Abel Gance

Lore & Background

Abel Gance was born in Paris in 1889, the illegitimate son of a prosperous doctor and a working-class mother. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the coal-mining town of Commentry until age eight, then returned to Paris and took the surname of his mother's new husband, a chauffeur and mechanic. Gance left school at 14 and educated himself in literature and art, working first as a clerk and then as an actor. At 18, he performed at the Théâtre du Parc in Brussels, where he befriended writer Blaise Cendrars.

In Brussels, Gance wrote his first film scenarios, selling them to Léonce Perret. Back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Perret's Molière, though he initially considered cinema infantile and stupid. After being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he recovered and founded a production company, Le Film Français, directing his first film in 1911. During World War I, rejected by the army on medical grounds, he made controversial experiments with distorting mirrors in La Folie du docteur Tube, which producers refused to show. He later served briefly in the army's Service Cinématographique, deepening his preoccupation with war's impact, leading to J'accuse (1919).

Gance's next major work, La Roue (1923), employed elaborate editing and rapid cutting, influenced by personal tragedy. In 1921, he visited America, met D. W. Griffith, and turned down a contract with MGM. His greatest project, Napoléon (1927), used experimental techniques including Polyvision with triple cameras, creating a widescreen effect. The film premiered at the Paris Opéra. Gance later embraced sound films, but his first sound production, La Fin du monde (1931), was a critical and commercial disaster. During the 1930s, he made commercial films to survive, and during World War II, he complied with the Vichy government, paying tribute to Philippe Pétain, before fleeing to Spain in 1943. In Paris, he later befriended actor Victor Francen.

Reader's Guide

Abel Gance's significance lies in his pioneering contributions to film montage and visual experimentation during the silent era. His films J'accuse, La Roue, and Napoléon are landmarks of cinematic innovation, employing rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition, and widescreen techniques that influenced contemporary directors. Despite initial disdain for cinema, Gance's self-education and literary interests drove him to create psychologically complex works with elaborate technical mastery. His career, however, was uneven: after the commercial failure of his first sound film, La Fin du monde, his creative independence was curtailed, and he produced mostly commercial works in the 1930s. His wartime collaboration with the Vichy regime and subsequent flight to Spain mark a controversial period. Nevertheless, the restoration of Napoléon in the early 1980s confirmed it as his best-known work, securing his legacy as a key figure in the development of film language.

Did You Know?

• Gance was born Abel Eugène Alexandre Péréthon, the illegitimate son of a doctor and a working-class mother.
• He left school at age 14 and was largely self-educated in literature and art.
• His film La Folie du docteur Tube used distorting mirrors, but producers were outraged and refused to show it.
• For Napoléon, Gance developed a widescreen system called Polyvision using triple cameras and projectors.