Abel Gance
Encyclopedia
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue
(1923), and the monumental Napoléon (1927).
in central France. He then returned to Paris to rejoin his mother who had by then married Adolphe Gance, a chauffeur and mechanic, whose name Abel then adopted.
Although he later fabricated the history of a brilliant school career and middle-class background, Gance left school at the age of 14, and the love of literature and art which sustained him throughout his life was in part the result of self-education. He started working as a clerk in a solicitor's office, but after a couple of years he turned to acting in the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a season's contract at the Théâtre royal du Parc
in Brussels, where he developed friendships with the actor Victor Francen
and the writer Blaise Cendrars
.
. Back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Perret's Molière. At that stage he regarded the cinema as "infantile and stupid" and was only drawn into film jobs by his poverty, but he nevertheless continued to write scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont
. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at that time, but after a period of retreat in Vittel he overcame the disease. With some friends he established a production company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films in 1911 with La Digue (ou Pour sauver la Hollande), a historical film which featured the first screen appearance of Pierre Renoir
.
Gance tried to maintain a connection with the theatre and he finished writing a monumental tragedy entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt
would star. Its five-hour length, and Gance's refusal to cut it, proved to be a stumbling block.
With the outbreak of World War I, Gance was rejected from the army on medical grounds and in 1915 he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film d'Art. He soon caused controversy with La Folie du docteur Tube
, a comic fantasy in which he and his cameraman Léonce-Henry Burel created some arresting visual effects with distorting mirrors. The producers were outraged and refused to show the film. Gance nevertheless continued working for Film d'Art until 1918, making over a dozen commercially successful films. His experiments included tracking shots, extreme close-ups, low-angle shots, and split-screen images. His subjects moved steadily away from simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa (1917) starring Emmy Lynn
as a neglected wife who has an affair with her husband's brother. The film was a great commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie
, another marital drama featuring Emmy Lynn. Here Gance's mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and alienating.
In 1917, Gance was at last drafted into the Army, in its Service Cinématographique, an episode which proved futile and short-lived, but it deepened his preoccupation with the impact of the war and the depression which was caused by the deaths of many of his friends. When he parted company with Film d'Art over a shortage of funds, Charles Pathé
stepped in to underwrite his next film, J'accuse (1919), in which Gance confronted the waste and suffering which the war had brought. He re-enlisted himself into the Service Cinématographique in order to be able to film some scenes on a real battlefield at the front. The film made a powerful impact and went on to have international distribution.
In 1920 Gance developed his next project, La Roue
, while recuperating in Nice from Spanish flu, and its progress was deeply affected by the knowledge that his companion Ida Danis was dying of tuberculosis; furthermore, his leading man and friend Séverin-Mars was also seriously ill (and died soon after completion of the film). Nevertheless Gance brought an unprecedented level of energy and imagination to the technical realisation of his story, set firstly against the dark and grimy background of locomotives and railway yards, and then among the snow-covered landscapes of the Alps. He employed elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of rapid cutting which made the film highly influential among other contemporary directors. The finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nearly 9 hours, but it was subsequently edited down for distribution and it is these shorter versions which have survived.
In 1921 Gance visited America to promote J'accuse. During his five-month stay he met D W Griffith whom he had long admired. He was also offered a contract with MGM
to work in Hollywood, but he turned it down.
After a brief change of pace for Au secours
, a comic film with Max Linder
, Gance embarked on his greatest project, a six-part life of Napoléon. Only the first part was completed, tracing Bonaparte's early life, through the Revolution, and up to the invasion of Italy, but even this occupied a vast canvas with meticulously recreated historical scenes and scores of characters. The film was full of experimental techniques, combining rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition of images, and, most famously, his wide-screen sequences achieved, with a system he called Polyvision
, by using triple cameras (and projectors) to create a spectacular panoramic effect, including a finale in which the outer two film panels were tinted blue and red, creating a widescreen image of a French flag. The original version of the film ran for around 6 hours. A shortened version received a triumphant première at the Paris Opéra in April 1927 before a distinguished audience that included the future General de Gaulle
. The length was reduced still further for French and European distribution, and it became even shorter when it was shown in America. This was not the end of the film's career however. Gance re-used material from it in later films, and the triumphant restoration of the silent film in the 1980s (see below) confirmed it as his most famous work.
