To be or not to be . . .

. . . was that the question?

Perhaps for L'Empereur it should have been; to go, or not to go.

“It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do, except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever”, said Stanley Kubrick in answer to his plans to make a film about Napoleon. Kubrick never made the film, but now Steven Spielberg has optioned Kubrick’s original screenplay and announced his own ideas to make a mini-series.  I suppose we might expect this version to be “the best mini-series ever”?

One recalls Marlon Brando as Napoleon in the 1954 film “Desiree”, with Jean Simmons and Merle Oberon as Empress Josephine, not his best effort.

Not so silly was the epic 1927 French silent film “Napoleon, which ran about five hours! It was directed by Abel Gance. In 1980, restored by film historian Kevin Brownlow, and with a new score composed by Carmine Coppola, Gance’s “Napoleon” had a much acclaimed revival. For some Los Angelitos, it was the in thing to do, going to see this mammoth work. Many were just interested in seeing if they could actually sit through the film without a cocktail, a snack, or a trip to the bathroom. It was an entitled endurance trial.

Of course, true cinema fans were enraptured. They didn’t need snacks. But for a while, what you heard most at gatherings was “Have you seen ‘Napoleon?’ The hours flew like minutes.”