Abel Gance et son Napoléon(1984)

Abel Gance et son Napoléon is a documentary about the creation of Abel Gance's monumental 1927 silent film Napoleon. Directed by Nelly Kaplan, Gance's former assistant, the film traces the visionary French filmmaker's revolutionary techniques—split-screen imagery, panoramic triptychs, and orchestration of massive crowd sequences. Kaplan assembles rare archival material, including surviving reels from Autour de Napoléon, a documentary shot during production in 1925–26, alongside behind-the-scenes footage of Gance at work. The archive includes the iconic snowball fight sequence at the Brienne military school, still photographs, and excerpts from Gance's production diaries. Through these fragments, Abel Gance et son Napoléon reveals how Gance pushed the boundaries of silent cinema and established techniques that would influence filmmaking for decades.