Napoleon at Saint Helena

Napoleon on St. Helena is a German silent film directed by Lupu Pick - who also wrote the screenplay based on a design by Abel Gance - from 1929 The film is also known under the titles of St. Helena. Captured the Emperor in Germany, and The prisoner of St. Helena in Austria, is known.

Action

The last chapter in the life of the great Emperor. Napoleon is brought after the defeat at Waterloo at the decision of the British government on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he is subjected to petty harassment of his captors. Hudson Lowe, the British governor, makes him a hard time. Napoleon on St. Helena no more tasks, just waiting that growing old. He is first guided by a small, loyal following, but of which he scared away one by one.

In his loneliness he experienced again and again the great mistakes of his life at the Battle of Waterloo. Only the presence of Madame Bertrand illuminates his sometimes bleak existence has become. When Napoleon from the newspaper learns that his wife, the Austrian princess Marie Louise, by a strange man is expecting a child, he gets sick and dies.

Background

The film was produced from December 1928 to May 1929 in the Efa studios in Berlin, the exterior shots on St. Helena and in Marseille.

Lupu Pick took over the direction of Abel Gance, who wanted to make a third part of his great Napoleon film the movie originally. The buildings of the film designed Erich Zander and Karl Weber; the costumes created Emil Pirchan.

Criticism

"(...) No oil pressure poses, no rushing war visions, no wrong aufgelegtes heroic pathos. Willy Haas, who wrote the screenplay together with Lupu Pick, has waived any subsequently added sealed action effects. He holds the fabric as it the story has been handed down, again in an epic picture successes together, in the words spoken by Napoleon at St. Helena, grouped by itself to a harrowing monologue of loneliness. Of course, one could argue that this form of documentary representation, the film is not enriched as such. That he is a narrowing, narrowing down the cinematic imagination. And in fact has not been completely overcome by the director Lupu Pick the risk of monotony. But if one has to choose a spiritual experience between Abel Gance and Pick, between the film as costume theater and film, the decision is not difficult. (...) " Hans Sahl in: Monday morning, Berlin, November 11, 1929

The lexicon of the International film says that Napoleon " especially film- historical interest " was on St. Helena.

1929 in film Film score Fritz Arno Wagner Albert Bassermann Erwin Kalser Waterloo, Belgium Napoléon (1927 film)
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