going to get this honor. The three founders of Studio Ghibli are Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki. For more than four decades, they have produced some amazing animated films that have captivated audiences of all ages. Among them Isao Takahata died.
Virtually appeared, physically invisible!
‘Immersive Competition’ is going to be launched at this year’s Cannes festival. In its first season, eight promising new works will compete for the Best Immersive Work Award. A special screening of these will be organized by the Cannes Festival Authority and Marché du Film, the commercial arm of the festival. There will also be non-competitive work. All can be seen at the Cannes cinema and the Campus Georges Méliès. This event will be held from May 15 to May 24. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s virtual reality project ‘Flesh and Sand’ was acclaimed at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.
Judge on camera
The Camera d’Or Award will be given to the best debutant director of the film selected in the Official Selection and Parallel categories of the Cannes festival. French actress Emmanuelle Beyer and Congolese director-musician Baloji jointly received this important responsibility at this year’s event. They are the chief judges of the Camera Awards. He was jointly the Chief Judge for Camera D’Or in 1996, 2002 and 2006.
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