![]() ![]() ![]() He was a notorious workaholic, meticulously organized and an energetic intellectual - little of which is present here, making Napoleon’s rise to power sometimes hard to fathom.īut that’s also part of the point of “Napoleon,” which surely has some contemporary echoes. A quality like ambition, you’d think, would be prominent in depicting Napoleon. Phoenix’s characterization may at times have more in common with some of his past depictions of melancholy loners (“The Master,” “The Joker”) than any factual record of Napoleon. That mix - Scott’s spectacle and Phoenix’s the-emperor-has-no-clothes performance - makes “Napoleon” a rivetingly off-kilter experience. Here is a sweeping historical tapestry - no one does it better today than Scott - with a damning, almost satirical portrait at its center. Hollywood historical epics have traditionally leaned toward aggrandizement, not the undressing of fragile, deluded male egos who exclaim over dinner: “Destiny has brought me here! Destiny has brought me this lamb chop!” Helena where he died at age 51 in 1821, it’s startling how much disregard the movie has for its protagonist. In “Napoleon,” which begins with Marie Antoinette at the guillotine and ends with Napoleon on St. Victor Hugo wrote Napoleon lost at Waterloo because he had grown “troublesome to God.” Tolstoy, in “War and Peace,” was less impressed, calling him, “that most insignificant instrument of history.” Some of the titans of 19th century literature reckoned with him. Napoleon, himself, helped shape his legacy while exiled on St. When he, while on a campaign in Egypt, is informed over lunch that his wife, Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby), is having an affair back in Paris, he responds curtly to the messenger: “No dessert for you.”įor more than 200 years, characterizations of Napoleon have ranged from genius reformer born out of the French Revolution to marauding tyrant whose wars left three million dead. He’s a boyishly impulsive, thin-skinned brute, careening his way through Europe and leaving battlefields of dead soldiers in his wake. This Napoleon isn’t extraordinary nor is he much of a man. “Napoleon” subscribes more to the Not-So-Great Man theory of history. He’s prone to petulant rages, screaming at the British: “You think you’re so great because you have boats!” He flings his armies around the continent without the slightest concern. ![]() His coup d’état against the French Directory in 1799 is a ramshackle farce. Napoleon doesn’t storm the gates so much as lurch desperately at them.Īnd for the rest of Scott’s film and Phoenix’s riveting performance, Napoleon’s actions are never much more complicated than that. He looks more like Phoenix’s anxious protagonist in “Beau Is Afraid” than the man who would become France’s Caesar. When Napoleon, then a major, charges forward in the fight, he’s visibly terrified, even panting. Our first sense that this may not be a grand glorification of a Great Man of history comes early in the film, when a 24-year-old Bonaparte leads the siege on the British troops controlling the port city of Toulon. And his two-hour-38-minute big-screen biopic serves up a heaping historical spectacle complete with bloody European battles and massive military maneuvers.īut don’t mistake “Napoleon” for your average historical epic. ![]() Scott doesn’t do anything small, not even famously diminutive French emperors. The party, though, is finally on in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. Napoleon and his bicorne hat - more icon of history than a real character - mostly only pops up in time-traveling odysseys like “Time Bandits” or “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” (Steven Spielberg is attempting to revive those plans as a series ). Stanley Kubrick had grand designs for a Napoleon epic that went unmade. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.įor such a famed historical figure, Napoleon has made only fleeting appearances in movies since Abel Gance’s 1927 silent film. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |