This epic silent film was written by Abel Gance, and was published in 1927. It follows the life of Naopléon, and his years earlier in life as they led up to him being one of the greatest military leaders. Gance was able to experiment with many techniques that hadn't been seen or dared in cinema before this film, including the creative use of camera motion, expanded screens, different camera perspectives, and close-up shots. He was very intuitive and risky in these ideas, but they obviously paid off for him.
When the film first premiered in Paris, it was so long that they had to show it over two nights, with the film lasting just around nine hours! Another complication it reached was that Gance used triptych shots for the last 20 minutes in order to capture the grandeur of the finale. Using three separate screens to film the vast size of the army, he place them side by side to create a horizontal layout that allowed the audience to really see the intensity of the scene. The only problem was that many of the theaters didn't have screens large enough to properly project this trick, so showings ended up being very limited due to these restrictions.
Napoléon is considered a wonder in the film world due to the series of innovations it introduced that are now widely used in the industry. Without Abel Gance taking these rewarding risks, the styles of movies we know today could have evolved very different over the course of time.
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