Ridley Scott’s Napoleon

 

So I was genuinely excited a few months back when I first learned that a major motion picture of the life and career of Napoleon Bonaparte would be released in November. This was completely under the radar for me; I hadn’t read or saw anything about it on the webs until I saw the trailer while watching Oppenheimer in the theater with the wife last summer.

I was cautiously optimistic. Why? I’ll get into that in a moment.

I’ve written elsewhere here about my obscure interest in the French Emperor. The “First Antichrist” if Orson Welles and Nostradamus are to be believed. Might have something to do with the old rags-to-riches story. Or military genius. Boldness. Or the influence of a favorite history teacher at college.

I’ve read two thick biographies of the man (one around 1995 and the other in 2017) and a detailed manual on his military campaigns. I’ve also been moseying my way through Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series. Sharpe is an English rifleman who fights his way through life and primarily against the Emperor’s French over the course of 15 years, in India, Spain, Holland, and, later I guess, St. Helena. Haven’t read the last novel as I’m only 8 books through the 13 Santa bought me two years ago, but I think Sharpe meets Bonaparte at the end of the General’s short life, in exile in the middle of the Atlantic.

Hence the excitement of a legitimate big screen adaptation of the Napoleonic era.

However … (and it’s a big however …)

This is Hollywood we’re talking about here. 2023 Hollywood.

And it’s Ridley Scott, as director.

Neither have been known to scrupulously adhere to reality in their historical epics. Much has to be sacrificed at the altar of Agenda. I am fearful that what thousands of people will see on the big screen will be some ignoramus’s idea of what Napoleon should have been like.

I am worried about –

The casting of Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon. Too old and probably too tall, and rockin’ an American accent. I like him and his movies, but I’m on the fence about this.

The irresistible temptation to make Josephine a girlboss, the real “power” behind the throne.

The other irresistible temptation to make Napoleon, a white man, a brutish, stupid neanderthal. (I do recognize the arguments against his life’s actions and works, but by no means could he be called a brutish, stupid neanderthal.)

The inaccuracies in battle tactics. I already read that the “squares” the infantry form in the flick to defend against cavalry attacks do not align with how they formed in the real world; indeed, in the movie they’d probably wind up shooting each other rather than the attacking enemy.

The dreary color saturation and dirtiness of the film. I realize that the battlefield is not the optimal place for cleanliness, but I gather everyone in the palaces and in the towns will look grimy, stinky and unhygienic.

(Plus, I heard an interesting theory that filmmakers tint their movies in different colors to psychologically affect the way the viewer interprets what’s happening on the screen, or the “message” they want to convey, and some movies are tinted differently depending on which country the film is being marketed to. Don’t know much about this, but it is interesting enough for me to look into the phenomenon.)

We’ll see. I may have to sneak into a movie theater myself on the second weekend of release to check it out, before seeing it with the Mrs. or the not-so-little Little Ones.