The Battle of Austerlitz

Austerlitz (1960) was the battle that made Napoleon Bonaparte not only one of western civilization's greatest generals, but it solidify his position as Napoleon I "The Emperor of France". I saw this film many years ago on video. The colors were washed out and it was cropped big time. Besides these faults, the movie was great. If there's a movie that needs to be restored it's this one. A film of this magnitude and the grand scale it was presented on needs to be shown it is original glory.

NAPOLEON was restored recently. It's only fitting that the film that the same director spent his entire life on have one of it's sequels be remastered and preserved in the same way.

Highly recommended.

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.

...and to "Napoleon" whose life Gance transferred to the screen in the silent era.Sandwiched between two very underrated Gance works ("la Tour de Nesles" and "Cyrano et D'Artagnan" )it is a return to "real " "true" history.I will go as far as to write that Gance impressed me much more when his movies dealt with fictionalized history (the two mentioned movies,but "j'accuse" too)."Austerlitz has something academic ,conventional.It has nothing of Gance's madness.The first part is a stream of stars from Martine Carol to Claudia Cardinale ,from Jean Marais to Orson Welles (in a part which reminds us how Gance was interested in the development of science through the centuries ,à la Jules Verne,we find this interest in "Cyrano" and "J'accuse" too).THe lead is a good actor but he might be ,on an international level, the least known of them all:Pierre Mondy's name is buried in the cast and credits and although he is on the screen from the beginning to the end,his name is not bigger than that of Welles who appears barely five minutes.Ah fame! The first part has only one sequence where we find back the inventive Gance:we do not attend the coronation in Notre Dame ;the marechal de Ségur (Jean-Louis Trintignant) tells the whole story with the model in front of a strange audience:servants ;then the "mamma " ("pourvu que ça dure!=lets hope it lasts!") ,Napoleon's mother (Elvire Popesco) enters and her tears begin to flow .Although David put her in his famous painting she did not attend the ceremony.

The second part is more historically interesting ,but if you are not fond of military strategy ,you may stop yourself yawning.Fortunately a soldier of the old guard of Napoléon (un "grognard" )played by Michel Simon brings a bit of life among these troop movements.

Last but not least:I have always asked myself why a convinced pacifist such as Gance (his two versions of "j'accuse" may be the strongest anti-war films ever)could be so fascinated by a warrior such as Napoleon.

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.