A few films ago I shared some thoughts about that category of directors who have reached the age, maturity, celebrity and financial independence where they have nothing left to prove or conquer, and who can afford to make almost any film project they want. Ridley Scott also belongs to this category, along with Wim Wenders and Martin Scorsese, whose films I have seen recently. Like them, he doesn’t seem to have any thoughts of retiring or slowing down. ‘Napoleon‘ (2023) is a grand undertaking, and a sequel to ‘Gladiator’ is already in production. I confess that I came to the viewing with quite a few apprehensions inspired by the negative echoes of various kinds related to this film that reached me and that I hoped that they would be disproved. Unfortunately, for the most part, the fears turned out to be justified. ‘Napoleon‘ is a lavish production, in which a lot of money and talent have been invested, but which proves, for the most part, to lack coherence and emotion.
Napoleon may be too big a personality for one movie. Stanley Kubrick might have made the great Napoleon film, but death put an end to his plans, and his script is now being developed by Steven Spielberg into a multi-hour television series. Ridley Scott‘s ‘Napoleon‘ also has, by the way, in the streaming version, about four hours of duration. I viewed the version distributed in cinemas, cut to a little longer than two and a half hours, a duration which today is considered the ‘norm’. The story follows Napoleon from the Terror period after the French Revolution to his exile and death on the island of Saint Helena. We follow his political rise, greatness and fall, and follow him in some of the battles that established him as one of the greatest military leaders in history. However, all these are collateral narratives for the main thread which is the love story between Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais, who became Joséphine Bonaparte, his first wife and his only great love, according to the script but also the accounts and documents of the era.
In my opinion, historical liberties are allowed in fiction films, including biopics. History is learned from books or museums, not from movies. Screenwriters can take whatever liberties they want and feel that serve the artistic truth of the film. For example, the opening scene of ‘Napoleon‘ shows Captain Bonaparte witnessing the execution of Queen Marie-Antoinette. It is not an authentically historical scene, but the idea of the Napoleonic demarcation from the tumultuous period of the French Revolution is well served. So I don’t mind the many other liberties that the script of this film allowed itself, abundantly signaled in the comments of connoisseurs in the details of French history. However, the general impression is one of superficiality and recourse to anecdotes, especially regarding the description of the other sovereigns of Europe from that period. The emperors of Austria and Russia are rather caricatures. Too many other characters appear for a scene and disappear, and even those with whom the script was more generous are sketchy. The writers apparently relied on viewers’ general cultural knowledge to fill in what the film doesn’t say about historical figures like Talleyrand or the Duke of Wellington. The scenes on the battlefields are the most successful in the film, in my opinion, from the bloody description of the victory at Toulon to the disaster (for Napoleon) at Waterloo – detailed, spectacular, clear, with an almost naturalistic realism, which reproduces the historical landscape as well as the pain and cruelty of the battles. The main line of the film – the love story between Napoleon and Joséphine is the one that disappointed me. Right here, for the first time in a while, it seemed to me that Joaquin Phoenix did not create an extraordinary role. The rough manners and impulsive nature attributed to Napoleon seemed to me exaggerated. After all, the character was not a sergeant but an army general and descended from a family of small Italian nobles. Vanessa Kirby is, on the other hand, a revelation. The actress manages to convince that she dominates the relationship from a sentimental point of view. The problem is again with the script. For example, I do not understand why, if she was presented in counterpoint to Napoleon, the role of patron of the arts played by Empress Joséphine was not mentioned. It was she who transformed many of the palaces of French power into artistic centers and future museums open to the public. At the end of the day, in short, the love between Napoleon and Joséphine which should have been the emotional axis of the film left me cold. History says that the name of the empress was the last word uttered by Napoleon on his deathbed. The fact is mentioned, in writing, after the last scene of the film. Uncinematic and too late to resuscitate the viewers’ emotion.