Napoleon, review: blunt-force charisma from Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s dark, epic biopic

UK Style Yahoo ^ | 22 Nov 2023 | Robbie Collin

[Rummyfan]

If, at 85, Ridley Scott has reached the final season of his filmmaking career, Napoleon is the ideal work of wintry grandeur to mark it. Scott’s 28th feature is a magnificently hewn slab of dad cinema with a chill wind whistling over its battlefields and round its bones: its palette is so cold, even the red in the tricolore is often the shade of dried blood.

Spanning 32 years, from the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 to its title character’s death on St Helena in 1821, it casts Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise, reign and downfall as both a prickly psychodrama and a sweeping military epic, in which the intimate lives of its central players and the fate of France itself become instantly and anxiously entwined.

Napoleon himself is played with startling blunt-force charisma by Joaquin Phoenix, who is working again with Scott for the first time since 2000’s Gladiator. Phoenix’s undisguised soft Californian accent is one of a number of details that might irk historical sticklers – television’s Dan Snow has already chimed in with a list of inaccuracies, to which Scott’s not unreasonable response was “get a life”. But on screen it’s oddly ideal, reinforcing the idea that this Corsican roughneck can never fully settle into the role for which history has him picked out.

We get the measure of the man almost instantly at the Siege of Toulon, as the French Republican forces lay siege to the British-occupied harbour fort. In the dead of night, as Napoleon leads the advance, a cannonball tears through the shoulder of his horse – the film earns its 15 certificate fast – though almost before he hits the ground he hurriedly barks “I’m OK,” and strides on, shaken but resolute, and smeared with the blood of his steed.

[Jolla]

I agree with your thought on the battle scenes. I was a Marine and been to Waterloo (as well as Gettysburg and Antietum) and it is hard for me to imagine what 200,000 men fighting for 6-7 hours would look like covering that much area, especially presenting only 10 minutes of the battle. The pyramid shots were disappointing and told my wife he never lead cavalry. On all these points I do agree with you.
What are your thoughts on the battle depictions in the 1970 movie Waterloo with Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer?
Yes, a big Napoleon fan, been to Invalids 6 times.

[coalminersson]

you might enjoy this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napol%C3%A9on_(1927_film)

[coalminersson]

Origin of the name Napoleon

Naturally, its etymology has been studied extensively. The hypothesis favoured by specialists is that “Napoleon” came from the Italian “Nevoleone”, itself from “Neapolis” (Naples) and “leone” (lion).

[coalminersson]

Origin of the name Napoleon
Naturally, its etymology has been studied extensively. The hypothesis favoured by specialists is that “Napoleon” came from the Italian “Nevoleone”, itself from “Neapolis” (Naples) and “leone” (lion).

[Firehath]

there’s napoleans everywhere

they’re called liberals

hubris vs hebrews

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4190149/posts?q=1&;page=1

[Jim Noble]

Napoleon California accent, saying "OK", etc, etc

It may come as a surprise, but while Bonaparte was NOT from California and did NOT say "OK", he ALSO did not speak English, he actually spoke French with a Corsican accent.

Everyone's a critic.

[coalminersson]

IT Would SEEM OUT OF CHARACTER FoR NAPOLEON TO DESTROY OR DAMAGE HISTORICAL EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS. I think he took a few obelisks back to Paris.

When his army marched into Italy he sent a list of 100 works of art to the pope and said wrap these for travel we will take them to Paris. (see the Louvre).

Napoleon had 2 archaeologists with him. He put them in charge of the Forum and other historic buildings. That is why Rome has what it has today, 220 years after he took Rome.

Prior to napoleon for centuries it was a fad in England and Germany for rich people to have Roman statues, most taken out of the Forum area. The forum is down a level from the street on the eastern side. people came by and dumped trash into the forum for centuries. The popes took stones from the Colosseum (a pagan place) for St Peters. Napoleon stopped all of that.

[Jim Noble]

since it was originally a French Colony

Sold to Thomas Jefferson by Bonaparte himself in 1803.

[coalminersson]

OK I have read every comment so far. Maybe someone will make Napoleon or Patton with no dead soldiers or animals. kind of a woke war movie. Or as Peter Sellers famously said, Gentlemen there is no fighting in the War Room (and no deaths in war).

[coalminersson]

In the 80s I saw the French movie Napoleon , made in 1927, at a theater in Sacramento. It was over 5 hours. They gave us a 2 hour intermission to get dinner.

