The Battle of Austerlitz

This movie exemplifies the debt that French cinema owes to theater. And, it shows how it can crumble under it.

One cannot say that this movie is badly made, lazy or uninspired. Yet, I did not feel the grandeur of this historic episode as I think it was intended. The movie is not boring or flat. However, for a film that covers the most brilliant victory of a legendary general, it feels a bit toothless.

The film spends the first half carefully laying out the situation and issues that led Napoleon to crown himself emperor. I would say that it is rather static, and feels like a play. It is dialog-heavy. I am not sure why Mondy was chosen as Napoleon. He looks convincing in most of it, yet he does a lot of yelling, which does not give off a statesman-like quality. It does not really capture the heft of it. The film is also heavy on intrigue and personal drama, it can feel tedious if you're not into French history. Some important events happen off-screen; it is harder to keep being engaged with what is happening.

My favorite scene happens as an act-break of sorts, roughly at the middle, it is Napoleons coronation. It is off-screen as well, but it is represented in form of house staff following the ceremony in parallel; at the palace not the church, with the help of rehearsal miniatures. That is where Gances talent shines. It is the best stuff in the movie and it is very clever and inventive. I suspect that it was done this way because filming the actual re-enactment of the ceremony would have been too expensive/difficult. Yet, it totally works. It treats an event that is big, extravagant, symbolic in something more intimate. The scene encapsulates something more classical. Because it focuses not on Napoleon, the pope or the dignitaries, but on the house staff reactions, you get something sweetly human. It is the reaction of the common folk, the little people. One of his aides provides a voice-over that turns the scene into something very poetic, almost Communion-like. It makes it very solemn and dignified. The immobile lifeless miniatures tie the scene in a very iconic, clean, divine bow.

Generally, you get that this film serves as an update to Gances own Napoleon. In that sense, it would serve as an example that less is more. The previous film was regarded, and still is, as one of the most inventive and important of the silent era. Here, you can feel that with the use of sound, dialog, color and the ability to film battles and impressive set-pieces; you are losing the essence of Napoleon: the persona. The strength of the film Napoleon was the visuals and the sense of distant majestic dignity it conveyed. In Austerlitz, despite sound and color, you lose the striking visual poetry. You are left with more precise plot points, but less evocative characters.

I was under the impression for ages that Abel Gance only made one Napoleon film (all the way back in 1927), and that he wanted to make five or six, but never got the chance. It turns out this isn't entirely true. Not only is Napoleon (1927) long enough to be two or three films in one (it's like 5.5 hours long), but Gance got to make a sort-of sequel in 1960, with the also epic-length The Battle of Austerlitz.

This 1960 film is about half the length of Napoleon, but that still puts it at approximately 170 minutes. It also feels like two movies in one, with a lot of political drama being the focus of the first half, and then the second half centering on planning for the titular battle alongside showing some of it.

I thought the second half would be a good deal more engaging, but I think The Battle of Austerlitz starts quite well, staying pretty engaging for maybe the first half of its first half. Things don't necessarily pick up in a big way once the second half starts, though. It's a bit plodding in different ways to the first half, and it becomes apparent at a point that even the battle parts aren't really going to be about depicting exciting battles. If you come in hoping for something similar to the 1966/67 War and Peace or Waterloo, you'll probably come away disappointed.

The methodical approach to it all (across both halves), while dry, is somewhat admirable. Abel Gance isn't doing nearly as many adventurous things with the camera this time around, which can be disappointing after having watched his 1927 film, but I guess there's sound now, and it's a new approach. The transition from making a silent Napoleon film to making a more traditional one with dialogue was more seamless than I'd been anticipating, and Gance would've had to have been fairly old while making this. I think he did a decent job, all things considered.

Still, this is probably just a curiosity piece for those who were intrigued by and liked Napoleon, or just anyone who's interested in any film about Napoleon Bonaparte. There sure are many of them; I keep coming across new ones all the time, and honestly, I don't think I've seen any I could call flat-out bad yet.

Abel Gance's unabashed adoration of Napoléon Bonaparte bore fruit in one of the undisputed masterpieces of silent cinema. Thirty-four years later he again depicts his hero in a film that is totally devoid of the flair and dazzling inventiveness of the earlier work. He is assisted by Roger Richebé who had directed Gance's original Napoléon, Albert Dieudonné, in that actor's second outing in the role in 'Madame sans-gene.' Here he is played by Pierre Mondy.

One is impressed by the art direction, costume design and the beautifully shot series of tableaux vivants by Messieurs Alekan and Juillard but alas the whole enterprise is verbose, bombastic, self-indulgent and uninspired and fails to justify its lumbering two and three-quarter hour length.

Most of the males are marionettes with the notable exceptions of Welles, Marais, Trintignant and Marchal whilst grizzled Michel Simon does an outrageous turn as one of Napoléon's Old Guard. Plenty of cleavage on display and an enchanting cameo by Leslie Caron as one of Bony's extra-marital activities. The most ludicrous piece of casting is that of Jack Palance as an Austrian General. As Pope Pius V11 an utterly expressionless Vittorio de Sica calls Bonaparte ' a comedian' which pretty well sums up Pierre Mondy's portrayal.

Regarding Monsieur Gance's output I think it fair to say that 'silence is golden.'

I believe the reason after so many votes that no one has decided to offer a review of this film is because it appears so hard to define it as a film. This is much more a tedious, detailed account of Napoleon's victory at the battle of Austerlitz. The film focuses so much on the strategic underpinnings of the battle that is almost seems more like watching a risk or stratego game than a film. From the political maneuvering of how the French and Russian forces came to the battle to the strategic genius that was Napoleon this film does not offer much in the way of character development, acting, or even special effects. What the film does offer is a historical recount of how battles were fought in the early 19th century. The only interesting cinematic points of interest is to look for a young Jack Palance as a Russian General and a scene stealing Orson Welles as an American inventor. Also this was one of the last films directed by the French "DW Griffith" - Abel Gance.

This is two different movies stuck together. In the first part Napoleon is introduced in a very informal way, showing him debating hats with his personal valet. For a moment I thought it was going to be a comedy... Then the plot takes a more serious turn, with Napoleon in Paris, undecided about seizing power and proclaiming himself emperor. I watched the original French version, which includes several scenes in English, showing the British plotting against Napoleon and the events leading to the execution of the duke d'Enghien.

Still in Paris we are shown Napoleon's greedy family and mistress, and his coronation (luckily only narrated) and then the story finally marches (literally) toward the battle of Austerlitz. Several scenes show the Russians and the Austrians preparing for war and debating in French, as the only common language and then the battle itself, which is a long and slightly boring series of scenes lasting over one hour, with a bit of battle, then Napoleon talking strategies with his generals, more battle, strategies discussed by Russians and Austrians and again battle and Napoleon.

Napoleon won this one, considered as his greatest success and Gance wraps up the movie on a patriotic and chauvinist note, with the Marseilles blasting on screen.

Despite the sumptuous costumes and the many stellar cameos, the film is uneven in tone and contains some weird scenes: the opening with Pierre Mondy as a peevish Napoleon is bizarre as is the scene with Napoleon in a bathtub discussing with his ministers; Napoleon encounters with his lover are superfluous as is the meeting with Robert Fulton (played nonetheless by Orson Welles in a useless cameo); the coronation narrated to the servants with the help of puppets is beyond bizarre and even the battle drags on forever, without an apex.