The Hess Collection is screening great art documentaries on select Sundays—Jeremey Ambers’ “Impossible Light” screens August 10
Artist Leo Villareal tests the lights for his fantastic installation “Bay Lights”— 25,000 LED lights on the side of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge—touted to be the world’s largest LED light sculpture, which officially opened on March 14, 2014. Filmmaker Jeremy Ambers tracked Villareal as the dream became a reality and his feature length documentary, “Impossible Lights” (2014), screens Sunday, August 10, at Napa’s Hess Collection. Image: courtesy Jeremy Ambers
“The Bay Bridge was the first thing I saw the day I moved to San Francisco, driving down Route 80 in a U-haul Truck,” recalls filmmaker Jeremy Ambers who was awestruck when he met Ben Davis, the driving force behind the seemingly impossible idea to transform San Francisco’s Bay Bridge’s western span into a light sculpture and one of the world’s largest art installations. Ambers’ acclaimed documentary, Impossible Light (2014), follows Davis and renowned American artist Leo Villareal and their team of designers, along with entrepreneurs, philanthropists, art enthusiasts and Bay Area optimists, as they set out to install 25,000 LED lights on the side of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge for an abstract dancing sculpture known as The Bay Lights. This impressive feature length doc, which captures the heart, soul and intense drama behind this $8,000,000 installation—to date, not paid for—is screening this Sunday, August 10, at 3 PM at Napa Valley’s Hess Collection as part of their wonderful summer series of art film screenings, presented in partnership with the Napa Valley Film Festival (Nov 12-16, 2014). Hess Collection Chef, Chad Hendrickson, will provide wine and appetizers, one more reason to see this amazing contemporary collection and take in the film. Click here for tickets and for more information, contact Hess events manager Ashley Cox 707 255-1144 x226.
Aurora Theatre Company’s “Salomania” deftly explores Maud Allan’s sensationalized 1918 libel trial with many modern day parallels, extended through July 29, 2012
My introduction to the acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley came last Wednesday when I attended Salomania by playwright and director Mark Jackson. The play had its world premiere on June 15, 2012 and has been so popular that its run was extended through Sunday, July 29, 2012. Aurora has been on my radar for some time. I’ve admired the bold artwork on their posters and postcards. Having interviewed two graphic artists this year—Paul Davis and Michael Schawb—who specialize in posters, I’ve come to appreciate the complexity of communicating a visual message that causes people to take note. Aurora does that. Its Salomania poster, created by Daniel Olmstead, features a graceful dancer in silhouette against an exploding blue field that is dominated by a squadron of black fighter planes—imparting feelings of lightness about to be overshadowed by ominous doom. That fits the play to a T.
Salomania explores the scandalous libel suit that the celebrated dancer Maud Allan filed against arch conservative British MP, Noel Pemberton-Billing in 1918, during the bleaker days of WWI. Pemberton-Billing’s newspaper, “TheVigilante,” had run a highly-sensationalist article, “The Cult of the Clitoris,” accusing her of being a lesbian, sadist, and German sympathizer. His evidence? She had played the title role in a private production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome, which was banned in England at the time. Allan, a San Francisco native, was a dancer who took Europe by storm in the early 1900’s with her version of the “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which she called “The Vision of Salomé.” She became notoriously known as “The Salomé Dancer.” The article was bate, meant to goad Allan into filing a libel suit so that Billing and his American cohort, Harold Spencer, could whip up the populace by disclosing the contents of a spurious “Black Book” that claimed that 47,000 leading British citizens were perverts and were being blackmailed into aiding Germany and thereby prolonging the war. While soldiers continued to fight and die in the mud of France, people back home read the latest on the salacious events of the trial. “How could I resist making a play about that?” said Mark Jackson.
Maud Allan (Madeline H.D. Brown) performs a scandalous dance in the World Premiere of “Salomania,” at the Aurora Theatre through July 29, 2012. Photo: David Allen
Like most good stories, it came to Jackson unexpectedly. In the course of researching Aurora’s acclaimed 2006 production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome, he came across the transcripts of the libel trial and found an eager supporter in Aurora’s Artistic Director, Tom Ross, with whom he had previously worked. Ross commissioned the play.