(1931), an expensive science-fiction film (first planned in 1913/14) about the imminent collision of a comet with the Earth. Gance himself played the leading role. The film was a critical and commercial disaster, and thereafter the creative independence which Gance had enjoyed in the previous decade was seriously curtailed.
Gance continued to be a busy film-maker throughout the 1930s, but he characterised most of the films made during this period as ones that he did "not in order to live, but in order not to die". In 1932 he tried to demonstrate his credentials as a reliable and efficient director by filming a remake of Mater dolorosa which he completed within 18 days and within budget. Among the other 'commercial' works that followed were Lucrèce Borgia (1935), with Edwige Feuillère
, and Un Grand Amour de Beethoven (1937), with Harry Baur
. One of the more personal projects that he was able to undertake was a new version of J'accuse (1938), not so much a remake of his 1919 film as a continuation of it, and conceived as a warning against the new war that he saw impending.
After the invasion of France in 1940, Gance filmed a popular melodrama called Vénus aveugle
, which he saw as an allegory of the current state of France and a message of hope directed to the ordinary French people in their time of misfortune. At this period Gance was among those who saw Philippe Pétain
as the means of the country's salvation, and in September 1941 Vénus aveugle had its first screening in Vichy, preceded by a speech in which Gance paid tribute to Pétain.
After completing one more film, Le Capitaine Fracasse, Gance went to Spain in August 1943, citing growing hostility from the German authorities in France, and he remained there until October 1945.
After the war, his difficulties in getting support for his projects increased and he made few films. The historical melodrama La Tour de Nesle (1954) was his first film in colour, and it provoked some revival of interest in his work, with critics such as François Truffaut
making the case for Gance as a neglected auteur of genius.
Gance returned to Napoleonic spectacle with Austerlitz
(1960), and made a further historical pageant in Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1963), before moving into television for his final works, also on historical subjects.
Throughout his life Gance kept returning to Napoléon, often editing his own footage into shorter versions, adding a soundtrack, sometimes filming new material, and as a result the original 1927 film was lost from view for decades. After various attempts at reconstruction, the dedicated work of the film historian Kevin Brownlow
produced a five-hour version of the film, still incomplete but fuller than anyone had seen since the 1920s. This version was presented at the Telluride Film Festival
in August 1979, with the frail 89-year old director in attendance. The occasion brought a belated triumph to Gance's career, and subsequent performances and further restoration made his name known to a worldwide audience.
Abel Gance married three times: in 1912 to Mathilde Thizeau; in 1922 to Marguerite Danis (sister of Ida); in 1933 to Marie-Odette Vérité (Sylvie Grenade), who died in 1978. Gance died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1981 at the age of 92.
One thing that has always been acknowledged is Gance's innovations in the techniques of the cinema. As well as his multiscreen ventures with Polyvision, he explored the use of superimposition of images, extreme close-ups, and fast rhythmic editing, and he made the camera mobile in unorthodox ways – hand-held, mounted on wires or a pendulum, or even strapped to a horse. He also made early experiments with the addition of sound to film, and with filming in colour and in 3-D. There were few aspects of film technique that he did not seek to incorporate in his work, and his influence was acknowledged by contemporaries such as Jean Epstein and later by film-makers of the French New Wave. In the assessment of Kevin Brownlow, "...with his silent productions, J'accuse, La Roue, and Napoléon, [Abel Gance] made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since".
Another aspect of Gance's work which has drawn comment from critics is the political stance and implication of his life and films, particularly his identification with strong military leaders. Whereas J'accuse in 1919 suggested Gance's pacifist and anti-establishment attitude, the reactions to Napoléon in 1927 saw greater ambivalence, and some commentators even judged it to be an apologia for dictatorship. This strand of criticism of Gance's reactionary politics has continued through later assessments of him; it has also noted his ardent support for Pétain in the early years of World War II, and subsequently for Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. Others have regarded these political interpretations as secondary to Gance's mastery of exuberant spectacle, which frequently had a nationalistic focus. As one obituary concluded, "Abel Gance was perhaps the greatest Romantic of the screen".