Here in Italian are some clips from the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU1j0mnIEAA

I enjoyed the work. Not bad for 1927. Battles in split -tri-screens and sepia. Took him from a young boy to death.

If you like the subject you might be able to find this and stream it. Or maybe an old school DVD.

Enjoy.

[discostu]

I wouldn’t say he stopped all of that. I’d say he did it differently. I mean he still looted stuff. And, in the end, he was still a general. If the British forces had been dumb enough to field with a pyramid at their back (which would be dumb, that would get in the way of maneuvers) and he saw a tactical advantage in hitting it he probably would have. He might have had enough respect for history to complain about them putting him in that position, but a general’s job is to win and if some historical building gets blown up in the process that’s unfortunate.

Funny thing you mention the Coliseum, they historically grossly inaccurate re-enactments of battles there too. Taking real historical events and people and making “good stories” that aren’t terribly accurate out of them has a very long history. It’s literally what storytellers have done as long as there have been storytellers.

[Paal Gulli]

"Lots of French named places in Louisiana
since it was originally a French Colony."

No it wasn't.

Originally it was home to 18 tribes of American Indians.

[Paal Gulli]

I finally figured out how they do that. I was watching the final battle scene in "My Name Is Nobody" and it hit me. So I re-watched that scene in "Blazing Saddles," and, yep, same thing.

The rider yanks on the reins on the one side and simultaneously leans to the other side. For some reason this appears to cause the horse to lose its balance and fall in the direction the rider is leaning.

In "Blazing Saddles," watch in slo-mo and you can see the rider run his hand WAY up on the right rein as Mongo is drawing back to throw the punch. Then he jerks the snot out of the rein as the punch is thrown, and basically tries to fall off on the opposite side.

In "My Name Is Nobody," Henry Fonda was shooting the dynamite the riders of The Wild Bunch were carrying in their saddlebags. All the riders to either side of the explosion (from the camera's perspective) used this trick to make their horses fall way from the explosion. And they used Yakima Canut's Running-W trip on the ones that were between the explosion and the camera, so they fell directly away from the blast and toward the camera.

[coalminersson]

The Italians give Napoleon and his two staff credit for preserving the forum as they saw it in 1803 is basically what we see today. How many 18th and 19th century armies traveled with archaeologists?

I remember a description of a naval battle re-enacted in the Colosseum after they flooded it. Maybe 4th century or earlier. Best wishes!

[Paal Gulli]

"He was hardly French when he first started

Had to learn the language"

The same could be said of every French-speaker who ever lived.

[Paal Gulli]

"Sure looks like that buff dies In apocalypse now too"

That actually was food prep for the Filipino extras post-production cook-out. They just happened to have the cameras rolling, and decided to fit it into the film.

/sarc

[Paal Gulli]

"I bet you would not like THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE both the 1936 and 1968 versions."

The Internet rumor is that 100 horses died in the filming of the chariot races in the 1st remake of the movie "Ben Hur" (1925). Or was it 150? Ask any vegan and they'll tell you it was nearer 11,000. Regardless, it likely was dozens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Hur:_A_Tale_of_the_Christ_(1925_film)

[discostu]

Well keeping in mind that archaeology as a discipline didn’t even exist until the 15th century. And then of course a lot of that was “this is neat, we should take it”. The biggest shift you get with Napoleon was “we should try not to blow up the stuff we can’t take”. Which is cool.

The naval battles in the Coliseum were cool largely because they basically had to invent a bunch of water handling methods that we still use today to flood and drain the thing. But they also did non-naval battles. It was really just a logical progression. Having slaves kill each other (well, not actually that much killing, gladiator slaves were expensive, looking like they might kill each other while mostly not hurting each other was more common) had gotten boring. How do we spice that up? Tell a story. What story? Well we can put them in costumes and say they’re re-enacting this battle. Brilliant. And of course this tradition continued on with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. And is still happening today in various “old west” places like Tombstone just down the street from me. We do love us some hopefully safely re-enacted battles.

[coalminersson]

thanx

[Pelham]

“He was Corsican which was part of the Republic of Genoa for a long time.”

Andrew Robert’s biography of Napolean says that the Buonaparte family originally came from Italy. IIRC they had lived there for a few hundred years by the time of Napolean’s birth. Corsica didn’t become part of France until 1768.