I can’t deny I was waiting for this movie since I first saw its trailer. Napoleon Bonaparte has been one of my favorite historical leaders and military commanders. However, Ridley Scott, in a way only an Englishman can, ruins the character by turning a great leader into a buffoon. He plays loosely with historical facts as the British did with geographical maps during the days of their empire. A subject like Napoleon Bonaparte and the Napoleonic wars requires perhaps a two part movie – but apparently that is worthwhile for Twilight: Breaking Dawn but not for a famous historical personality like Napoleon. Anyways, I am praying the 4 hour cut director’s cut, improves upon the travesty that is this movie, but I am skeptical.
Napoleon, covers Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power and his relationship with Joséphine (apparently Ridley Scott was also there during that period and remembers how Napoleon only wanted to make love to Joséphine in doggy style). In the primary roles of Napoleon and Joséphine, Ridley Scott cast Joaquin Phoenix, who forgot he was no longer playing the Joker and continues with a single expression throughout the movie and Vanessa Kirby, respectively. Vanessa Kirby, a 35 year old actress looks young throughout the movie while Joaquin Phoenix, a 49 year old actor, looks 60 even when playing Napoleon in his 20s. All this while ignoring history in which Joséphine was 6 years older than Napoleon. So right from the beginning the casting is shoddy. Vanessa Kirby however, is adept at playing characters with a sense of grandeur with lots of practice from her role in The Crown. She plays Empress Joséphine who dominates Napoleon’s life deeply, quite well and despite having two scenes where she does nothing except being fucked from behind by the depressed Napoleon, she is able to bring some dignity to her role.
Joaquin Phoenix, however, despite being a very talented actor, forgets all his talents for this movie and settles into a dour and uninteresting portrayal of Napoleon, who is reduced to stupid lines like “You think you’re so great because you have boats!” shouting the same at an English emissary. His greatest victory – Austerlitz – is turned into a cinematic portrayal of artillery blowing holes in ice to drown the Russo-Austrian armies. He has a bored expression when he sees Queen Marie Antoinette being beheaded by the guillotine; he looks bored when he fucks; he looks bored when he wins battles and he looks bored when he is finally defeated.
Alright, so let’s get into the movie. The movie begins with the French revolution in full swing and Napoleon watching the ex-Queen of France being beheaded. His victory at the Siege of Toulon follows. Post the end of the reign of terror, we are shown Napoleon’s ruthlessness at crushing the Royalist insurrection on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. Napoleon then woos the aristocratic widow Joséphine de Beauharnais and the two eventually marry. Despite their vigorous sex life, she bears him no children. In Egypt, he prevails again at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798 (by shooting at the Pyramids – something which never happened except in Ridley Scott’s fantasies), but rushes home when he hears Joséphine has had sex with another man. The Directory criticizes him for abandoning his troops, but he condemns them for their poor leadership of France and, as part of a trio, overthrows them in a coup and becomes First Consul. Napoleon’s Italian campaigns are ignored including the famous battle of Marengo.
Instead, Ridley Scott chooses to focus on Napoleon and Josephine’s domestic spat and a scene where Napoleon throws Joséphine’s bags out in the rain. We are then treated to Napoleon’s coronation in 1804, where he takes the crown from the Pope and puts it on his own head. We immediately go to the Battle of Austerlitz as the War of the Third Coalition has begun, where Napoleon outmaneuvers and defeats the Austrians and Russians, forcing them to retreat over frozen lakes before bombarding the ice and drowning them. Afterwards, he invites Austrian Emperor Francis II for wine — which Russian Tsar Alexander I declines to attend — and tells Francis that since he did not totally destroy their armies, he expects the latter to be grateful. Napoleon’s mother meanwhile has him impregnate a mistress, proving that Joséphine is infertile. He divorces her in 1810, publicly slapping her in the face when she initially refuses to read her portion of the decree (again no record of it and uncharacteristic of Napoleon), but the two remain on good terms and continue exchanging letters. Napoleon marries Marie Louise of Austria, who bears a son one year later.
We proceed to 1812, where Napoleon invades Russia after Alexander (played by a 24 French-Finnish actor who could be a male model in comparison with the portly Joaquin Phoenix and speaks with a dreadful Russian accent) reneges on a peace treaty with France. He prevails, despite bloody guerrilla resistance by Cossack forces, at the Battle of Borodino, but finds Moscow empty and later set aflame. Napoleon retreats during the winter to France, having lost about half a million men. In 1814, the Coalition force Napoleon’s abdication and exile him to Elba. In 1815, upon hearing that Joséphine is unwell, Napoleon escapes the island and returns to power in France, this beginning his famous 100 days. She, having been forced into reclusion at the Château de Malmaison, dies before he arrives. King Louis XVIII sends the Fifth Regiment to stop Napoleon, but he charms them into joining him.
At the Battle of Waterloo in June, Napoleon, having amassed more troops, confronts the British army under the Duke of Wellington. French cavalry charges are repulsed by British infantry squares, and a desperate Napoleon urges his remaining soldiers forward, but this advance is decimated by re-formed lines of enemy infantry. The forces of Prussian Marshal Blücher arrive to reinforce Wellington, and the French are broken. As Napoleon retreats, he salutes Wellington, who he also later meets in a boat to hear about his exile (again no historical record except for Ridley Scott’s memories). Napoleon is exiled, this time to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and is seen bantering with children, writing his memoirs that would become a worldwide best-seller, and presenting to his listeners a version of history where he is always right. Napoleon dies in 1821, hearing Joséphine beckon him to meet her again.
An epilogue notes that roughly 3 million people died in his wars, thus, turning a great leader responsible for numerous political and social reforms and brilliant military victories into some Hitler like figure, who can only be remembered for the people who died in his conquests, thus fulfilling the wet dream of every leftist out there. The Napoleonic code which entrenched the principles of equality before the law, religious toleration, secure property rights, equal inheritance for all legitimate children, and the abolition of the vestiges of feudalism and was carried across Europe, during Napoleon’s conquests in Europe. Napoleon’s advancement of military tactics where Corps replaced divisions as the largest army units, mobile artillery was integrated into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry returned as an important formation in French military doctrine. These methods are referred to nowadays as essential features of Napoleonic warfare. Napoleon’s educational reforms laid the foundation of a modern system of secondary and tertiary education in France and throughout much of Europe. All of these accomplishments ignored to give us a Napoleon who looks bored and is portrayed as a war-monger.
The movie’s battle sequences are brilliantly captured however full of historical errors. Napoleon in the movie, keeps jumping on his horse and leading cavalry charges even though he was an Artillery officer who would have never led a cavalry charge. Arthur Wellesley is portrayed as a tactical genius while Napoleon is depicted as a genius who in a moment of foolishness decides to assault a strong defensive position head-on. Admiral Nelson who played a huge role in blocking Napoleon’s conquests, is utterly ignored. The Battle of Borodino was shown with just a cavalry charge instead of showing the actual pyrrhic victory it was for the French. Napoleon was not without flaws but to judge him wearing a lens of modern values which don’t apply to the age he lived in is utter stupidity. To be honest, a better movie would involve less focus on the family drama between Napoleon and Joséphine and more of what made Napoleon have such a major impact on Europe during an era that came to be called the Napoleonic era.
JAY’S VERDICT
Wait for the Director’s Cut which is four hours long and might do for this movie, what it did for Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