Salomania is challenging, engrossing, sobering and, at times, delightful. It’s as much about the past as it about today too. The story resonates with issues that have proved timeless—lack of good judgment in the face of blatant media manipulation, freedom of expression, homophobia, and intolerance.
Madeline H.D. Brown sublimely embodies Maud Allan, at times she appears to dance on air as she wafts across the stage exuding sensuality, strength, intelligence and rolling with the emotional punches she is dealt. Costume designer Callie Floor is to be commended for creating stunning replicas of Allan’s original daring and diaphanous costumes and the remarkable period costumes that the other characters wear. Mark Anderson Phillips brings the homophobic Pemberton-Billing to life, while Kevin Clarke humorously portrays the effeminate Judge Darling and the aged and frail Oscar Wilde.
The most memorable scenes are two intimate vignettes in which the characters divulge their dreams and dashed hopes and emotionally involve us in their inner world. Marilee Talkington shines as a nameless girl in bar, recently widowed, who is sharing an evening and a pint with a soldier, played by Alex Moggridge. (Talkington also doubles as Maud Allan’s friend and lover, Margot Asquith.) And towards the play’s end, I couldn’t get enough of Kevin Clarke as an aged Oscar Wilde in conversation with the defeated Maud Adams.
There’s enough rich material here for several plays: the courtroom and combat scenes are acted with flair and poignancy and the behind-the-scenes discussions at the newspaper fascinating, but they all remain largely on the surface. This would be countered if we came away with the feeling that we had a grip on the real Maud Allan. As it stands, we just don’t know enough about her inner world to get a solid handle on who she really was deep inside. This is critical given Allan’s lawsuit sought to address her tarnished public image and who and what she wasn’t. If Jackson can deliver more Maud, he’ll have a play with real lasting power.
Run-time: Two hours and thirty-five minutes
Cast: Madeline H.D. Brown is Maud Adams; Mark Anderson Phillips is Noel Pemberton-Billing, Alex Moggridge is Ellis William Hume-Williams; Liam Vincent is Lord Alfred Douglas; Anthony Nemirovsky is The Honorable Justice Wills; Marilee Talkington is Margot Asquith; and Kevin Clarke is Oscar Wilde.
Production Team: Written and Directed by Mark Jackson; Choreography by Chris Black; Scenery by Nina Ball; Costumes by Callie Floor; Lighting by Heather Basarab; Sound by Matt Stines; Props by Mia Baxter.
WRITER AND DIRECTOR MARK JACKSON BEHIND THE SCENES OF “SALOMANIA” AT AURORA THEATRE COMPANY
Details: For mature audiences only. Salomania runs through Sunday July 29, 2012 with performances on Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 2 PM and 7 PM; Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 8 PM; Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 8PM; and Sunday, July 29, 2012 at 2 PM. The Aurora Theatre Company is located at 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley. There are several parking garages near the theatre. Allston Way Garage, 2061 Allston Way, accessible via Center Street, has $3 parking with a validated theatre ticket. (Stamp is in the theatre lobby.) Tickets: $30-$48.
For more information, or to purchase tickets: www.auroratheatre.org or phone (510) 843-4822.
Interview: renowned artist and illustrator, Paul Davis, talks about his “Napoleon” poster, especially commissioned for the U.S. premiere of Abel Gance’s reconstructed silent film masterpiece
New York artist and illustrator, Paul Davis, who created the poster for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's exclusive screenings of Abel Gance’s “Napoleon” signed his posters at Oakland’s elegant Paramount Theatre on Sunday, March 25, 2012. Photo: Geneva Anderson
Abel Gance’s riveting silent film, “Napoleon,” presented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF), has taken the Bay Area by storm—and there are just two remaining opportunities to catch the reconstructed classic: this Saturday and Sunday at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. Equally amazing is the film’s poster, essentially a huge portrait of Napoleon, evoking the tri-colored French flag, created especially for the event by legendary artist and illustrator Paul Davis. Even if you’re not familiar with Paul Davis, you’re likely familiar with Paul Davis’ work, especially if you went to any Broadway or off-Broadway shows in the 1970’s or 80’s, where you would have seen his posters, or if you read magazines like Time, Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Esquire, etc., where he’s done both illustrations and covers. When the prestigious Centre Georges Pompidou opened in Paris in 1977, Davis was the first American artist to show his work there—his solo show was part of the museum’s opening festivities. His artwork is also included in MOMA’s poster collection. His career spans 50 plus years and his creative voice has helped define that world where art, illustration, design and typography all spill brilliantly into each other.
