Ridley Scott's Napoleon

[Zorral]

22 minutes ago, Padraig said:

The film, the Woman King, does show that films tackling less European/US centric stories can be made these days.  Not that it did that well but you just need an actor passionate about a project and a good script.  Its not impossible.

But getting any film made these days is challenging.

I watched that.  Also have read several biographies of her, none of which agree with each other on All the Points, of course.  Black academics have read things somewhat differently than white ones have, for one instance.

Napoleon was a brilliant man in many ways, with enormous energy and vitality (as well as a morass of being the smartest guy in the room -- because he often was, but not always -- see Russia, for instance).  What I admire about him, while deploring him in many ways, is how he ripped out all the vestiges of he Ancien Régime, replacing the royalist and Church systems in every area, which had survived for centuries, including the courts, with functioning, modern ones.

Yet he was blind about race and slavery, so much so he got rid of some the really fine officers and generals because they were mixed race, including Alexandre Dumas's father, destroying their careers, their prosperity and their lives.

What weird too about this film is that Josephine is played by a woman younger than Phoenix, depicted as being 14 years older than Napoleon, when she was 6 years older than Napoleon.  The movies, o my.  Some things never change.  It will take a female Napoleon no doubt to do that! 

Barbie, Swift, and now Beyoncé, are givin' it a try, it looks like. Ha!

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Zorral

[Padraig]

21 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Big historical epics have always been a bit niche. 

I suppose you mean (relatively speaking) historically accurate films? 

When Ben Hur was released, it was the second biggest movie ever (after Gone with the Wind).  Both of those are heavily fictionalised but i'd still put them in the historical epic bracket.

More recently, Gladiator was huge too but it again falls into the more fictionalised category.  Hollywood has struggled to repeat that success though.  We'll see what happens with Gladiator 2.

I'm not sure how fictionalised Lawrence of Arabia was (it must be less fictionalised than the other films I have mentioned) and it was successful at the time.

Oppenheimer is a historical epic, critically acclaimed, long, very successful film.  But you might put 20th century set films in a different category (partly because a film made in 1945 about Oppenheimer wouldn't have been seen as a historical epic).

[Zorral]

Doctor Zhivago was another very successful historical epic film.  So was El Cid.  The later part of the 20th C, and the 21st, haven't cared for them as much as audiences in earlier years did, it seems.  But there have been popular historical period television series in this century.

[IFR]

From all accounts, this movie exhibits a complete indifference to history and any sort of remotely accurate portrayal of Napoleon.

I think I'll not watch it with great enthusiasm. A shame though. Napoleon is a fascinating historical figure. Too bad Ridley Scott made this movie. His history of filmmaking is completely schizophrenic. Some movies feel like only he would be able to pull them off (Alien, and Blade Runner, and The Martian were all perfect for him). But some movies are just a poor fit. Hannibal for one. It looks like this is another one.

[BigFatCoward]

26 minutes ago, IFR said:

But some movies are just a poor fit. Hannibal for one. It looks like this is another one.

The reviews have been really good, what are you basing this on?

If its historical accuracy then who cares? It's a film, not a re enactment. 

Though it does seem so far that audiences like it less than critics. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by BigFatCoward

[The Bard of Banefort]

I liked the movie overall, but I think the problem was that the scope was just too wide. For a solid hour, I thought I was watching a dark comedy. There was a lot of deadpanning and deliberately awkward silences, and there were many scenes where one of the characters would say something irreverent or unexpected before quickly cutting to the next scene (“I found out my wife was a slut!”).

Then there were the (extremely well-done) battle sequences, when the movie switched to a serious war drama. The toxic romance, which is what the producers were promoting as the heart of the story, didn’t work for me because I never felt like we really got to know Josephine. She was on-screen a lot, but she didn’t feel developed as a character. 

Napoleon’s men apparently love him, but we’re never shown him bonding with them. He has a child who is seemingly forgotten by the end of the movie. Napoleon’s ego is supposedly what drove him to invade Russia in winter, but he didn’t seem much more egotistical at that point than he did earlier in the movie. By trying to fit so much into one movie, there wasn’t enough room for any of it to cultivate properly.

I have two battle questions, for anyone who might know the answer:

1. Why didn’t the Austrians realize they were standing on a frozen lake. . . in Austria? Wouldn’t they have been familiar with the territory?

2. How did Wellington defeat Napoleon? Did he lure the French out to be stampeded by the Prussians, or was the British army just better trained than expected?

[polishgenius]

47 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

1. Why didn’t the Austrians realize they were standing on a frozen lake. . . in Austria? Wouldn’t they have been familiar with the territory?

