Napolon - Bfi Film Classics Author:Nelly Kaplan Years in the planning and months in production, Abel Gance's Napoleon astonished its audience with the boldness of its conception--not least at the moment when the screen expanded to reveal Gance's visionary invention of Polyvision, a wide-screen system thirty years ahead of its time. Yet Gance's triumph was short-lived. The American ver... more »sion, re-edited by MGM, was a disaster. The sheer length of the film, and its spectacular effects, produced problems for exhibitors. Gance never gave up trying to improve it. In 1934 he added sound; in 1970 he was still editing.« less