La Roue
La Roue is a French silent film, directed by Abel Gance, who also directed Napoléon and J'accuse!. It was released in 1923. Originally 32 reels in length , the current reconstruction runs 20 reels...
(1923), and the monumental Napoléon (1927).
Early life
Born in Paris in 1889, Abel Gance was the illegitimate son of a prosperous doctor, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Françoise Péréthon (or Perthon). Initially taking his mother's name, he was brought up until the age of eight by his maternal grandparents in the coal mining town of CommentryCommentry
Commentry is a commune in the department of Allier in central France. It lies southwest of Moulins by the Orléans railway.-Population:-Economy:...
in central France. He then returned to Paris to rejoin his mother who had by then married Adolphe Gance, a chauffeur and mechanic, whose name Abel then adopted.
Although he later fabricated the history of a brilliant school career and middle-class background, Gance left school at the age of 14, and the love of literature and art which sustained him throughout his life was in part the result of self-education. He started working as a clerk in a solicitor's office, but after a couple of years he turned to acting in the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a season's contract at the Théâtre royal du Parc
Théâtre Royal du Parc
The Théâtre Royal du Parc is a theatre at 3, Rue de la Loi in Brussels, on the edge of the Parc de Bruxelles facing the Federal Parliament...
in Brussels, where he developed friendships with the actor Victor Francen
Victor Francen
Victor Francen , born Victor Franssens, was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood....
and the writer Blaise Cendrars
Blaise Cendrars
Frédéric Louis Sauser , better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized French in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the modernist movement.-Early years:...
.
Silent films
While in Brussels, Gance wrote his first film scenarios, which he sold to Léonce PerretLéonce Perret
Léonce Perret was a prolific and innovative French film actor, director and producer. He also worked as a stage actor and director...
. Back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Perret's Molière. At that stage he regarded the cinema as "infantile and stupid" and was only drawn into film jobs by his poverty, but he nevertheless continued to write scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at that time, but after a period of retreat in Vittel he overcame the disease. With some friends he established a production company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films in 1911 with La Digue (ou Pour sauver la Hollande), a historical film which featured the first screen appearance of Pierre Renoir
Pierre Renoir
Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor and served briefly as the director of the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951....
.
Gance tried to maintain a connection with the theatre and he finished writing a monumental tragedy entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
would star. Its five-hour length, and Gance's refusal to cut it, proved to be a stumbling block.
With the outbreak of World War I, Gance was rejected from the army on medical grounds and in 1915 he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film d'Art. He soon caused controversy with La Folie du docteur Tube
La Folie du Docteur Tube
La Folie du Docteur Tube is a short silent experimental film directed by Abel Gance, in which a scientist takes a white powder, and then hallucinates. Gance shows the man's hallucinations by using a series of distorting lenses on the camera. A print of the film survives....
, a comic fantasy in which he and his cameraman Léonce-Henry Burel created some arresting visual effects with distorting mirrors. The producers were outraged and refused to show the film. Gance nevertheless continued working for Film d'Art until 1918, making over a dozen commercially successful films. His experiments included tracking shots, extreme close-ups, low-angle shots, and split-screen images. His subjects moved steadily away from simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa (1917) starring Emmy Lynn
Emmy Lynn
-Selected filmography:* The Torture of Silence * The Tenth Symphony * The Kiddies in the Ruins * Le Vertige * Les deux orphelines * Le Lit à colonnes...
as a neglected wife who has an affair with her husband's brother. The film was a great commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie
The Tenth Symphony
The Tenth Symphony is a 1918 silent French drama film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Séverin-Mars - Composer Enric Damor* Jean Toulout - Frederic 'Fred' Ryce* Emmy Lynn - Eve Dinant* Ariane Hugon - Dancer* André Lefaur - Marquis de Groix St-Blaise...
