Screenshots
No screenshots available for this title yet.
Cinema Discovery Archive
Cinephilecentral
Curated movie catalog and metadata explorer
Continue to the security-verification page to unlock your download.
A short ad flow runs before your download starts.
IMDB ID: tt1215009
Loading TMDb metadata...

No screenshots available for this title yet.
Synopsis
This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon showcased Gance's talents with the camera, his use of multiple-images (like a split screen), and his handling of crowded action scenes -- all brought forward in this documentary by his later assistant, Nelly Kaplan. While Gance was shooting Napoleon in 1925-26, he and his crew were also being filmed for a documentary titled Autour de Napoleon. The only extant reels from that documentary are included in this film, as well as views of Gance's unique "triptychs" -- three different scenes lined up side-by-side across a super-wide screen to convey the effect of a panorama, or of three separate interludes. Nelly Kaplan put together this documentary using old footage, such as Gance filming the famous snowball fight at the Brienne military school and still photographs and excerpts from Gance's production diaries.
Abel Gance
Cast
Lupu Pick
Cast
Nelly Kaplan
Director

A Composer’s Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera
1986This documentary by Michael Blackwood looks at the development and production of Glass' opera Akhnaten. The film follows two productions by the Württemberg State Theater, Stuttgart, and the Houston Grand Opera.
Popularity: 10.0

28 Up
1984Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Popularity: 7.5
Budapest Portrait (Memories of a City)
1984Peter Hutton’s essay on the naturalization of the urban landscape. Voluptuously gray, worn and lived in, the city is like a stage set for an invisible drama.
Popularity: 7.5

A Class Divided
1985William Peters follows up on the 1970 TV documentary Eye of the Storm about Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. The episode intercuts footage from Eye of the Storm with new footage of the students, who are now adults. The film takes us through the journey of a young class learning the unfairness of racism. Elliot teaches the lesson through eye color and different treatment. All of the students admit that this is wrong. In footage of the students as adults, we are able to see how this shaped the experiment changed their lives.
Popularity: 8.3

Antonio Gaudí
1984Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.
Popularity: 7.2

The Times of Harvey Milk
1984Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
Popularity: 7.2

A Composer’s Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera
1986This documentary by Michael Blackwood looks at the development and production of Glass' opera Akhnaten. The film follows two productions by the Württemberg State Theater, Stuttgart, and the Houston Grand Opera.
Popularity: 10.0

28 Up
1984Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Popularity: 7.5
Budapest Portrait (Memories of a City)
1984Peter Hutton’s essay on the naturalization of the urban landscape. Voluptuously gray, worn and lived in, the city is like a stage set for an invisible drama.
Popularity: 7.5

A Class Divided
1985William Peters follows up on the 1970 TV documentary Eye of the Storm about Jane Elliott's experiment of dividing an otherwise homogenous group of school kids by their eye color. The episode intercuts footage from Eye of the Storm with new footage of the students, who are now adults. The film takes us through the journey of a young class learning the unfairness of racism. Elliot teaches the lesson through eye color and different treatment. All of the students admit that this is wrong. In footage of the students as adults, we are able to see how this shaped the experiment changed their lives.
Popularity: 8.3

Antonio Gaudí
1984Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.
Popularity: 7.2

The Times of Harvey Milk
1984Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world.
Popularity: 7.2
The Sacrifice of Babulal Bhuiyan
1987Babulal Bhuiya was shot dead by the Central Industrial Security Force in February 1981 at Mailagora where the people make a living out of collecting coal dust. The implications of his death (and the politics behind it) to the union and his family are examined.
Popularity: 10.0
Athens, Return to the Acropolis
1983A poetic visit to the city of Athens, based on paintings, poems and philosophical texts.
Popularity: 7.9
The Making of Fanny and Alexander
1984Shot during the making of Fanny and Alexander, this feature-length documentary presents extended behind-the-scenes material from rehearsals and filming sessions, with Bergman at work staging scenes and directing performances. The film focuses on the practical process of production, including collaboration with the principal cast and key crew members such as cinematographer Sven Nykvist and on-set documentarian Arne Carlsson.
Popularity: 6.9