Despite his famously diminutive stature, Napoleon Bonaparte’s life demands many hours and millions of dollars in moviemaking with all the things he did. The Corsican’s impressive life eluded Stanley Kubrick before he could make Napoleon’s story. But for late stage “churn and burn” Ridley Scott, he comes in with one angle on the emperor and then goes full Gladiator with the battles to give us a 2023 take on the little man. Napoleon is imperfect, but hopefully someone takes Scott’s pieces of the story and makes a bigger miniseries about one of history’s great men.
For the tweens who need a primer, Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) rose to power during the French Revolution in the 1790s. A brilliant military tactician, he won key battles for France as the government crumbled around him. Eventually he seized power with the military, took a wife, Josephine (Vanessa Kirby), and became France’s emperor 1804. During that time, France’s military might grew to threaten all of Europe, forcing the other countries to ally to knock Napoleon off of his perch and send him back to his Mediterranean island roots.
I find it wickedly funny that British directors want to make movies about Napoleon. Mr. Bonaparte apparently committed the biggest sin to England. No, not bloody war and mayhem. But lack of tact and manners. Ridley’s big choice in Napoleon is taking the Corsican to task when he’s not at war. We get a completely demythologized Napoleon here: he’s needy, lecherous, and hilariously incompetent at basic government affairs. Watching Joaquin Phoenix turn into a hissy baby when he finds out Josephine has a lover is pure silly delight, even moreso after a well executed victory at Toulon showing Napoleon’s genius. Phoenix and Kirby’s chemistry doesn’t work in the theatrical version (it might in his 4 hour Apple TV cut), but their sniping at each other is still very fun, and is bound to confuse audiences the first 30 minutes or so expecting a more serious biopic.
That serious biopic is in Napoleon as well, just when he’s at battle. Even in his old age, Ridley is nothing short of an amazing visual filmmaker, especially when it comes to movie fights. The battle of Austerlitz is the movie’s highlight: a dazzling back and forth well explained by Scott’s camera as he moves around the battlefield. The climax of that fight is teased nicely, and pays off with chilling, but exciting, visual displays of the violence Napoleon the general inflicted on his enemies. The cuts back to the political arena become less and less as Napoleon is about to fall from power, but the confusing tonal mess is almost made up for by Ridley’s movie war eye for something cool, giving us a Russian city darkly on fire, the Waterloo fiasco, and beautiful seascapes as Napoleon goes to and from exile.
At some point someone is going to make a great Napoleon movie or miniseries. Maybe it should be a Frenchmen next time though? I love Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott, but they might be a tad biased on how they feel about the man. Let’s have Julia Ducournau make it: that Napoleon movie will be messed up and evil in all the best ways like her great films.