1927 BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR!

I have decided to name my choice for Best Picture for the year of the first Academy Award (1927)  My criteria is that I can only use films that are on the 1001 list. To make it a little easier on myself, I am using the rules of the first Academy Award and name a winner for Best Picture (won by Wings for 1927-1928) and Best and Unique and Artistic Picture (won by Sunrise from 1927-1928). I'll see if I want to continue doing it for other years.  

And the nominees from all the entries from every edition of 1001 Movie You Must See Before You Die released in 1927 are...

Metropolis

Sunrise

The General

The Unknown

The Jazz Singer

Napoleon

The Kid Brother

And the winner for the Best Picture of 1927 is…The General

 The General

I'm a big Buster Keaton fan so I'd feel a little bad not going with The General for this one. It may be the best comedy feature film of silent cinema. Funny, poignant, exciting and crafted by a genius at the top of his game, I'd be hard pressed not to go with this film despite some other great films from this year. 

 The General

And the Award for Unique and Artistic Picture of 1927 is...Napoleon

Napoleon

This was a difficult choice. I'm still not sure I'm doing the right thing in taking the more consistent film Sunrise out of the slot it won in the first place! Fritz Lang's Metropolis might have snagged this award for me if the field had been weaker. No...no...I'm sticking with Napoleon. There is so much greatness in this film with it's epic storytelling, editing and the way Gance used a cast of thousands so effectively...maybe even more so than D. W. Griffith before him. The way the story is presented could only have been done as a silent. The film would have had to have been too slowed down to accommodate dialogue. I guess this was one less hurrah for silent epic cinema. The version I saw was enhanced greatly by the score from Carmine Coppola.

There are frustrations in that there are certain parts that could have been edited in the middle...Napoleon appears too noble and Godlike throughout and we see the rise of Napoleon...but wouldn't it have been nice to see the fall? I know Gance had planned to make subsequent Napoleon movies that never came to be...but it's still frustrating. Napoleon gets my award anyway.

Napoleon

NAPOLEON (1927, FRANCE)

"With his silent productions, he (Abel Gance) made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since."
-Kevin Brownlee, The Parade's Gone By 

Albert Dieudonne as Napoleon

There is indeed much greatness in Abel Gance's 1927 silent film Napoleon. It contains unprecedented epic storytelling (at least from any silent I've seen) and skillful editing that must have been artistically revolutionary at the time. He also used a cast of thousands very effectively...maybe even more so than D. W. Griffith before him.

The way the story is presented could only have been done as a silent. The film would have had to have been slowed down to accommodate dialogue in a talkie. This speed of storytelling is part the uniqueness of silent cinema, which unfortunately was about to be lost forever within about a year of Napoleon's release. But Napoleon certainly sends the silent film out with a bang. 

However, there are frustrations with this film as well. Certain parts seem like they could have been edited in the middle to help with story flow. Also, Napoleon Bonaparte appears too noble and Godlike throughout. We see the rise of Napoleon...but wouldn't it have been nice to see the fall? I know Gance had planned to make subsequent Napoleon movies that never came to be...but it's still frustrating.

The version I saw was the Zoetrope 1980 restoration, which was restored by film historian Kevin Brownlow and is enhanced greatly by the score from Carmine Coppola.

Abel Gance's Napoleon

Quotes from two auteurs who never managed to make their Napoleon film dream come true...

"He did all kinds of admirable things. I'm not a mad Napoleon fan, but there's no denying his genius. A very complicated man. But had he never been born, there are millions of people who wouldn't have died. There were unnecessary wars that he fought for his own glorification, which makes him a villain in the last analysis."
-Orson Welles from My Lunches with Orson with Henry Jaglom, edited by Peter Biskind

"There has never been a good or accurate movie about him. Also, I find that all the issues with which it concerns itself are oddly contemporary-the responsibilities and abuses of power, the dynamics of social revolution, the relationship of the individual to the state, war, militarism, etc., so this will not be just a dusty historic pageant but a film about the basic questions of our own times, as well as Napoleon's."
-Stanley Kubrick from Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by Vincent Lobrutto

Blog note: This is the final silent film for me from the 1001 list.

LA ROUE (1923, FRANCE)

"With his silent productions, J'Accuse, La Roue, and Napoleon, he (Abel Gance) made a fuller use of the medium than anyone else."-Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By

"What is marvelous about Napoleon and La Roue is the narrative enthusiasm, the sweeping exposition of events, and the way the images reveal interior feelings through dynamic editing."-David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film

-------------------------------

I knew about Abel Gance's Napoleon, but I had no knowledge of his epic drama La Roue (The Wheel).

But it really is a masterpiece of early cinema...the production design, the use of editing and dramatic storytelling.

And plotwise, it features a doomed romance...make that two doomed romances...make that three.

Of course, the fact that the plot borders on incest may be a little uncomfortable for some...

But there are trains...Lots and lots of trains!

And what about Severin-Mars, the star of the movie who is listed as dying in 1921...two years before the release of La Roue? Not even a Wikipedia article about the man?

I think he should at least warrant a Wikipedia article....Maybe I'll write one.

And a special mention to the engineer's loyal dog Toby. I had to at least mention Toby.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round

I really love to watch them roll

No longer riding on the merry-go-round

I just had to let it go-Watching the Wheels, John Lennon