, another marital drama featuring Emmy Lynn. Here Gance's mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and alienating.
In 1917, Gance was at last drafted into the Army, in its Service Cinématographique, an episode which proved futile and short-lived, but it deepened his preoccupation with the impact of the war and the depression which was caused by the deaths of many of his friends. When he parted company with Film d'Art over a shortage of funds, Charles Pathé
Charles Pathé
Charles Pathé was a major French pioneer of the film and recording industries.The son of a butcher shop owner, Charles Pathé was born at Chevry-Cossigny, in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. In 1894, together with his brother Émile, he formed Pathé Records...
stepped in to underwrite his next film, J'accuse (1919), in which Gance confronted the waste and suffering which the war had brought. He re-enlisted himself into the Service Cinématographique in order to be able to film some scenes on a real battlefield at the front. The film made a powerful impact and went on to have international distribution.
In 1920 Gance developed his next project, La Roue
La Roue
La Roue is a French silent film, directed by Abel Gance, who also directed Napoléon and J'accuse!. It was released in 1923. Originally 32 reels in length , the current reconstruction runs 20 reels...
, while recuperating in Nice from Spanish flu, and its progress was deeply affected by the knowledge that his companion Ida Danis was dying of tuberculosis; furthermore, his leading man and friend Séverin-Mars was also seriously ill (and died soon after completion of the film). Nevertheless Gance brought an unprecedented level of energy and imagination to the technical realisation of his story, set firstly against the dark and grimy background of locomotives and railway yards, and then among the snow-covered landscapes of the Alps. He employed elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of rapid cutting which made the film highly influential among other contemporary directors. The finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nearly 9 hours, but it was subsequently edited down for distribution and it is these shorter versions which have survived.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
to work in Hollywood, but he turned it down.
After a brief change of pace for Au secours
Au Secours!
Au Secours! is a 1924 short comedy film directed by Abel Gance and starring Max Linder. The title roughly translates into English as, 'help!'...
, a comic film with Max Linder
Max Linder
Max Linder was an influential French pioneer of silent film.-Birth and early career:Born Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle in Saint-Loubès, Gironde, France to a Catholic wine-growing family, he grew up with a passion for the theatre and as a young man joined a theatre troupe touring the country...
, Gance embarked on his greatest project, a six-part life of Napoléon. Only the first part was completed, tracing Bonaparte's early life, through the Revolution, and up to the invasion of Italy, but even this occupied a vast canvas with meticulously recreated historical scenes and scores of characters. The film was full of experimental techniques, combining rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition of images, and, most famously, his wide-screen sequences achieved, with a system he called Polyvision
Polyvision
Polyvision was the name given to a specialized widescreen film format devised exclusively for the filming and projection of Abel Gance's 1927 film Napoleon. It involved the simultaneous projection of three reels of silent film arrayed in a horizontal row, making for a total aspect ratio of 4:1...
, by using triple cameras (and projectors) to create a spectacular panoramic effect, including a finale in which the outer two film panels were tinted blue and red, creating a widescreen image of a French flag. The original version of the film ran for around 6 hours. A shortened version received a triumphant première at the Paris Opéra in April 1927 before a distinguished audience that included the future General de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. The length was reduced still further for French and European distribution, and it became even shorter when it was shown in America. This was not the end of the film's career however. Gance re-used material from it in later films, and the triumphant restoration of the silent film in the 1980s (see below) confirmed it as his most famous work.
Sound films
Gance embraced the arrival of sound with enthusiasm and his first production was La Fin du mondeEnd of the World (1931 film)
End of the World is a 1931 science fiction film directed by Abel Gance based on the novel Omega: The Last Days of the World by Camille Flammarion. The film stars Victor Francen as Martial Novalic, Colette Darfeuil as Genevieve de Murcie, Abel Gance as Jean Novalic, and Jeanne Brindau as Madame...
(1931), an expensive science-fiction film (first planned in 1913/14) about the imminent collision of a comet with the Earth. Gance himself played the leading role. The film was a critical and commercial disaster, and thereafter the creative independence which Gance had enjoyed in the previous decade was seriously curtailed.
