Abel Gance

Abel Gance

1889-10-25 Paris, France 64 Credits

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, L...

Known For

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Complete Filmography

Abel Gance et son Napoléon

Abel Gance et son Napoléon

1984

as Self (archival footage)

5.3
Acting

This documentary focuses on the making of the 235-minute, silent epic Napoleon, the masterpiece of French director/writer/actor Abel Gance. Napoleon s...

Bonaparte et la révolution

Bonaparte et la révolution

1972

as St. Just (archive footage)

Acting

Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965...

Bonaparte et la révolution

Bonaparte et la révolution

1972

Writer, Director

Writing Directing

Abel Gance's 1971 sound edition of his epic 1927 'Napoleon', which contains much of the silent original, with new material shot and added in both 1965...

Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite

Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite

1968

as Self - Interviewee

Acting

BBC documentary on the long and flamboyant career of French filmmaker Abel Gance.

Cyrano and d'Artagnan

Cyrano and d'Artagnan

1964

Director, Screenplay

5.8
Directing Writing

Duelist and poet Cyrano de Bergerac and musketeer d'Artagnan meet and team up to stop the conspiracy against King Louis XIII of France.

Abel Gance, Yesterday and Tomorrow

Abel Gance, Yesterday and Tomorrow

1963

as Self

6.0
Acting

The life and work of Abel Gance as told by himself. Includes extracts from many of his films and considers his contribution to the cinema.

The Battle of Austerlitz

The Battle of Austerlitz

1960

Director, Writer

6.6
Directing Writing

Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor and fights the English, Austrians and Russians in 1802.

Magirama

Magirama

1958

Director

Directing

A portmanteau work in four segments,designed to illustrate the expressive possibilities of director Abel Gance,s creation, Polyvision, which preceded ...

I Accuse! [Magirama]

I Accuse! [Magirama]

1956

Director

Directing

Magirama version, which is one of the four segments of the Magirama program, designed to illustrate the expressive possibilities of director Abel Ganc...

Tower of Lust

Tower of Lust

1955

Director, Screenplay

5.0
Directing Writing

France, the beginning of the XIV century. Every night, Queen Margaret of Burgundy and her two sisters arrange orgies, to which beautiful nobles are in...

Queen Margot

Queen Margot

1954

Writer

6.8
Writing

Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Catherine de Médicis, celebrates her wedding with Henri de Navarre. Officially, it's a rapprochement between the Lea...

14 juillet 1953

14 juillet 1953

1954

Director, Editor

Directing

A color test film of the Proterama process created by Abel Gance.

Captain Fracasse

Captain Fracasse

1943

Director, Writer

6.3
Directing Writing

Out of love for an actress, Isabelle, the Baron de Sigognac joins a traveling troop en route to Paris. When an actor dies, he takes over his role: tha...

Blind Venus

Blind Venus

1941

Director, Writer

6.1
Directing Writing

Vénus aveugle (Blind Venus) is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the ...

Four Flights to Love

Four Flights to Love

1939

Director, Screenplay

6.2
Directing Writing

In pre-World Ward I in Paris, a budding artist, Pierre LeBlanc, falls in love and marries Janine, a dressmaker's assistant. Pierre has a flair for des...

Louise

Louise

1939

Director

5.3
Directing

What was it about opera diva Grace Moore that attracted the attention of filmdom's top directors? Moore's 1937 American movie vehicle When You're in L...

The Woman Thief

The Woman Thief

1938

Director

Directing

The woman thief evades a young lady who is onto his game, but then tries his wiles elsewhere on a married woman by attempting to compromise and ruin t...

I Accuse

I Accuse

1938

Director, Writer

6.4
Directing Writing

After serving in the trenches of World War I, Jean Diaz recoils with such horror that he renounces love and personal pleasure to immerse himself in sc...

The Life and Loves of Beethoven

The Life and Loves of Beethoven

1937

Director, Writer

6.9
Directing Writing

Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.

Lucrezia Borgia

Lucrezia Borgia

1935

Director, Writer

5.5
Directing Writing

French silent film pioneer Abel Gance directs this 1935 classic about Lucrezia Borgia, her brother, Cesare. and her father, Pope Alexander VI -- one o...

The Queen and the Cardinal

The Queen and the Cardinal

1935

Director, Writer

6.0
Directing Writing

A hero of the Paris streets is recruited for a conspiracy against Mazarin in the court of the King, but he reveals the subversive plot to Anne of Aust...

Napoléon Bonaparte

Napoléon Bonaparte

1935

as Saint-Just

8.0
Acting

A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.

Napoléon Bonaparte

Napoléon Bonaparte

1935

Director, Screenplay, Editor

8.0
Directing Writing

A second version of Gance's Napoléon, with sound.

Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre

Le Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre

1935

Director, Screenplay

6.6
Directing Writing

Maxime de Champcey, a bankrupt marquis, is hired by the wealthy Laroque and falls for his daughter Marguerite. She loves him too but rejects him under...

La Dame aux camélias

La Dame aux camélias

1934

Director, Producer

Directing Producing

Alexandre Dumas' romantic novel Lady of the Camelias (more popularly known as Camille) was filmed twice in 1953, first in Argentina, then in France. T...

Poliche

Poliche

1934

Director

Directing

Didier Méreuil, affectionately called Poliche, is in love with Rosine, a beautiful girl, so he does everything to please her. She does not love him, a...

The Ironmaster

The Ironmaster

1933

Screenplay

5.5
Writing

A young noblewoman is unhappy about needing to marry the village ironmaster for financial reasons, but later comes to appreciate her husband.