His Napoleon poster, too, is sure to become a classic: on the top is an evocative portrait of a young Napoleon, the man who would defend a nation during its greatest Revolution. Executed in rich hues of blue, with strands of seafoam hair framing his pensive face, the young leader stares imperiously—right at you and right through you. On the bottom, in red, there’s a subtle use of an epic battle scene from Napoleon’s Italian campaign which closes the film. Blazoned across the center in a gorgeous typeface called Eagle is “Napoleon” set off by a white backdrop. Full size posters and window placards are all around the Bay Area and, last weekend, a few were brought to Sonoma County.
Bruce Goldstein, of New York’s Film Forum, on the advisory board for SFSFF and handling the national publicity for the Napoleon event, suggested Davis for the poster. “All Paul’s posters have a real psyche,” said Goldstein, who first worked with Davis in the late 1990’s, when his company, Rialto Pictures, commissioned him to do the poster for the special re-release of Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937), one of the greatest movies of all time. “We needed something special, not a run of the mill poster, and Paul Davis, was the illustrator who came to mind who was worthy of Grand Illusion. And he delivered! I might also add that his image for Grand Illusionbecame the very first image used as a DVD cover by the Criterion Collection, which was quite an honor for Criterion.”
“Most movie posters today, even those for so-called art house films, are filled with clichés—it’s just ridiculous,” said Goldstein. “We didn’t want the Napoleon poster to be an advertisement but rather an enduring work of art in the tradition of the great poster designers of the 19th century, like Toulouse-Lautrec. You’ll see textual information, which had to be there, but you won’t see any critical quotes on this poster.”
“A poster makes an incredible impression and it’s really a very important factor in the decision to go and see a film,” said Anita Monga, Artistic Director, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, “This is an artwork that makes you want to see the film and that you’ll want to have afterwards to commemorate the screening. It’s all we’re using.”
I couldn’t wait to speak with Davis about his poster and I caught up with him at last Friday’s dress rehearsal for Napoleon at the Paramount Theatre.
How did you approach a poster design project like this?
Paul Davis: I first saw the film in 1981, when it was at Radio City Music Hall with a live orchestra and it was quite dramatic. I remember that feeling of being swept up in it, the emotions, but not so many of the details. I managed to download the whole thing from the internet on my computer and I really looked at it and that’s where I got most of my reference material from too. I knew I was going to do a portrait of Napoleon right away. It was really hard to find that right image–I did a half a dozen portraits before I did this one. This was from a frame right out of the film itself.
The creative process also has a lot to do with intention. When I set out to do something like this, I go to the material and I go as deeply as I can go, finding out what moves me and working off of that. I started on this project last summer and I had several versions and that’s how it’s done. Sometimes there’s a great film and it really suffers from this lack of attention and that always mystifies me.
Why are so many movie posters today absolute turn-offs?
I ask myself that all the time. You can look at a movie poster and you say, ‘I know that genre; I don’t want to see the movie.’ But these designers so often miss the point of the movie—they’re so interested in making sure that you know the genre and in capturing a given audience that they are unwilling to experiment in capturing what’s actually moving about that film. As a result, a lot of posters are negative advertising.
A film frame of French actor, screenwriter, film director and novelist Albert Dieudonné, who plays the adult Napoleon in Abel Gance’s silent film “Napoléon,” was the basis of artist Paul Davis’ limited edition poster that was commissioned by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival for its special Bay Area screenings of the newly restored masterpiece. Image: courtesy SFSFF
For me, what works about the Napoleon image you’ve created is that he is both looking at us and right through us, as if he’s fixed on more important things, which seems so appropriate. We have a glimpse of his internal world and there’s an almost filmic saturation of the colors.