Gance continued to be a busy film-maker throughout the 1930s, but he characterised most of the films made during this period as ones that he did "not in order to live, but in order not to die". In 1932 he tried to demonstrate his credentials as a reliable and efficient director by filming a remake of Mater dolorosa which he completed within 18 days and within budget. Among the other 'commercial' works that followed were Lucrèce Borgia (1935), with Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère was a distinguished French stage and film actress....
, and Un Grand Amour de Beethoven (1937), with Harry Baur
Harry Baur
Harry Baur was a French actor. Baur was Jewish and tortured to death by the Gestapo during World War II....
. One of the more personal projects that he was able to undertake was a new version of J'accuse (1938), not so much a remake of his 1919 film as a continuation of it, and conceived as a warning against the new war that he saw impending.
After the invasion of France in 1940, Gance filmed a popular melodrama called Vénus aveugle
Vénus aveugle
Vénus aveugle is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the German occupation...
, which he saw as an allegory of the current state of France and a message of hope directed to the ordinary French people in their time of misfortune. At this period Gance was among those who saw Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
as the means of the country's salvation, and in September 1941 Vénus aveugle had its first screening in Vichy, preceded by a speech in which Gance paid tribute to Pétain.
After completing one more film, Le Capitaine Fracasse, Gance went to Spain in August 1943, citing growing hostility from the German authorities in France, and he remained there until October 1945.
After the war, his difficulties in getting support for his projects increased and he made few films. The historical melodrama La Tour de Nesle (1954) was his first film in colour, and it provoked some revival of interest in his work, with critics such as François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
making the case for Gance as a neglected auteur of genius.
Gance returned to Napoleonic spectacle with Austerlitz
Austerlitz (film)
Austerlitz is a 1960 film directed by Abel Gance and starring Jean Marais, Rossano Brazzi, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, Vittorio de Sica, Orson Welles, Leslie Caron and Elvire Popesco. Pierre Mondy portrays Napoleon in this film about one of his greatest victories at the Battle of Austerlitz...
(1960), and made a further historical pageant in Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1963), before moving into television for his final works, also on historical subjects.
Throughout his life Gance kept returning to Napoléon, often editing his own footage into shorter versions, adding a soundtrack, sometimes filming new material, and as a result the original 1927 film was lost from view for decades. After various attempts at reconstruction, the dedicated work of the film historian Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
produced a five-hour version of the film, still incomplete but fuller than anyone had seen since the 1920s. This version was presented at the Telluride Film Festival
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
in August 1979, with the frail 89-year old director in attendance. The occasion brought a belated triumph to Gance's career, and subsequent performances and further restoration made his name known to a worldwide audience.
Abel Gance married three times: in 1912 to Mathilde Thizeau; in 1922 to Marguerite Danis (sister of Ida); in 1933 to Marie-Odette Vérité (Sylvie Grenade), who died in 1978. Gance died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1981 at the age of 92.
Reputation
Gance wanted himself to be seen as "the Victor Hugo of the screen", and many assessments have recognised the ambition, the ingenuity and the sweeping romanticism of his films. Some, such as Léon Moussinac in the 1920s, have pointed to the contradictions in his work between creativity and cliché, the "abundance of original treasures and of banal mediocrity and of poor taste".One thing that has always been acknowledged is Gance's innovations in the techniques of the cinema. As well as his multiscreen ventures with Polyvision, he explored the use of superimposition of images, extreme close-ups, and fast rhythmic editing, and he made the camera mobile in unorthodox ways – hand-held, mounted on wires or a pendulum, or even strapped to a horse. He also made early experiments with the addition of sound to film, and with filming in colour and in 3-D. There were few aspects of film technique that he did not seek to incorporate in his work, and his influence was acknowledged by contemporaries such as Jean Epstein and later by film-makers of the French New Wave. In the assessment of Kevin Brownlow, "...with his silent productions, J'accuse, La Roue, and Napoléon, [Abel Gance] made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since".
