Ridley Scott
Napoleon

A very unpleasant feeling comes after having watched a film as disappointing as “Napoleon” by Ridley Scott. Certainly, making a film about Napoleon Bonaparte is not an easy task, considering the historical importance of such a character. Even Kubrick intended to make a film on this subject but preferred to give up, and anyway, the history of cinema does not offer such significant titles. The same “Napoleon” by Abel Gance, a silent film released in 1927, does not stand out for originality (apart from certain technical virtuosity for those times, which are now outdated), while I remember a movie like “Desirée,” released in 1954 with Marlon Brando in the role of Napoleon, being very taken by a romantic infatuation for the woman in the title. Nothing special, then.

Ridley Scott, who made his debut with an interesting and engaging work like “The Duellists” in 1977, could have done something better with a character for whom it might have been worth making a TV series or a film of epic duration. Instead, over the course of two hours and thirty-eight minutes, we witness a summary account of Napoleon's rise to power from 1793 until his death in 1821, in exile imposed by the English on the island of Saint Helena. And fictionalizing quite a bit, as a lot of space is given to the relationship between the protagonist and the noblewoman Josephine de Beauharnais.

Not to detract from the private dimension of the historical character, the events presented leave one somewhat dubious, because Napoleon may not have been a faithful and affectionate man, but that a strong affection remained between the two, despite mutual infidelities, must mean something. Certainly, it is entirely fanciful that Josephine de Beauharnais would send a gallant invitation in English to the illustrious Corsican (but aren't we in France at the end of the '700s? Well..).

And also the historical facts of Bonaparte’s political and social rise are partial and completely made up. Napoleon was not present at the guillotining of Queen Marie Antoinette, nor did he have the pyramids shelled during the Egyptian campaign, and neither did he do the same to the retreating Austro-Russian troops on a frozen lake near Austerlitz (a historic urban legend coined by his enemies). And these are the most glaring historical inaccuracies, to which I would add a hasty mention of the Italian campaign and the complete omission of the grueling war between the French occupation troops and the Spanish resistance, who waged a furious guerrilla war against the Napoleonic units stationed in Spain.

Certainly, there was a lot of material to deal with in the film. But the biggest flaw that stands out is that we see a Napoleon posing so much that he becomes a caricature of himself. And this is probably how he appears to a director like Ridley Scott, an Englishman convinced (as the English usually are) that the Corsican general, who later became Emperor of France, was a dangerous “bogeyman” for Europe and the entire world. And surely he was for the monarchies of the time, as he was a man of non-noble extraction who had risen to power in revolutionary France of the Third Estate (today's bourgeoisie). But all of this (a significant example of social mobility and ascent) should by now be accepted and no longer controversial.

Undoubtedly, from a technical point of view, the film boasts a certain technical mastery in depicting the mass scenes during the battles of that time. But for the rest, it is a questionable representation of the character Napoleon, played by an actor like Joaquin Phoenix, usually very intense and versatile, but here very one-note with a predominantly frowning expression, as if Napoleon were angry about waking up on a rainy and heavy Monday. Such a general and statesman, who historians unanimously say was charming and seductive, how could he have led the French almost to the ends of the earth in defense of the homeland and in the name of the revolutionary ideals of 1789?

No, it cannot hold up, and Ridley Scott offers us a film as sumptuous as it is disappointing.