Paul Davis: I do try to capture as much of the character as I can. There is an emotional quality as well. He’s looking out into the world. He was such an unusual character, so very confident and such a leader. People don’t do what he did without tremendous courage, audacity, and arrogance.
In terms of a subject for a portrait, it’s hard to take your eyes off Albert Dieudonné−those penetrating eyes and his total embodiment of a complex and driven personality.
Paul Davis: Actually, they weren’t sure they were going to cast him; he really had to convince Gance, who thought he was too old. He dressed up in the uniform and went over to visit him―they were friends―and he got the part.
The portrait that is so familiar of Napoleon though, that is in everyone’s mind, is the one of Napoleon with his hands in his coat, with that kind of permanent scowl, which is so grim. I wanted to make the poster a likeness of Dieudonné, with an echo of what we all know about Napoleon−that fierce grin on his face. Actually, if you look closely at the poster, at the face, you’ll a great difference in the whites of his eyes too. If you look at people’s faces and divide them, there are two different people in everyone.
So the inspiration is a film still, but you had a real vision of what it should convey.
Paul Davis: Well, I took the frames I liked off the film, literally hundreds and hundreds of them, and then I loaded them all in iPhoto and I studied them. I was really looking for very subtle types of emotion and when I finally arrived at that, I printed those out and drew from a few of those. I actually made several finished portraits. I was trying to depict that moment when he internalizes that he is the revolution, with him gazing upwards and having the light come from behind his head. I was working and working with that but I couldn’t get it―it wasn’t convincing. The one that I chose was the last one that I made. I knew I had it because it did everything I wanted it to do.
Beyond the idea of a portrait, how did you approach designing this?
For the battle scene at the bottom, I started with a chaotic scene from the film but it was so blurry and it didn’t have everything I wanted, so I started inserting figures and objects into that, that you could read and identify.
Would you say you’re very influenced by and even dependent on photos?
Paul Davis: Of course, but when I do the theatre things, if I could get access, I’ve always tried to take my own photographs and to spend time close to the heart of the performance. I try to see the person separately so that I can have an idea of their character. For me, I felt that I need to get to know them. I attempted that here too, to capture Napoleon’s personality.
Paul Davis designed the limited edition poster for the 1999 theatrical re-release of Jean Renoir's 1937 "Grand Illusion. His same poster image also serves as "Spine #1," the first DVD, for the Criterion Collection's elite collection of classic films. Limited-edition U.S. one-sheet, matte finish, 27 x 40 inches, created for the 1999 theatrical rerelease. image: courtesy Paul Davis
When do you add color? Also, how did you handle the division of space and how it all comes together?
Paul Davis: First, I compose the image and the color comes last. I painted the portrait blue and the battle scene red with Photoshop. I had the idea for the tricolor from the film itself because, at the end of the film, the screen is tricolor, pretty hard and intense―the left screen is blue; the middle is white; the right is red. The images are just sort of boiling over those colors and that’s the end of the film.
But before that, I basically have the two images in the computer and I set up the size of the poster and start playing with the scale so that I could make the battle scene wider or narrower or deeper or shallower. Then, I added the white in the center. I also had to add all that text at the bottom. At that point, it becomes more technical, just trying to fit everything in. I knew that I didn’t want any text above his face so I convinced everyone to put the title in the middle and everything else beneath that.
You’ve chosen a very simple typeface but the color makes it pop.
Paul Davis: That typeface is “Eagle” and it’s one of my favorites. I don’t pick them by name but there’s an eagle in the movie that keeps appearing, so this is the perfect typeface. It’s from the 1930’s and it’s very useful and you’d be surprised at how many places in the world that it appears. Once you start noticing those spiky m’s and n’s and the perfectly round o’s―it’s really gorgeous. Napoleon has this wonderful “o” in it and “n’s” on both ends and it’s such a great word that really works with that font.
What was the feeling you wanted to evoke though the typeface?
Paul Davis designed the poster for Joseph Papp's 1976 production of "The ThreePenny Opera," by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil, starring Raul Julia as Mack, and performed at the 1976 New York Shakespeare Festival. Image courtesy: Paul Davis.
