What Napoleon lacks in psychological subtlety, it makes up for in spectacle.
No, this is not a Napoleon film that tries to understand the (in)famous man. The “why” of the man’s rise, warring, and eventual fall are boiled down to a few tidy ideas. Ridley Scott’s film paints Napoleon as a kind of populist Caesar, the fated byproduct of a French Revolution set on toppling aristocratic rule but still in desperate need of concentrated leadership in a Europe still ruled by royals. Think of Napoleon as kind of nineteenth century King Saul. Rule by law turned out to be difficult to maintain, so the people clamored again for a king. Napoleon was the strongest (if not the tallest) man of the people, so the mantle of leadership was thrust upon him. He accepts with with a rueful chuckle. In the movie’s finest non-combat scene, he puts France’s crown on his own head in a shocking demonstration of populist panache. And in the end, Napoleon can’t be killed, no matter how much Europe’s aristocracy wants to off him, because the masses love him so.
I don’t think that counts as a spoiler. Don’t we all know how Napoleon died?
Then again, in this film historical accuracy isn’t as important to Ridley Scott as Napoleon’s reputation is. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” as the saying goes, and when we’re talking populism, legend is all that really matters. It’s the legend that gets the populous riled up enough to lop off the heads of Marie Antoinette and her kind, and it’s the legends that rally millions of the populists’ cause even when the populist is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of their followers, as the movie’s coda reminds us. I wish this theme had been emphasized more in Napoleon. It is the driving concern of the film, but it’s the kind of thing you only realize in retrospect. The movie is more interested in the spectacle of Napoleon’s campaigns.
The battle scenes are fantastic, as we’ve come to expect from Sir Ridley Scott. Most of my knowledge of Napoleon comes from watching movies about him, and I’ve never been as convinced of nor understood as clearly his military genius.
That’s about all I can say about him though. Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon as a man whose ambitions are naked. This works for the story since contrasting the guilelessness of a common man like Napoleon with the never-say-what-you-mean graft of the aristocracy is essential to the film. Unhinged Phoenix is always more fun though.
Cinephiles always wish for longer edits of Scott’s films, and, to be sure, we’ve benefitted from alternate versions of his epics. I wonder though if that wish is a response to Scott’s tendency to be more interested in the worlds his characters inhabit than he is in the characters themselves. You can be enthralled by the period details for two and a half hours, as I was in Napoleon, and then walk out of the theater wishing for a little more substance. You don’t want less of what you saw, but you do want more of what seems to be underneath all those glorious costumes shining in period-accurate lighting – you know, real people.
But again, the spectacle is worth ever second spent in the theater. No one seems to know what the average moviegoer wants from this kind of thing better than Ridley Scott. Maybe he looks at Napoleon and sees a reflection of his own artistic impulses – just give the people what they want, and if anyone complains, you have an easy out. What’s the harm in that?
Oh yeah – three million dead. Hmm.
What Napoleon lacks in psychological subtlety, it makes up for in spectacle.
No, this is not a Napoleon film that tries to understand the (in)famous man. The “why” of the man’s rise, warring, and eventual fall are boiled down to a few tidy ideas. Ridley Scott’s film paints Napoleon as a kind of populist Caesar, the fated byproduct of a French Revolution set on toppling aristocratic rule but still in desperate need of concentrated leadership in a Europe still ruled by royals. Think of Napoleon as kind of nineteenth century King Saul. Rule by law turned out to be difficult to maintain, so the people clamored again for a king. Napoleon was the strongest (if not the tallest) man of the people, so the mantle of leadership was thrust upon him. He accepts with with a rueful chuckle. In the movie’s finest non-combat scene, he puts France’s crown on his own head in a shocking demonstration of populist panache. And in the end, Napoleon can’t be killed, no matter how much Europe’s aristocracy wants to off him, because the masses love him so.
I don’t think that counts as a spoiler. Don’t we all know how Napoleon died?
Then again, in this film historical accuracy isn’t as important to Ridley Scott as Napoleon’s reputation is. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” as the saying goes, and when we’re talking populism, legend is all that really matters. It’s the legend that gets the populous riled up enough to lop off the heads of Marie Antoinette and her kind, and it’s the legends that rally millions of the populists’ cause even when the populist is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of their followers, as the movie’s coda reminds us. I wish this theme had been emphasized more in Napoleon. It is the driving concern of the film, but it’s the kind of thing you only realize in retrospect. The movie is more interested in the spectacle of Napoleon’s campaigns.
The battle scenes are fantastic, as we’ve come to expect from Sir Ridley Scott. Most of my knowledge of Napoleon comes from watching movies about him, and I’ve never been as convinced of nor understood as clearly his military genius.
That’s about all I can say about him though. Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon as a man whose ambitions are naked. This works for the story since contrasting the guilelessness of a common man like Napoleon with the never-say-what-you-mean graft of the aristocracy is essential to the film. Unhinged Phoenix is always more fun though.
Cinephiles always wish for longer edits of Scott’s films, and, to be sure, we’ve benefitted from alternate versions of his epics. I wonder though if that wish is a response to Scott’s tendency to be more interested in the worlds his characters inhabit than he is in the characters themselves. You can be enthralled by the period details for two and a half hours, as I was in Napoleon, and then walk out of the theater wishing for a little more substance. You don’t want less of what you saw, but you do want more of what seems to be underneath all those glorious costumes shining in period-accurate lighting – you know, real people.
But again, the spectacle is worth ever second spent in the theater. No one seems to know what the average moviegoer wants from this kind of thing better than Ridley Scott. Maybe he looks at Napoleon and sees a reflection of his own artistic impulses – just give the people what they want, and if anyone complains, you have an easy out. What’s the harm in that?
Oh yeah – three million dead. Hmm.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
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