Mater Dolorosa

Mater Dolorosa

1933

Writer, Director

Writing Directing

One of the most popular melodrama films directed by Abel Gance. A paranoide, fanatical and obsessively jealous husband obducts his own son to bully hi...

The End of the World

The End of the World

1931

as Jean Novalic

4.9
Acting

The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.

The End of the World

The End of the World

1931

Screenplay, Director

4.9
Writing Directing

The plot concerns a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster.

Around the End of the World

Around the End of the World

1930

as Self

4.8
Acting

A short silent documentary on the making of the 1931 Abel Gance directed film, "La Fin du Monde".

Napoleon at St. Helena

1929

Story

4.8
Writing

Napoleon at Saint Helena (German: Napoleon auf Sankt Helena) is a 1929 German silent historical film directed by Lupu Pick and starring Werner Krauss,...

The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher

1928

as Bar Customer

7.0
Acting

A stranger called Allan goes to the House of Usher. He is the sole friend of Roderick Usher, who lives in the eerie house with his sick wife Madeleine...

Marines et cristeaux

1928

Director

Directing

Marines et cristeaux is a silent film from 1928

Napoleon

Napoleon

1927

as Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just

7.8
Acting

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his f...

Napoleon

Napoleon

1927

Director, Writer, Editor

7.8
Directing Writing

A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his f...

Au secours !

Au secours !

1924

Director, Writer, Producer

6.7
Directing Writing Producing

Max accepts a wager that he cannot remain in a haunted castle for one hour (11 PM to midnight) without crying for help. As soon as he arrives he encou...

Around The Wheel

Around The Wheel

1923

as Self

7.0
Acting

Blaise Cendrars' AUTOUR DE LA ROUE (1923), a behind-the-scenes short documenting the production.

La Roue

La Roue

1923

as Self

7.3
Acting

Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becom...

La Roue

La Roue

1923

Director, Writer, Editor

7.3
Directing Writing Producing

Sisif, a railwayman, saves a young girl named Norma orphaned by a train crash and raises her as his own daughter alongside his son, Elie. As she becom...

Tillers of the Soil

1923

Producer

Producing

One of two peasant brothers in love with the same woman escapes his grim country life and pursues a career as a Parisian sculptor.

J'accuse

J'accuse

1919

Director, Screenplay, Editor

7.5
Directing Writing

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale become...

The Tenth Symphony

The Tenth Symphony

1918

Director, Writer

6.4
Directing Writing

Composer Enrid Damor knows nothing of the past life of his new wife Eve Dinant : she lived as a debauchee with an adventurer, Fred Ryce. Fred Ryce mee...

The Zone of Death

The Zone of Death

1917

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

French silent film by Abel Gance. Considered lost.

Barberousse

Barberousse

1917

Director, Writer

5.0
Directing Writing

A journalist attempt to stop a mysterious criminal : "Barbe rousse".

The Torture of Silence

The Torture of Silence

1917

Director, Writer

5.2
Directing Writing

Hardly one of French filmmaker Abel Gance's masterpieces, The Torture of Silence nevertheless has more dramatic and psychological value than your aver...

The Right to Life

The Right to Life

1917

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

A young girl marries a financier knowing he has only a short time to live, so she can inherit his money.Her lover, who has made a fortune away in Amer...

Deadly Gas

Deadly Gas

1916

Director, Writer

5.0
Directing Writing

Hopson, a prestigious scientist, studies the effect of snake venom to cure many diseases of mankind. His son enlists in the army when the Great War br...

Le périscope

1916

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

Le périscope is a 1928 film

Le fou de la falaise

1916

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

Le fou de la falaise is a 1916 silent film

Un drame au château d'Acre

1915

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

Un drame au château d'Acre is a 1915 silent short

L'héroïsme de Paddy

1915

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

L'héroïsme de Paddy is a 1915 silent film

L'énigme de dix heures

1915

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

Guards are posted to protect various important figures who are threatened with a phone call, that by 10 p.m. the following night they will be dead.Som...

The Madness of Dr. Tube

The Madness of Dr. Tube

1915

Director, Writer

5.2
Directing Writing

A scientist develops a powder that he believes will have the effect of distorting reality for those who take it. To test its effect tries it out on hi...

L'infirmière

1914

Writer

Writing

L'infirmière is a 1914 silent film.

The Mask of Horror

The Mask of Horror

1912

Director, Screenplay

Directing Writing

A mad sculptor, searching for the perfect realization of "the mask of horror", places himself in front of a mirror after smearing blood over himself w...

A Tragic Love of Mona Lisa

A Tragic Love of Mona Lisa

1912

Writer

Writing
La Digue

La Digue

1911

Director, Writer

Directing Writing

La digue is a 1911 silent film

Le Portrait de Mireille

1910

Writer

5.0
Writing

A talented painter spends his vacation in Arles, where he paints a portrait of a beautiful Arlesian woman with whom he falls in love. The young girl i...

Molière

Molière

1910

as Molière jeune

4.4
Acting

A film about the life of Molière (1622-1673).

Molière

Molière

1910

Writer

4.4
Writing

A film about the life of Molière (1622-1673).

Jephté's Daughter

1910

Writer

Writing
The Death of the Duke of Enghien in 1804

The Death of the Duke of Enghien in 1804

1909

Writer

4.0
Writing

Directed by Albert Capellani.

Abel Gance's Magnum Opus

Abel Gance's Magnum Opus

N/A

as Self (archive footage)

Acting

Abel Gance's Magnum Opus was a documentary project put together by jdtspring. This project started at the beginning of 2024 and is a multiple volume s...