 

 

 

I think the answer is 'that didn't really happen'. In so far as it did- there's dispute about how many men really got caught in the lake- they weren't shooting at an army confidently standing on what they thought was solid ground, they were shooting at an already-defeated army routing in any direction they thought they could, which included over the frozen lake. 

[IFR]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The reviews have been really good, what are you basing this on?

The reviews haven't been good. 63 on metacritic and a 6.9 on imdb are mediocre.

More important is what the reviews say. The most glowing review is from The Guardian. Here is the second paragraph:

Quote

Scott cheekily imagines Napoleon firing on the pyramids in the Egyptian campaign as well as witnessing the execution of Marie Antoinette (but not the humiliation of Louis XVI by the Tuileries mob, which he might actually have seen). Out of deference moreover, Scott and his screenwriter David Scarpa suppress all mention of Napoleon’s reintroduction of slavery into the French colonies. But above all, there’s a deliciously insinuating portrayal of the doomed emperor from Joaquin Phoenix, whose derisive face suits the framing of a bicorne hat and jaunty tricolour cockade.

Reading this makes me hate everything about this reviewer and their taste, and loudly proclaims how obnoxious I'll find this movie. And reading the rest of the review further confirms this impression. 

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

If its historical accuracy then who cares? It's a film, not a re enactment. 

I care. In a proper satire, I can get behind abusing history thoroughly. I'll cite The Great as an example of a show I think does this very well.

It sounds like the tone of Napoleon is far too inconsistent to be successful as a satire though.

I'm familiar enough with the details of Napoleon's life that it would annoy me to see them misrepresented as this movie apparently does.

Edited November 23, 2023 by IFR

[Corvinus85]

8 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

1. Why didn’t the Austrians realize they were standing on a frozen lake. . . in Austria? Wouldn’t they have been familiar with the territory?

This isn't much of an argument. When snow covers a parking lot, the people who've been parking there each day for years completely forget where the markers are and park wherever.  (I haven't seen the movie yet)

8 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

2. How did Wellington defeat Napoleon? Did he lure the French out to be stampeded by the Prussians, or was the British army just better trained than expected?

Again, haven't seen the movie, but from what I know Wellington hid a part of his army in a forest, making Napoleon believe he could easily swat him. This made Napoleon overconfident and he delayed his attack giving the Prussians enough time to join the battle. And Wellington was also smart enough to lead Napoleon on until he found the right place for the battle.

[Darryk]

Gladiator is one of my favourite films.

Kingdom of Heaven I enjoyed the Director's Cut although a lot of people I know were bored by it.

Robin Hood was an absolute borefest that took a great folk legend and stripped it of all its magic.

So is this movie good or is it a borefest?

[The Bard of Banefort]

Another weird thing about this movie is that everyone had some version of a British accent except for Napoleon. I don’t know if JP’s accent just wasn’t working, but it may have been part of him hamming it up, like with the one weird laugh he kept doing.

[Zorral]

8 hours ago, IFR said:

The reviews haven't been good. 63 on metacritic and a 6.9 on imdb are mediocre.

More important is what the reviews say. The most glowing review is from The Guardian. Here is the second paragraph:

Reading this makes me hate everything about this reviewer and their taste, and loudly proclaims how obnoxious I'll find this movie. And reading the rest of the review further confirms this impression. 

I care. In a proper satire, I can get behind abusing history thoroughly. I'll cite The Great as an example of a show I think does this very well.

It sounds like the tone of Napoleon is far too inconsistent to be successful as a satire though.

I'm familiar enough with the details of Napoleon's life that it would annoy me to see them misrepresented as this movie apparently does.

As Someone Else not me, observed in another topic, if the planet and humanity survives the next few decades, "We can expect a great epic film about the current Israel-Palestine crisis which centers a love story, and nothing about the atrocities committed in common."

There are, or should be, certain ethical obligations observed by those creating entertainments to our best knowledge of history.  

Scott really went over the top the other way here, including there was no lake in the Battle of Austerlitz.  Yet here we are, with people arguing and criticizing how stupid soldiers were for fighting on a lake, when it was a series of ponds, etc., but NOT A LAKE.

It's particularly disgusting that he shows Napoleon hitting Josephine, which by every account he never did, or even wanted to. The fact was that Josephine did not want to divorce, but she eventually consented to the divorce for the sake of 1) Napoleon and her love for him; 2) and for his standing in France and Europe - he needed a legitimate heir to have a dynasty, which was his great dream -- and it would be, of course, good for her children and grandchildren.  Napoleon pressured and threatened the Pope in many ways over many things, and the Pope gave in, but he could not marry the Austrian princess and be married by the Pope and have her crowned empress by the Pope unless he was no longer married to Josephine.  Every bit of evidence shows Bonaparte being very kind, very generous and very concerned about Josephine in the years after the divorce -- and even wanting her company.