Paul Davis: I wasn’t trying for nostalgia at all, maybe the opposite. I tried another typeface of Cassandre’s (pseudonym of the legendary French artist Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron) called “Bifur.” Cassandre was a great poster designer who did all those great 1920’s posters we know of steamships and so forth. Bifur is an experimental font from that era which I always wanted to use but haven’t yet. It just didn’t work for the poster, so I used Eagle instead, which is from also that era and from that same period in which Gance was working, that very modern age. The colorization was handled through Photoshop.
Sounds like you reply on your iPhone, Photoshop and the new design tools.
Paul Davis: Photoshop, an Apple computer, iPhone and quite a lot of software—it’s all standard for artists now. The only thing that is a little unusual about the work that I do is that I also do a lot of illustration and I also do design. The illustrators all want to know if I had to learn about type and the type designers all want to know if they have to learn about drawing. My attitude is why wouldn’t they want to know−it’s like consciously choosing to remain crippled.
Your website has a fabulous gallery of work. I recognize several of these images. Which are your favorites?
Paul Davis: The early theatre posters I did for Joe Papp―The Three Penny Opera and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Those were the first real theatre posters I did. That was over 30 years ago. I did most of these within a year or two of each other and I was exploring new ground and I was very receptive to trying many different things for new effects. To kind of begin a career with an opportunity like this was really good because it gave me the chance to do the type of work that I wanted to do.
How many movie posters have you done and how are they different from your theatre posters?
Paul Davis: There are different contractual agreements. In terms of film posters, I’ve done: Small Circle of Friends (Rob Cohen, 1980, starring Brad Davis, Karen Allen and Jameson Parker), Secret Friends (Dennis Potter, 1992, starring Alan Bates), Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937, starring Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Eric von Stroheim) and Napoleon. I’ve done quite a lot of sketches for movie posters that were rejected and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to do them. We’re doing another Grand Illusion poster for the 75th anniversary. They are doing a digital version of the original print, so I’m doing that too.
What makes a movie poster work for you?
Paul Davis: I really love the posters from the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s. They had very exciting graphics but they weren’t taken very seriously in terms of being an art form. Some movies had as many as 1,000 printed pieces that went with them to the exhibitor and, to capture different audiences, they would do two and three posters for some movies. They would also put little contests into the posters too to find out whether people were actually looking at them. They would print small things like, “Mention this when you come to the theatre and you’ll get a prize.” I was amazed at how intense some of these posters were and how creatively they were designed and how they made real statements. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, they used some of the very best artists in New York for these—like Al Hirshfeld. When it came to prizes, these artists never won any prizes for these things because I think they were considered kind a low form of art. That whole era, when they were churning them out and were so experimental, is very exciting for me.
Paul Davis’ 1968 portrait of Che Guevara, based on a photograph by Alberto Korda, became the February cover of liberal “Evergreen Review.” The public response was instant and intense—copies of the poster were defaced and a bomb was thrown into the Evergreen offices. 30 x 45 inches. Image: Paul Davis
What poster artists inspire you? I’ve read that you really appreciate Toulouse Lautrec.
Paul Davis: The best posterist at the time was Jules Cheret, known for his rainbow of color…an almost impressionistic splatter of color…but Lautrec, one of the very best artists, really breathed life into his art. And because he was wealthy, and could do what he wanted, he was such a great artist. Lautrec, Cheret and Cassandre—the high art they brought to the poster was unexcelled. So the poster, for me, really starts in France and then it goes to a lot of other places. I heard that Lautrec used to go and stay in the country with some friends of his and, every day at their house, he would write the menu for dinner and make a drawing and would do this in multiple. The woman who owned the house would throw them away afterwards. And apparently he never objected at all to her behavior. It just makes me sick to think of throwing out those drawings.
What are you working on right now?
Paul Davis: Two things. A promotion for a new project about Eleanor Roosevelt (a video) and I really want to do a portrait of Obama for the election. I had this idea four years ago but the Shepard Fairey inauguration poster just swamped everything and it was so good, very graphic, and you really remember it. I also thought I ought to do a poster of Mitt Romney too, just to be fair. Norman Rockwell did this. He did Nixon and John F. Kennedy and he did Eisenhower and Stevenson and he would do these portraits every 4 or 8 years, and he was so even handed. I really want to do this.
