In which I find Abel Gance's "Napoléon" online.

[maelicia.livejournal.com]

Heard about it a lot, but I never bothered to see it. Because I have enough migraines. So here it is, on a very random Chinese YouTube (?!):

First part: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIxNzY3NDQ=.html

Second part: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTIxNzY3Njg=.html

It's in the beginning of the second part, at 3:15, that we see the amazingly random appearance of the "trimvirate" of the CSP. Gotta love how Saint-Just is introduced as "The most awe-inspiring figure of the Terror: Saint-Just. (played by Abel Gance)" (Abel Gance should've kept his cosplaying for his bedroom, really) after which we see him playing around with a rose and fluttering his eyelids. How awe-inspiring. Gotta also love how they then introduce Couthon as "...with Saint-Just, one of the most influential members of the Committee of Public Safety", followed by that scene of him molesting that bunny. Oh dear. How influential.

I would like to say that Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution can truly rival with it as far as historical accuracy and sense are concerned. Seriously. You can really understand from watching it why they'd thinking of fitting footage of it in their v. srs. historical documentary based on v. srs. historical sources. Rly.

Also, I give a special award to That Guy--



--who screams "Death to Saint-Just! Death to Robespierre! Death to the two monsters!" (Accuracy, of course.) Isn't he just amazing?

And another thing:



...Wait, what? O.o;;

Comments

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Did you see the scene where all the ghosts of the Revolutionaries come to Bonaparte and tell him to "carry on their legacy," or somesuch? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when I saw that. XD;;;

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, military dictatorship, the ideal of dead republicans :-D
On the other hand, many people in Europe actually thought it was what he was doing, I mean carrying on their legacy...Of course, compared to the absolutist monarchs almost anyone might seem "revolutionary"

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

Whatever onlookers might have thought of the situation, it's incredible that Gance would have thought all the dead conventionnels would agree...

[sibylla-oo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Furthermore, when Gance spends such a long time making the revolutionaries seem pervert and evil, why then he wants them later to give their benediction to the deeds of his beloved Napoleon?

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

He does seem to admire them despite his portrayal, oddly enough. But I think it would be bootless to look for logic in this movie.

[chip-squidley.livejournal.com]

Probably wants it both ways...absorb the legacy of the Revolution while exalting Napoleon as superior to all that came before.