Another aspect of Gance's work which has drawn comment from critics is the political stance and implication of his life and films, particularly his identification with strong military leaders. Whereas J'accuse in 1919 suggested Gance's pacifist and anti-establishment attitude, the reactions to Napoléon in 1927 saw greater ambivalence, and some commentators even judged it to be an apologia for dictatorship. This strand of criticism of Gance's reactionary politics has continued through later assessments of him; it has also noted his ardent support for Pétain in the early years of World War II, and subsequently for Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. Others have regarded these political interpretations as secondary to Gance's mastery of exuberant spectacle, which frequently had a nationalistic focus. As one obituary concluded, "Abel Gance was perhaps the greatest Romantic of the screen".
Filmography
- Bonaparte et la révolution (1971)
- Valmy (1967) [TV film]
- Marie Tudor (1966) [TV film]
- Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1964)
- AusterlitzAusterlitz (film)Austerlitz is a 1960 film directed by Abel Gance and starring Jean Marais, Rossano Brazzi, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, Vittorio de Sica, Orson Welles, Leslie Caron and Elvire Popesco. Pierre Mondy portrays Napoleon in this film about one of his greatest victories at the Battle of Austerlitz...
(1960) - Magirama (1956) [series of shorts]
- La Tour de Nesle (1955)
- Quatorze juillet 1953 (1953) [documentary]
- Manolete (1944) [uncompleted]
- Le Capitaine FracasseLe Capitaine FracasseLe Capitaine Fracasse , is a French comedy film from 1961, directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit, written by Pierre Gaspard-Huit and Pierre Gaspard-Huit, starring Jean Marais and Louis de Funès...
(1943) - Vénus aveugleVénus aveugleVénus aveugle is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the German occupation...
(1941) - Paradis perdu (1940)
- Louise (1939)
- J'accuse!J'accuse! (1938 film)J'accuse! is a 1938 French war film directed by Abel Gance and starring Victor Francen. It is a remake of the 1919 film of the same name, also directed by Gance.-Cast:* Victor Francen - Jean Diaz* Line Noro - Edith* Marie Lou - Flo...
(1938) - Le Voleur de femmes (1938)
- Un grand amour de BeethovenBeethoven's Great LoveBeethoven's Great Love is a 1937 French film directed by Abel Gance. It stars Harry Baur, Annie Ducaux, Jany Holt, Jane Marken, Jean-Louis Barrault, and Marcel Dalio....
(1937) - Jérôme Perreau héros des barricades (1935)
- Lucrèce BorgiaLucrèce BorgiaLucrèce Borgia is a 1953 French drama film starring Martine Carol and Pedro Armendáriz. The film was directed by Christian-Jaque, who co-wrote screenplay with Cécil Saint-Laurent and Jacques Sigurd, based on novel by Alfred Schirokauer...
(1935) - Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (1935)
- Napoléon Bonaparte (1935)
- La Dame aux camélias (1934) [script and supervision]
- PolichePolichePoliche is a 1934 French drama film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Constant Rémy - Didier Méreuil, dit Police* Marie Bell - Rosine* Edith Méra - Mme Laub* Violaine Barry* Romain Bouquet - Boudier* Alexander D'Arcy - Saint-Wast...
(1934) - Le Maître de forgesThe IronmasterThe Ironmaster is a 1933 French drama film scripted and supervised by Abel Gance, and directed by Fernand Rivers.-Cast:* Gaby Morlay - Claire de Beaulieu* Léon Belières - Monsieur Moulinet* Paule Andral - Marquise de Beaulieu...
(1933) [script and supervision] - Mater dolorosa (1932)
- La Fin du mondeEnd of the World (1931 film)End of the World is a 1931 science fiction film directed by Abel Gance based on the novel Omega: The Last Days of the World by Camille Flammarion. The film stars Victor Francen as Martial Novalic, Colette Darfeuil as Genevieve de Murcie, Abel Gance as Jean Novalic, and Jeanne Brindau as Madame...
(1931) - Marines et cristeaux (1928) [shorts]
- Napoléon (1927)
- Au secours!Au Secours!Au Secours! is a 1924 short comedy film directed by Abel Gance and starring Max Linder. The title roughly translates into English as, 'help!'...