But it sounds like you’re not so interested in being even handed?
Paul Davis: No.
Do you have any personal connection to Napoleon?
Paul Davis: Well, I grew up in Oklahoma. In 1803; Napoleon sold that land, which included Oklahoma and 14 others states, in the Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson. If he hadn’t sold this, I might be French today. So that’s my connection.
If you could somehow go back in time to Napoleon’s era when he was the most important figure in world politics and the frequent subject of caricature, how might you have depicted him?
Paul Davis: I don’t know what I would have done. The fact is that they were sending English caricaturists to jail in France for what they did…but the satire back then was quite sophisticated. I recently saw an image at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in their exhibition, “Caricature and Satire From Leonardo to Levine” of a caricature done by the famous English artist, James Gillray, dated 1805, showing Napoleon and William Pitt, who was England’s Prime Minister, though they didn’t use that title at the time. The two of them are carving up the world―depicted as a big plum pudding with the Earth drawn on it. The thing that struck me as fascinating was that Gillray was criticizing the English military mandate in the same way that he was criticizing Napoleon. You saw Napoleon slicing off Europe and the
The political cartoon first appeared in England. Here two famous individuals, Napoleon and William Pitt, are the butts of the artist James Gillray, who is satirizing both France and England. "The Plumb-pudding in danger-- or State Epicures Taking un Petit Souper" 1805," colored engraving, 240 x 340 mm, British Museum, London. Image courtesy: British Museum.
English guy slicing off another side, like the Americas. Napoleon was trying to unite Europe and started out with a very noble cause, wanting to bring about real change. In the beginning, the French Revolution was supposed to bring liberty, equality and fraternity and it did remove a lot of obstacles to progress but it brought along a lot of horrible things as awful people came to power. Napoleon came in at the end of that and he was lucky that he didn’t get caught up in it, or killed. He seemed set to really change things but he became a total nepotist and had members of his direct family made kings (of Belgium, Italy and Spain) and that flew in the face of everything the revolution had fought for. I’m sure I would have found a way to comment on that, but it was also dangerous.
Paul Davis’ Artwork appearing in film and television: Paul Davis’ artwork has appeared in many movies and TV shows. When Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason share an apartment in The Goodbye Girl, it is decorated with Davis’s poster for the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Henry V. Davis’s poster of Che Guevara appears both in Brian De Palma’s Hi, Mom! and Rob Cohen‘s A Small Circle of Friends. In the film adaptation of John Guare‘s Six Degrees of Separation, Davis’s mural for New York City’s Arcadia restaurant is featured. Paul’s iconic poster for the Public Theater production of Three Penny Opera is on the wall of Jonathan Eliot’s apartment in the NBC sitcom The Single Guy. In the 2009 film Precious, Paul’s poster for the 1975 production of Ntozake Shange‘s For Colored Girls adorns the teacher’s apartment.
Click here to purchase a limited edition Napoleon poster by Paul Davis. (27” x 40” $30.00 and 11” x 17’ $15.00) Posters will also be available at all four screenings.
More about Paul Davis: There’s a very good article by Steven Heller about Paul Davis (click here to read) at AIGA, the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Paul Davis’ Napoleon poster was printed by Jeff Baltimore of XL Graphics, Inc., in NY.
Napoleon Event Details:
What: Silent film historian Kevin Brownlow’s 2000 reconstruction, the most complete possible restoration of 1927 5 ½ hour film in the original 20 frames per second, with the finale in polyvision, requiring 3 screens. The Oakland East Bay Symphony will be conducted by the eminent British composer, Carl Davis, whose score will be the live accompaniment to the film. This is the U.S. premiere for both the reconstruction and the music.
2 remaining performances: Saturday, March 31, 2012, and Sunday, April 1, 2012
Where: Paramount Theatre, Oakland
Time: All four performances begin at 1:30pm. There will be three intermissions: two 20-minute intermissions and a 1 hour, 45 minute dinner break starting at 5:00pm. View Places to Eat for nearby restaurant recommendations and make reservations in advance.
