Napoleon dynamite

I shall never forget my first encounter with Abel Gance’s Napoleon. I saw it under the most unpromising circumstances — fragments of the great original, shown on a home projector, 25 years after its original release. Yet those fragments changed my life.

I was 15, still at school in Hampstead, and already obsessed by the cinema. My parents had given me a projector for my 11th birthday. Since the only films available to me were silent films, I found myself immersed in the rarefied atmosphere of a forgotten art.

As home movies were being abandoned in favour of television, I found a surprising number in London’s junk shops. Among the best were the French silent films.

My admiration for them, however, was subject to the occasional shattering blow. When I was offered a print of Jean Epstein’s Le Lion des Mogols (1924), it proved abysmal, the sort of silent film which parodies the whole period. Depressed, I phoned the film library in Bromley from which I had bought it and asked if they would exchange it. They agreed and suggested I chose an alternative.

I examined their list with care. There was nothing much of interest. One of the two-reelers was called Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution, but who wanted a classroom film, full of textbook titles and static engravings?

The moment the parcel arrived, I set up my projector and summoned my parents. On 18 January 1954, I saw scenes from Napoléon vu par Abel Gance for the first time. The first shot faded in to reveal the leaders of the French Revolution — Marat, Danton, Robespierre. What struck me most were the superbly chosen faces. I had no idea that the legendary Artaud was playing Marat. I felt the film blaze into life, like a masterly newsreel of the 18th century. This was no educational film!

In the revolutionary Club des Cordeliers were more extraordinary, expectant faces — all chosen with uncanny skill.