All in all, Scott's defiance of history is pretty awful, awful enough I could never enjoy it, admire it, and certainly not sit through three hours of it in one go in a theater among a buncha hooligans.  I may well watch or at least dip in, at some point when a streaming version comes my way (I don't do Apple, at least not yet -- Partner is pressuring me to get an Iphone, while ALL MY STUFF has ALWAYS been MS.  Argh.)

https://screenrant.com/napoleon-movie-true-story-changes-inaccuracies-fact-check/

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Zorral

[Werthead]

18 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

2. How did Wellington defeat Napoleon? Did he lure the French out to be stampeded by the Prussians, or was the British army just better trained than expected?

There's a whole bunch of explanations but, the general ones are that Wellington found favourable ground to fight the battle on, he intelligently used the farmhouse strongpoints to bog down the French advance, the nature of the battlefield gave good visibility so everyone could see WTF was going on (Napoleon's aura of invincibility sometimes meant wild rumours would sweep the battlefield where visibility was poorer, which could damage morale) and overnight weather delayed starting the battle until around 11, rather than early in the morning. The ground was muddy first thing and both generals wanted to be able to march over firmer ground and use cavalry. By also delaying the battle's start, Wellington gave more time for the Prussians to reach the battlefield (Napoleon perhaps should have attacked earlier, but he also saw the condition of the ground and the French had a harder job, attacking upslope).

The "British army" also consisted of a ton of Belgian and Dutch forces, and a lot of green British levies. There were a fair number of British veterans present (contrary to some reports, not rifleman R. Sharpe), and where they were present, they did a good job of keeping the younger troops buoyed up.

Britain also has a very rare advantage in cavalry: twenty years of constant warfare had denuded European stocks of good horses. The French still had a few, but the quality of British horses was notably superior, although their riders' battle experience was more limited (British field engagements in the Napoleon Wars were mostly limited to supporting actions alongside Portuguese and/or Spanish forces in the Peninsula War, Britain typically did not field massive field armies and huge cavalry formations because they didn't really have them).

There was also a key moment of mistiming in the battle: Napoleon had achieved tactical superiority on the battlefield (aside from his somewhat weird focus on taking Hougoumont) by mid-afternoon and was well on the way to winning the engagement through a relatively uncharacteristic steady application of pressure rather than a spectacular final finishing move. Marshal Ney, perhaps looking for such an opportunity (especially in the face of the Prussians arriving on the field), believed that Wellington's centre was exposed and close to collapse. With his infantry denuded in the attacks on the farms, he sent all his cavalry forces in one huge charge at what he believed was Wellington's buckling centre. Instead, Wellington's centre immediately formed squares in good order and mowed and bayoneted down the attacking cavalry (reportedly Napoleon yelled, "It's an hour too soon!" when he saw this unfolding). Most British artillery intelligently took cover in the squares, but at least one unit did not move (apparently the officer thought the troops were so shaky they'd just run off instead) and kept firing into the French cavalry's flanks whilst they tried not to get pinned on the squares; they were not numerous enough for the French to detach forces to run them off, but numerous enough to inflict significant casualties over time.

Also, the French artillery played a key role in most of Napoleon's victories (Napoleon himself being a veteran artilleryman), but at Waterloo they were surprisingly shit. They were not particularly mobile, used mostly to take potshots at the enemy from long range, and not used effectively. It's unclear why. Because Wellington was receiving French attacks, on the other hand, his artillery were blasting into the French ranks at close range and with a high degree of effectiveness.

An undersold feature of the battle was that, in terms of general over-arching strategy, Napoleon had sweet fuck-all chance of actually winning the war. France was far too badly broken, he had to pull on older troops because the cream of French youth for the past twenty years had been slaughtered on fields from Lisbon to Cairo to Moscow, and the entire Hundred Days campaign was a ride-or-day victory lap that had virtually no chance of success. Even as Waterloo was being fought, the Prussians were preparing more armies, the Russians and Austrians were mustering more forces, there was heavy internal dissent and there was zero chance of a far-past-his-best Napoleon holding out against them. On that basis, everyone present suspected this was Napoleon's last gasp, a far cry from him at the height of his powers with the entire French Empire behind him.

