NAPOLEON DVD?

[wich2]

Interesting that my 1981 Harris/Coppola dvd states that it's based on a Brownlow reconstruction.

???

Was there ever any question that that project was his?

- Craig

[Big Silent Fan]

There were organ breaks (Dennis James) in the score when I saw it at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, Coppola conducting, in 1981.

Interesting that my 1981 Harris/Coppola dvd states that it's based on a Brownlow reconstruction.

I think you meant to say VHS video (same as mine). DVDs were not introduced until the 1990s.
https://didyouknow.org/dvdhistory/

And yes, we have Kevin Brownlow to thank for his lifetime effort to restore this film. The original premiere was a disaster in France, so anything we see today is far superior to the original premiere. From Brownlow's book:

A special version, lasting about three hours was announced for the premiere. Although Gance had agreed to this, he kept adjusting it until it was at least three hours, forty minutes. With intervals, the premiere would now be well over four hours long.
There were no standard speeds for projectors in those days. Operators were given suggested running time, but as the speed could alter during a reel, it was left to them to work it out with the musical director.
The musical director Honegger complained to Gance, "It will be impossible to move another piece of music to another section if you keep on making changes. By five o'clock, the musicians were exhausted and Gance changed the editing again. Honegger walked and caught his train for home.
Two hours before the great event, Gance argued with the conductor about the spill of light from the orchestra stands and insisted some sort of cover be placed over the orchestra. The conductor was furious, but he finally did as Gance wished.
The lab was still printing the reels on the day of the premiere. Titles had to be inserted by hand and some reels wound up in the wrong numbered can.
At first everything went well, despite the occasional badly printed scene. At the last moment, the letters Napoleon was writing to Josephine arrived and an assistant had spliced them in upside down.
When this first occurred, Gance rushed to the projection box and stopped the show.
Nowadays, there would have been an outcry if you stopped projection, but the people were more friendly then and they waited patiently.

Books like Brownlow's "Napoleon" where this quote comes from shows how lucky we are to be able to see such complete films today, so many years later.

[BrianG]

Interesting that my 1981 Harris/Coppola dvd states that it's based on a Brownlow reconstruction.

Mea culpa. I guess I should have been clearer. My surprise wasn't that it was a Brownlow reconstruction, as I've had Brownlow's Napoleon book for years. My surprise was seeing Harris/Coppola acknowledge it, considering it took until 2016 to see any official release, with Brownlow's still not available in the US as of 2021. Luckily I have a first BFI release from the UK. It was preordered even before I had a multi-region BD player.

[Frame Rate]

Interesting that my 1981 Harris/Coppola dvd states that it's based on a Brownlow reconstruction.

Mea culpa. I guess I should have been clearer. My surprise wasn't that it was a Brownlow reconstruction, as I've had Brownlow's Napoleon book for years. My surprise was seeing Harris/Coppola acknowledge it, considering it took until 2016 to see any official release, with Brownlow's still not available in the US as of 2021. Luckily I have a first BFI release from the UK. It was preordered even before I had a multi-region BD player.

A "1981 Harris/Coppola dvd"?

This Spring marks the 24th anniversary of the DVD player and discs being introduced in the U.S. (back in 1997). Any home-video release of NAPOLEON from 1981 would have to have been on tape cassette, but even the initial American home-video release was not copyrighted (and in the name of MCA!) until 1986.

So of course you are actually referring to your first BFI-released (in 2016) disc.

However, the 1981 Harris/Coppola theatrical revival most certainly did, at the time, acknowledge Kevin in the opening credits -- which read, in part:


"Copyright 1981 The Images Film Archive, Inc."

"New edition produced under the supervision of Robert A. Harris"

"Reconstructed by Kevin Brownlow, with the financial assistance of the National Film Archive London and the cooperation of the members of the International Association of Film Archives"

The same wording also appears in the credits of the post-roadshow, general-theatrical prints distributed by Universal and the subsequent VHS and Laserdisc copies released by MCA Home Video

Now if this clarification seems a bit too nit-pickish... Sorry, mea culpa!

(A touch of OCD, doncha know.)

[BrianG]

A "1981 Harris/Coppola dvd"?....

Obviously my dvd is not an official release. I don't know the source. Some dozen years ago, or more, I was communicating with a fellow Garbo fan on another forum. He was searching for a couple of films to complete his Garbo collection and I offered to help. It wasn't until I offered and asked for his address, that I found out he was living in Austria. I couldn't renege on my offer, so I sent him the Garbo's he needed. In thanks, he asked what I most wanted and I said Napoleon. Shortly after, I received in the mail a 1981 223 min Harris/Coppola, and a 1983 331 min Thames Brownlow/Davis. While a Garbo fan, I got the better of that exchange. Shortly after, the forum closed, and we lost contact.

[muscur]

My organ performances of the Coppola score to NAPOLEON were not breaks and fill-ins. They were fully scored by Carmine Coppola written into the original score hand-written conductor’s part of which I own a photocopy. As our live performance tours progress I have added many organ scoring enhancements over the years, each suggested to the composer, approved for trial in performance and then added by the composer as authorized plus accepted with each addition written out and added into the official organ part for alternate and future performer’s use. -Dennis James, Zoetrope contracted tour organist for NAPOLEON tour and recording.