Thanks for finding me and commenting J. J.! And thanks for your overview and review — very helpful. If I ever watch again, I’ll definitely think about the shorter cut. Agreed that the timeline is not super-clear, though it obviously spans a long time (decades by my read).

Glad you found my overview of the restorations helpful. I wasn’t able to find a full summary of each part online, so I created it myself – I hope it was accurate. I had trouble determining the passage of time in the second half of the film.

Thanks, Hunter. I added a little spoiler warning at your suggestion.

The natural entry points on Gance’s silent epics are either J’Accuse (his first) or Napoleon (his last and most famous), so naturally I went with the middle one. (The real reason is that it showed up on my slow crawl through the chronological listing of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die.) I’m excited to watch Napoleon someday, but also excited to watch some non-7-hour films in the meantime. Actually, our friend Gavin has tickets to the premiere of the restoration in July, and I’d probably be flying across the Atlantic to join him if I didn’t have two kids that require annoying stuff like being fed and supervised.

I actually own La Fin du Monde as an outgrowth of my interest in 30s disaster films, but haven’t watched it yet.

Not a real criticism, but don’t want you to get yelled at: might append a spoiler warning. I mean, I know, I know, I do…