Winner of the 1976 American Film Festival Blue Ribbon for Best
Film on Cinema, an introduction to the creative genius of the
great French director, Abel Gance, with sequences from his
Napoleon (1927), La Roue (1922), and J’Accuse (1919). Using
footage shot during the making of Napoleon, Kevin Brownlow gives
us a rare view of an early film masterpiece in production. We
discover that Gance was already working with hand-held camera,
wide-angle lenses, rapid cutting, multiple superimpositions and
panoramic screen, in the twenties. Later, in 1934, he introduced
stereophonic sound to film. —BAM/PFA Kevin Brownlow (born on 2
June 1938, Crowborough, Sussex) 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 documenting and restoring film. He has rescued many silent
films and their history. H