(1924) - La RoueLa RoueLa Roue is a French silent film, directed by Abel Gance, who also directed Napoléon and J'accuse!. It was released in 1923. Originally 32 reels in length , the current reconstruction runs 20 reels...
(1923) - J'accuse (1919)
- La Dixième SymphonieThe Tenth SymphonyThe Tenth Symphony is a 1918 silent French drama film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Séverin-Mars - Composer Enric Damor* Jean Toulout - Frederic 'Fred' Ryce* Emmy Lynn - Eve Dinant* Ariane Hugon - Dancer* André Lefaur - Marquis de Groix St-Blaise...
(1918) - Ecce Homo (1918) [uncompleted]
- La Zone de la mortThe Zone of DeathThe Zone of Death is a 1917 silent French film directed by Abel Gance.-Cast:* Andrée Brabant* Julien Clément * Anthony Gildès* Andrée Lionel* Léon Mathot* Gaston Modot* Georges Paulais* Paul Vermoyal...
(1917) - BarberousseBarberousseBarberousse is a 1917 silent French film directed by Abel Gance.-Cast:* Léon Mathot - Trively* Émile Keppens - Gesmus* Maud Richard - Odette Trively* Germaine Pelisse - Pauline* Yvonne Briey* Henri Maillard* Doriani* Paul Vermoyal...
(1917) - Mater dolorosaThe Torture of SilenceThe Torture of Silence is a 1917 silent French drama film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Emmy Lynn - Manon Berliac* Firmin Gémier - Emile Berliac* Armand Tallier - François Rolland* Anthony Gildès - Jean* Paul Vermoyal - Jean Dormis* Gaston Modot...
(1917) - Le Droit à la vieLe droit à la vieLe droit à la vie is a 1917 silent French film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Paul Vermoyal - Pierre Veryal* Léon Mathot - Jacques Alberty* Andrée Brabant - Andree Mael* Georges Paulais - Marc Toln* Eugénie Bade - Grandmother* Lebrey - Magistrate...
(1917) - Les Gaz mortelsLes Gaz mortelsLes Gaz mortels is a 1916 silent French film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Doriani* Émile Keppens* Henri Maillard* Léon Mathot* Germaine Pelisse* Maud Richard* Jean Fleury...
(1916) - Ce que les flots racontent (1916)
- Fioritures (1916)
- Le Fou de la falaise (1916)
- Le PériscopeLe périscopeLe périscope is a 1916 silent French film directed by Abel Gance.-Cast:* Albert Dieudonné - William Bell* Henri Maillard - Damores* Yvonne Sergyl - Manoela Damores* Georges Raulin - Geoffrey Bell* Mlle Savigny - Clelia Damores...
(1916) - Un drame au château d'AcreUn drame au château d'AcreUn drame au château d'Acre is a 1915 short silent French drama film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Yvonne Briey* Henri Maillard* Aurelio Sidney * Jacques Volnys* Jean Toulout - Ermont...
(1915) - L'Énigme de dix heures (1915)
- La Fleur des ruines (1915)
- La Folie du docteur TubeLa Folie du Docteur TubeLa Folie du Docteur Tube is a short silent experimental film directed by Abel Gance, in which a scientist takes a white powder, and then hallucinates. Gance shows the man's hallucinations by using a series of distorting lenses on the camera. A print of the film survives....
(1915) - L'Héroïsme de Paddy (1915)
- Strass et Compagnie (1915)
- Le Masque d'horreurThe Mask of HorrorThe Mask of Horror is a 1912 short silent French horror film directed by Abel Gance. -Cast:* Édouard de Max* Charles de Rochefort* Florelle - * Mathilde Thizeau* Jean Toulout - Ermont...
(1912) - Il y a des pieds au plafond (1912)
- Le Nègre blanc (1912)
- La Pierre philosophe (1912)
- La DigueLa Digue (film)La Digue is a 1911 silent French film directed by Abel Gance. It was Gance's debut film. The film was never released....
(1911)
External links
- 1895: no.31: Abel Gance, nouveaux regards (In French)