Ridley Scott’s historical epic ‘Napoleon’ falls short
Support The Daily Orange this holiday season! The money raised between now and the end of the year will go directly toward aiding our students. Donate today.
Ridley Scott took on an intimidating challenge when attempting to capture the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte. The French emperor and military tactician’s staggering ambition, resulting in a series of legendary victories and devastating defeats (as this film notes, over 3 million people died during the Napoleonic Wars), can only be met by an equally ambitious filmmaker.
Enter Scott, the “Gladiator” and “Kingdom of Heaven” director with considerable experience in historical epics. He forgoes simply recreating Napoleon’s life with accurate detail, a creative choice that has garnered criticism from historians. Rather, to mixed results, Scott’s massive new film, “Napoleon,” reimagines the leader (played by Joaquin Phoenix) from a messier and more personal angle.
Scott pivots between two overlapping narratives in “Napoleon”: Bonaparte’s political journey versus his domestic life. The film hardly bridges these narratives together, leaving both sides of Napoleon’s story without much depth. Both narratives have their merits, largely based on cinematography and performance, yet Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa’s ambition ultimately works against them.
Scott opens with the beheading of Marie Antoinette. Napoleon, a young army general at the time, stares coldly at this gruesome, history-making display as if he is gazing into his own violent destiny. Then Scott, no stranger to period piece action scenes, flexes his “Gladiator” and “The Last Duel” muscles with the Siege of Toulon — yet this is just a taste of the film’s impressive directing.
“Napoleon” reaches its peak at the Battle of Austerlitz. Scott and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski gradually build from hundreds of extras slashing each other in the snow to cannon fire crashing through ice. The scene contains a series of haunting, painterly images: Austrian and Russian soldiers desperately clawing at the ice to keep from drowning, blood flowing in the water and Napoleon watching over with that same cold glare.
The depiction of such Napoleonic battles is the film’s greatest achievement; they are worth the admission price. But these striking sequences aren’t anchored by much specificity in the way of political substance. The film broadly covers developments in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, glossing over Napoleon’s years as emperor with unreasonably quick pacing.
Perhaps this is the point — diluting Napoleon to merely a simplistic, egotistical and power-hungry figure highlights the futility of war. Perhaps it is also a result of the film being cut down from a four-hour version, which Scott will release later on Apple TV+.
We could speculate on what details may or may not be added in this longer cut, or whether enough alterations could result in a masterwork on the level of Scott’s Final Cut of “Blade Runner.” One must wonder, though, why a presumably better version of “Napoleon” was announced before its theatrical release. In its current state, the film is too sparse to make any definitive statements on Napoleon’s politics beyond surface-level gestures of egotism and interpersonal incompetence.
Reportedly, the extended cut will focus more on the life of Napoleon’s eventual wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). Such development would have greatly improved the theatrical version’s domestic narrative. Scott skims over the important details of their relationship with the urgency of a few sentences on Wikipedia.
As is, Josephine appears to have little romantic motivation to marry the French general; the writing in these early scenes between them leaves much to be desired. It comes as a surprise, then, when Josephine pries out of Napoleon that he is nothing without her. Aside from letters sent between the couple, Josephine is almost entirely separate from the politics and warfare of the rest of the film.
There is undeniably room for a far more extensive deconstruction of Napoleon’s persona. However, the few depictions we see of his and Josephine’s married life are among the best scenes in the film. In one, they take place in gorgeously glowy interiors lit by small candles at night or somber sunlight in the day. The muted colors highlight the tragedy of the characters’ relationship – doomed by political pressure for Napoleon to have an heir and Josephine’s inability to bear more children.
At his best, Phoenix taps into an absurdity that transforms stuffy period piece material into entertaining farce. Phoenix’s Napoleon shouts like a child when he doesn’t get what he wants and is comically full of himself. Lines such as “Destiny brought me to this lamb chop” feel natural coming from this overcompensating depiction of the emperor.
Furthermore, Napoleon is sexually pathetic and uses Josephine to fulfill bizarre kinks. In one scene, Napoleon whines like a baby and mutters “mommy” while Josephine gets dressed as a way of requesting sex. Through Phoenix’s performance, Scott makes a certain claim about history: tyrants are freakish brats with god complexes.
Josephine’s character depth, meanwhile, is far thinner due to Scott’s lack of attention to her life beyond Napoleon. Despite the limitations of a shortened runtime, Kirby gives an outstandingly nuanced performance.
During one climactic moment in Josephine’s relationship with Napoleon, for instance, Kirby’s facial expressions and vocal inflections directly contradict what she says out loud. It is a devastating moment that gives the audience a window into a potentially far more interesting version of this character.
Everything “Napoleon” succeeds at, from acting to spectacle, comes with the caveat that it is an incomplete picture. Knowing that there is an extended cut just around the corner sours the viewing experience by making one ponder where and why subtractions were made.
Nevertheless, Scott is a gifted craftsman with his scene construction and makes a trip to the theater worthwhile. The battle sequences are astonishing to watch on the big screen, showcasing French military tactics and nasty gore on a scale that only Scott could accomplish. Though Scott tries to cover too much time and leaves several intriguing dynamics undercooked, his ambition is admirable and he lays a serviceable foundation for a far greater “Napoleon” in the near future.