The film itself is 5½ hours long; with intermissions included, the show will let out at approximately 9:45pm.
Tickets: Buy tickets for all Napoleon performances here.
More Information: San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Abel Gance’s fabled “Napoleon” has arrived”—artist Paul Davis signs his “Napoleon” posters Sunday morning, March 25, 2012, at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre
New York artist and illustrator, Paul Davis, who designed the poster for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's exclusive screenings of Abel Gance’s “Napoleon” will sign posters at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on Sunday, March 25, 2012. Photo: courtesy Paul Davis
Yesterday’s press screening and final orchestra rehearsal of Abel Gance’s legendary silent film “Napoleon,” was an exhilarating all day affair at Oakland’s magnificent historical Paramount Theatre. I hadn’t seen “Napoleon” before and was blown away by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow’s restoration of the 1927 silent film classic—which added an additional 30 minutes of found footage and upgraded the film’s image quality substantially (particularly in tinting and toning) since its previous restoration, some 30 years ago. British composer Carl Davis’ new 5 ½ hour orchestral score, a pastiche of dramatic and inspirational music from the period and some new material, was played valiantly and with great emotion by the Oakland East Bay Symphony. It was also my first opportunity to meet acclaimed New York artist and illustrator, Paul Davis, who designed the limited edition poster for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s four exclusive screenings of this masterpiece, unseen in the U.S. for nearly 30 years. Davis’ compelling poster, which uses the colors of the French flag, is based on an actual film frame of Albert Dieudonné, the intriguing French actor who brilliantly brought the adult Napoleon to life on screen. Dieudonné plays Napoleon through age 26, when the film ends, just as the legendary young general is about to lead the French Army into Italy, marking the close of the 18th century. Napoleon became emperor in 1804 and died in 1821, having undone many of the principles he so ardently fought for as he rallied the people and brought France to glory. The poster’s lower section, in red, features Davis’ conception of the film’s final battle, which will be shown in its intended and unforgettable Polyvision panoramic version at the Paramount Theatre.
The festival is selling Davis’ iconic poster in two sizes–27” x 40” and 11” x 17’–and Davis will be signing posters on Sunday, March 25, 2012, at the Paramount Theatre from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., just before the film’s second screening at 1:30 p.m. Admission to the signing is free.
Artist Paul Davis with his Napoleon poster at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. Davis will be signing his posters, designed especially for the San Francisco Silent Film Society, on Sunday, March 25, 2012. Image: Myrna Davis
Stay tuned to ARThound for an interview with Paul Davis about his conception for the poster. Davis is perhaps best know for his iconic theater posters (including Three Penny Opera and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide…) for producer Joseph Papp. He also designed the poster for Film Forum’s 1999 screening of the rerelease of Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion, hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made.
Click here to purchase a limited edition Napoleon poster by Paul Davis. (27” x 40” ($30) and 11” x 17’ ($15) Posters will also be available at all four screenings.
Davis’ poster can be seen in Petaluma at the Petaluma Arts Center, the Central Market restaurant, Petaluma Pie Company, and Santa Rosa Junior College’s Petaluma campus in the Mahoney library and Ellis Auditorium.
Napoleon Event Details:
What: Kevin Brownlow’s 2000 reconstruction, the most complete possible restoration of 1927 5 ½ hour film in the original 20 frames per second, with the final polyvision, requiring 3 screens. The Oakland East Bay Symphony will be conducted by Carl Davis, whose score will be the live accompaniment to the film. This is the U.S. premiere for both the reconstruction and the music.
When: March 24, 25, 31, April 1, 2012
Where: Paramount Theatre, Oakland
Time: All four performances begin at 1:30pm. There will be three intermissions: two 20-minute intermissions and a 1 hour, 45 minute dinner break starting at 5:00pm. View Places to Eat for nearby restaurant recommendations and make reservations in advance.
The film itself is 5½ hours long; with intermissions included, the show will let out at approximately 9:45pm.
Tickets: Buy tickets for all Napoleon performances here.
More Information: San Francisco Silent Film Festival
ARThound 