In the final analysis, the French did actually almost win, and it came down almost to a coin toss. Both Napoleon and Wellington agreed after the battle it was almost absurdly closely-balanced, and if any one factor had gone the other way, the entire battle could have shifted course.

[The Grey Wolf Strikes Back]

Saw it yesterday. Entertaining but not remotely accurate and far too short as well. Also, I felt the casting was a little off in that Vanessa Kirby looks so much younger than Joaquin Phoenix despite Josephine being a widowed single mother six years older than Napoleon being one of the more eyebrow-raising aspects of their relationship then and now. Speaking of Phoenix, he's a good fit for Napoleon at the end of his life but not when he's up and rising. Oh, and despite being the titular protagonist, I don't think we got much of a sense of who Napoleon was or what his impact on the world has been. Ditto re Josephine.

If its historical accuracy and reverence you want, Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon is a much better (if still longer) movie. Kind of surprised no one's made a thread for it actually.

Lastly, Scott's fragile ego can get stuffed. If you're going to make a major motion picture about one of the most famous men in history, don't be surprised when people call you out for taking creative liberties, especially the kinds that are completely antithetical to what actually happened. (I agree with @Zorral Napoleon would probably be horrified to see himself depicted as physically assaulting Josephine, much less in public.)

@Werthead

That's my understanding as well. That an hour or two would have made all the difference and that even if he won Waterloo it was going to take a miracle at that point for Napoleon to hold onto power. Dude should have accepted Metternich's offer back in 1813 to accept being Emperor within France's pre-revolutionary borders. 

[Corvinus85]

Is the Battle of Leipzig shown at all in the movie? That's what really broke Napoleon after his disastrous Russian campaign and it's the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

52 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Is the Battle of Leipzig shown at all in the movie? That's what really broke Napoleon after his disastrous Russian campaign and it's the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars.

I think it’s safe to say that you’ll get more historical accuracy playing Rise Of Nations -Napoleon expansion than watching this film….

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I think it’s safe to say that you’ll get more historical accuracy playing Rise Of Nations -Napoleon expansion than watching this film….

My COOKING is more historically accurate than this movie! 

[Heartofice]

Personally I am happy to overlook a bit of historical inaccuracy in the pursuit of telling a more compelling story, and if the overall tone and direction of the movie is consistent with itself and is trying to make a coherent point, then I think it is fine to smudge some details. 

The vast majority of the movie going audience is not going to know very much about Napoleon and so at the very least you give people a basic understanding of who he was and what he did.

Honestly I can't count the number of movies and tv shows I've watched the past few years where I've had to go back and google the actual details, because I understand that a movie is not a documentary, it is a story designed to entertain. 

Someone mentioned 'The Great' earlier, and that is a case where it only lightly touches on historical accuracy, with some ENORMOUS deviations from reality. It is however totally up front about it and one of the joys for me was that it piqued my interest in the time period and made me go and learn more. I think that is fine. 

Even now people are still debating the historical accuracy of Gladiator, but I'm sure that movie got people interested in the Roman period, so it's no bad thing.

[IlyaP]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Even now people are still debating the historical accuracy of Gladiator, but I'm sure that movie got people interested in the Roman period, so it's no bad thing.

My father groaned while watching the movie, despite not being a Roman scholar, as he knew enough history that it took him out of the movie. As did behaviour and dialogue that he felt belonged in a more contemporary film and would not have been spoken in that time. (The thumbs down thing also bothered both of us intensely.)

[Heartofice]

Just now, IlyaP said:

My father groaned while watching the movie, despite not being a Roman scholar, as he knew enough history that it took him out of the movie. As did behaviour and dialogue that he felt belonged in a more contemporary film and would not have been spoken in that time. (The thumbs down thing also bothered both of us intensely.)

Well exactly, and yet a lot of people loved that movie (not me, I thought it was pretty meh).

I think there is just a sort of 'movie reality' that accepts historical accuracy needs to be twisted and changed to make a more compelling story. For the vast majority of the audience I doubt it is a problem at all, and they will walk out of the movie feeling they learnt something.

There is a danger I guess that some might just assume what they saw IS accurate. I remember watching JFK when I was younger and never questioned whether it was true or not. It was a movie I thought, why would they make stuff up?!
 

15 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Another weird thing about this movie is that everyone had some version of a British accent except for Napoleon. I don’t know if JP’s accent just wasn’t working, but it may have been part of him hamming it up, like with the one weird laugh he kept doing.

Something I hadn't considered until recently listening to the Rest is History podcast is that Napoleon never had a french accent. It seems so obvious now, given where he grew up, but apparently he always had a pretty thick Corsican accent and I'm sure sounded quite odd to many of his soldiers.