Gance, Abel

Gance, Abel (1889-1981), French film director, who was profoundly influential, both as an innovator and as a technician, in the field of film-making. Born in Paris, Gance was attracted initially to the theatre (he was an admirer of Sarah Bernhardt). A self-taught man of genius, he quickly took to writing scenarios and making films, and his early creations, such as Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother, 1917; remade in 1932) and La Dixième Symphonie (Tenth Symphony, 1918), are characterized by a delirious imagination and exceptional visual perception. He took the revolutionary use of montage introduced by D. W. Griffith and pushed it to extreme limits in J'Accuse (1918; I Accuse), which was remade in 1937, and in the powerful and melodramatic La Roue (The Wheel, 1922). On the latter, he was credited with raising cinema to the status of an art form.

Gance was a far-reaching pioneer: he invented new filmic techniques, such as mounting the camera on a sledge or a horse, the use of multiple superimpositions, rapid cutting, and the triple screen (a forerunner of the wide-screen format). He also predicted the introduction of sound. His most celebrated film is the full-length lyrical silent epic, Napoléon Vu par Abel Gance (Napoleon as Seen by Abel Gance, 1927). In 1980 Francis Ford Coppola presented the newly rediscovered film with accompaniment by a 60-piece orchestra, and it is now regularly screened to capacity audiences.

Gance's later films included La Tour de Nesle (The Tower of Nesle, 1954), and Austerlitz (1960; The Battle of Austerlitz), but they met with little success. His last years were marred by disillusionment, and he died almost forgotten by the French cinema industry to which he had contributed so much. Gance was, however, made an Officier of the Légion d'Honneur, a Commandeur of the Ordre National du Mérite, and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.