Champagne Brimoncourt has announced its financial support for the revival of Abel Gance’s Napoleon, the colossal seven-hour epic about the “little corporal” who became Emperor of the French. The fully restored work is being broadcast in its “Grande Version” for the first time in prime time by France 5 this Friday, November 22.
“Impossible is not French”.
It’s a proverb as apt for Napoleon as it was for filmmaker Abel Gance and his occasional patron Champagne Brimoncourt. Located in Aÿ, in a terroir classified as 100% Grand Cru, this house was relaunched by a former notary from scratch, and is now consideredone of the finest contemporarysuccess stories in Champagne.
Presented as an official selection at the Cannes Classics 2024, Napoléon vu par Abel Gance, considered to be the benchmark film on Napoléon Bonaparte, received a standing ovation last July from the 6,000 spectators present at the preview screening at La Seine Musicale, near Paris.
Bought out in 2008, Champagne Brimoncourt isone of the sponsors of the restoration of this black & white silent film, released in 1927. Behind this choice are shared values and, above all, a bon vivant emperor renowned for his love of champagne. The House is planning a special cuvée dedicated to Napoleon in 2025, to celebrate the 220th anniversary of his Sun of Austerlitz (1805).
A champagne-loving emperor
Some may criticize Champagne Brimoncourt for its split between monarchy and empire. After all, the House claims an identity inspired by the Regency spirit of the 18th century, which made champagne “the brilliant friend of fine tables, the Spirit and an art of living”, according to its website.
But as its buyer, Alexandre Cornot, a wine and history enthusiast with almost obsessive standards, had previously said, “even if it means getting beaten up, let’s have some panache”.
A former naval officer by family tradition, this notary, who was once an art dealer in New York, had the crazy idea of relaunching the Brimoncourt brand in 2008.
But rather than exploit the existing, dormant chivalric name of a family of Marne winegrowers, he chose to start from scratch. “Brimoncourt is our tribute [to] the cardinal values of champagne: elegance, sharing, independence and lightness. ”
His idea? To offer a champagne wine with a serious production style… but one that doesn’t take itself too seriously. This extravagance is reflected in both the concept and the design, borrowing here and there from the codes of great artistic movements such as Art Deco to create an apron offered in a gift box. “I’m sensitive to the artistic side of champagne. It brings beauty, festivity and lightness to life,” Alexandre Cornot told specialist media outlet Terre de Vins back in 2014.
A self-taught entrepreneur, Alexandre Cornot has surrounded himself with the right partners (associates, business angels, shareholders) to help him in this crazy adventure. The former notary disbursed 7 million euros to launch the business and a further 3 million to establish its headquarters in Reims, on the prestigious Boulevard Lundy. Four “emblematic” cuvées were born: extra brut, brut régence, rosé and blanc de blancs, later supplemented by vintages. These are made on the premises of the former Plantet printing works, based in Aÿ.
In 2015, the House joined forces with Rothschild France Distribution, Baron Philippe de Rothschild’s subsidiary in charge of marketing the Group’s wines and those of its partners, such as Pol Roger. The results were immediate: production increased eightfold between 2014 –the date of the first commercialization – and 2017. By 2023, the House had produced 300,000 bottles. Distributed in France, notably at Monoprix, but also in Germany and the UK, before soon daring Brazil and Japan.
The values of audacity, tradition and modernity that the Champagne House reflects in director Abel Gance’s impossible ambition, overcoming the mourning of his first wife Ida Danis, who died in 1921, and his Napoleon, a lover of golden effervescences.
Champagne, the elixir of happiness, issabre-rattled for the first timein the film, in the sequence for the ball given by Joséphine de Beauharnais, where the whole of Paris celebrates the return to life and merrily gets drunk, after the years of the Terror.
Emperor Napoleon had a close relationship with champagne, which came to symbolize his era and lifestyle. It is even said that this great lover of the beverage had cases sent to his soldiers to celebrate their victories. The elixir was also served at the Emperor’s coronation, and at all the Empire’s banquets and celebrations.
A titanic fresco
For his part, Abel Gance also developed an obsessive demand, embarking on a two-year, 15-million-franc shoot for his film on the figure of Napoleon. The title role falls to a certain Albert Dieudonné, fascinating with his penetrating gaze. In seven hours of film and 25 chapters, the French director and screenwriter traces the emperor’s wild rise from childhood at the Brienne military school to the first Italian campaigns. A genius inventor, the filmmaker multiplied cinematographic effects, including alternate editing, light filters and onboard cameras. We owe him the very first “split screen” in the history of cinema.
The only thorny problem was that Abel Gance had not foreseen the advent of talking pictures, which meant that his film dedicated to Napoleon was almost obsolete by the time it was released in 1927. So much so that, of all the sequels planned to cover the Napoleonic epic, only Austerlitz was released in 1960, before his death in 1981.
A bedside film for contemporary directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, the long-forgotten film, which underwent 22 versions and five silver restorations between 1953 and 2000, required a major digital restoration of its seven-hour Grande Version, considered to be the definitive version as intended by the filmmaker himself.
It took some sixteen years of meticulous work to bring this cineclub Napoleon back to life in 2024. Conducted by the Cinémathèque française under the direction of director and researcher Georges Mourier, with the support of the CNC, the rebirth of this silent masterpiece was made possible thanks to public and private funding, including that of the Maison dse champagne Brimoncourt.
A new 1500-page score (one of the longest in history) was created especially for the film by composer Simon Cloquet-Lafollye. It was brought to life thanks to Radio France and the talent and complementarity of its musical ensembles – the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Chœur de Radio France and the Orchestre National de France.
Watch or re-watch this anthology film this Friday, November 22 at 9pm on France 5, and on france.tv, for 30 days. A screening at the Cinémathèque française is also scheduled for Saturday November 30 at 2.30pm. Last but not least, Potemkine Films is releasing the film on DVD and Blu-ray as a Christmas gift.
Read also > [Luxus+ Magazine] These winegrowers who make champagne sparkle… until Aube (Part 1/3)
Featured Photo: © Pathé/La Cinémathèque Française
