Spend a day with Abel Gance’s Napoleon, considered silent film’s highest artistic achievement and rarely seen in the US. Gance freed the camera using cranes and dollies and even tied it to galloping horses! He created an astonishing spectacle balanced with quiet lyricism. Gance anticipated Cinerama, an immersive, ultra-widescreen cinematic process, with the film’s magnificent final triptychs. (Abel Gance, 1927, DCP, 295 minutes)

We present this epic, five-hour-long film in two parts, with an intermission from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. With thanks to the British Film Institute for making this screening possible, with recorded score by Carl Davis.

Part of the Late Summer, Early Widescreen film series