A New Alphabet for the Cinema : the Tragic Irony of Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927)

Abstract

In the present-day period, on the eve of destruction of analogue cinema, there seems to be a remarkable interest in the last gasps of silent film. Encouraged by this fascination, this article delves into an analysis of the highly formally innovative Napoléon, vu par Abel Gance (Abel Gance, 1927). This film will be discussed as an oblique variant within the relatively new genre of the historical reconstruction film in France. Addressing four paradoxes and an irony, the article will examine the tensions between Gance’s attempt to create a historical biopic and his ambition to delineate a new aesthetics of cinema. It will do so, among others, by contrasting Gance’s ideas of both the cinema as a visual Esperanto and as the ‘music of light’ with the theatrical trans-historicity of La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Carl-Theodor Dreyer, 1928), produced as a complement to Napoléon.