I come at this with a disadvantage since I’m all Napoleoned-out what the various Abel Gance projects and that of Stanley Kubrick. So I suffer from over-familiary with the subject matter. Most of the audience won;t have viewed a Napoleon movie in their lifetime, but I’ve already sat through six-seven hours of this material.
In the end length defeats them all, the magnitude of the task of encapsulating an extraordinary career ends up as a mad dash through history. Setting any deliberate distortions aside, those scenes fictionalized for dramatic effect providing directors with a free pass, it’s just too much to find a central thread on which to encompass the man. Here, Ridley Scott makes a good stab at using romance as that glue, but it’s hampered by the great emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) being such an oaf in terms of seduction. Although he is as ruthless as any dictator whose risen from poverty to the absolute heights.
On the other hand, Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) is shown as a more complex character in more complex times, effectively taking up with this oaf for mercenary reasons, her clever plan only coming adrift because she cannot provide him with an heir. I doubt if that many among the audience are looking for an actual history lesson, which is just as well, because it feels, in part because of length restrictions, that this is inevitably going to come up short.
Little is made of the political situation in a world terrified of the revolution that changed France seeping into the countries of Europe. Theoretically, Britain was a democracy, but in reality it was ruled by an elite land-owning cabal, with poverty as rife as in France. Every other country in Europe had an unelected monarch. So Napoleon didn’t so much intend to conquer Europe from power lust but prevent his country being attacked by those who feared an end to the status quo.
Of course, if you had included more history you would have to accommodate an endless stream on one-line characters trying to explain the situation. Scott makes more use of subtitles to provide the audience with its historical bearings but still isn’t afraid to simply fall back on the Austerlitz trick of using protocol to announce a new one-line character.
In terms of actors, this has more the feel of a mini-series than a movie. Hardly anyone of box office significance and being weighed down with British character actors, virtually nobody is on screen long enough to make a mark. Certainly, none command the screen the way the veterans of the old-style all-star cast like Ralph Richardson (Khartoum 1966) or John Gielgud (Becket, 1964), and I’m sorry but Rupert Everett as the Duke of Wellington is sorely miscast.
Anyway, you could go through this entire picture pulling it to pieces, instead of concentrating of what does work. Napoleon’s insecurities contrast nicely with his rampant ambition and arrogance and every now and then someone delivers a historical bon mot. As annoying as it is, I doubt if many males of the period gave any thought to female pleasure during sex, so Napoleon’s amateur love-making can be ignored.
Except for the verbal sparring with Josephine, it’s the military duels that bring this up to scratch at least within the Ridley Scott canon. The taking of Toulon, the bloody putting down of the royalist revolt and Austerlitz are the outstanding scenes, though anybody who has dared to sit through Abel Gance’s Austerlitz might not come out thinking the frozen ice splintering is quite as novel as it might appear.
I’m guessing that the four-hour version planned for streaming might fill in some of the holes, but I’m worried that, like Austerlitz, it will be more of the boring stuff, a potted history filled out with more balls and costume-heavy scenes. If this is all the insight into the life of Napoleon that $200 million buys, then it will take another streamer with even deeper pockets to make a serious dent at tackling the full story of Napoleon.
I usually go back to see a Ridley Scott film at least once – I saw The Martian (2015), Gladiator (2000) and American Gangster (2007) four times each in the cinema – but I’m not sure this holds the same attraction. The director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven (2005) even with a miscast Orlando Bloom totally transformed that movie so I’m hoping the longer version here might achieve the same. But the latter had a marvellous score, which I had bought as a CD and was a virtual earworm for me, whereas the music here is an uneven as the picture.
I’d love to give this a better score, especially as it may be the director’s last cinematic outing, but it’s too disappointing.
Time – or lack of it – does not sit well here.
The Magnificent 60s 