Abel Gance

Biography

Abel Gance was a French film director, producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and Napoléon (1927). He was born in Paris in 1889. In 1909, he acted in his first film. He also wrote scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, fatal at the time, but he recovered. In 1911, with some friends he established a production company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films. With the outbreak of WW I, rejected by the army on medical grounds, he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film d'Art until 1918, making over a dozen successful films. Charles Pathé underwrote his next film, J'accuse (1919), in which Gance confronted the waste and suffering which the war had brought. In 1920, he developed La Roue. He brought an unprecedented level of energy and imagination to the technical realization of his story, employing elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of rapid cutting which made the film highly influential. The finished film ran for nearly nine hours, but was edited down for distri…

Directed

1. Napoleon (1927) — Director
2. La Roue (1923) — Director
3. J'Accuse (1919) — Director
4. Austerlitz (1960) — Director
5. J'Accuse (1938) — Director
6. The Madness of Dr. Tube (1915) — Director
7. Au secours ! (1924) — Director
8. The End of the World (1931) — Director
9. Four Flights to Love (1939) — Director
10. Tower of Lust (1955) — Director
11. The Life and Loves of Beethoven (1937) — Director
12. Cyrano and d'Artagnan (1964) — Director
13. Captain Fracasse (1943) — Director
14. Lucrezia Borgia (1935) — Director
15. Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (1935) — Director
16. Blind Venus (1941) — Director
17. The Tenth Symphony (1918) — Director
18. The Torture of Silence (1917) — Director
19. Louise (1939) — Director
20. Napoléon Bonaparte (1935) — Director
21. The Queen and the Cardinal (1935) — Director
22. Barberousse (1917) — Director
23. Marines et cristeaux (1928) — Director
24. Camille (1934) — Director
25. Mater Dolorosa (1933) — Director
26. The Woman Thief (1938) — Director
27. Poliche (1934) — Director
28. Bonaparte et la révolution (1972) — Director
29. Deadly Gas (1916) — Director
30. Magirama (1958) — Director
31. 14 juillet 1953 (1954) — Director
32. Marie Tudor (1966) — Director
33. L'héroïsme de Paddy (1915) — Director
34. Le périscope (1916) — Director
35. L'énigme de dix heures (1915) — Director
36. Un drame au château d'Acre (1915) — Director
37. La Digue (1911) — Director
38. Le fou de la falaise (1916) — Director
39. The Right to Life (1917) — Director
40. I Accuse! [Magirama] (1956) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Napoleon (1927) — Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just
2. The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) — Bar Customer
3. La Roue (1923) — Self
4. The End of the World (1931) — Jean Novalic
5. Omnibus (1967) — Self
6. Around the End of the World (1930) — Self
7. Molière (1910) — Molière jeune
8. Abel Gance et son Napoléon (1984) — Self (archival footage)
9. Napoléon Bonaparte (1935) — Saint-Just
10. Cinépanorama (1956) — Self
11. Around The Wheel (1923) — Self
12. Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite (1968) — Self - Interviewee
13. Spécial cinéma (1974) — Self (archive footage)
14. Bonaparte et la révolution (1972) — St. Just (archive footage)
15. Abel Gance, Yesterday and Tomorrow (1963) — Self
16. Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma (1978) — Self (archive footage)
17. Autour de Napoléon (1928) — self
18. Pour le plaisir (1964) — Self
19. Ciné regards (1978) — Self