Review and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Normally, I offer the following warning for anyone who decides to read my reviews in this goofy blog:
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
However, given that my review this time around is about a biographical subject you can easily acquire extensive details about, I see no point in that tactic in this instance, so just read all you want.
Napoleon [2023] (Ridley Scott) rated R 158 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
What Happens: We begin in 1793 as the French Revolution (started in 1789) is in full-swing with Queen Marie Antoinette (Catherine Walker) dragged to her guillotine-beheading, while watching from the boisterous crowd is young Army officer Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) who longs for glory but is generally dismissed as being a mere ruffian from Corsica. His fortunes change, though, when revolutionary leader Paul Barras (Tahar Rahim) sends him to drive the British from the coastal city of Toulon, which he does with effective use of artillery to damage the British fleet, resulting in Napoleon’s promotion to Brigadier General, soon followed by the end of the Reign of Terror in 1794 (during which the increasingly-demanding-revolutionaries turned on their previous leaders with a crowd attacking Maximillen Robespierre [Sam Troughton] who attempted suicide, failed, was then executed*). Napoleon’s fame continues to grow when he puts down a royalist insurrection in 1796. Soon after that he becomes intrigued by widow (husband killed by the revolutionaries) Joséphine de Beuharnais (Vanessa Kirby), leading to marriage as each one tells the other how they are interdependent. In 1798 Napoleon is attempting to rout the British at the Battle of the Pyramids in Egypt, but he abandons his troops to rush home when he’s told of Joséphine having an affair with young lover Hippolyte Charles (Jannis Niewöhner). He first confronts her, but she responds: “You are nothing without me”; he agrees (he also had affairs, so he couldn't be too upset).
*Another former leader against the monarchy, Jean-Paul Marat, was brutally killed in 1793, with his later travails explored in The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton, set in 1808 after Napoleon had become Emperor, a play by Peter Weiss (1963), film by Peter Brook (1967). Some music (written by Richard Peaslee) from this narrative, “Homage to Marat,” “Marat We’re Poor,” “People’s Reaction,” “Poor Old Marat”—noted just as "Marat/Sade"—was recorded by Judy Collins for her In My Life album (1966) which I’ll provide here as an opening Musical Metaphor because it gives a useful context for the chaos facing France in the early 1790s, conditions which Napoleon quickly exploited for his increasing-benefit over the next decade. (This video is illustrated by a detail of Jacques-Louis David’s painting, The Death of Marat [1793], with another David painting of Napoleon’s 1804 coronation [which actually shows him about to crown Empress Josephine]—done in 1807—serving as a visual inspiration for the scene in this movie noted just below.) You can read a bit more about other inspirations for costumes here.
Next he’s admonished by the now-ruling group called The Directory, so he—with the help of some colleagues—overthrows them, declaring himself the powerful First Consul in 1799. By 1804 he’s become Emperor of the French, agreed to by the pope, although Napoleon breaks tradition by putting the crown on his own head. In 1805 he defeats a combined Austrian-Russian army, with the cruel tactic of cannon fire onto the frozen lake his enemies are using for retreat, resulting in the horrific drowning of many of them. The only negative aspect of these years of his rise to increasing-power is Joséphine never becomes pregnant, denying him of the necessary situation of a male heir; to prove that his wife is at fault, Napoleon’s mother has him impregnate a young woman, leading to his divorce from Joséphine in 1810, although they continue to be in contact even after he marries Duchess Marie Louise (Anna Mawn) of Austria who provides him with that long-sought-son. Having conquered much of Europe by 1812, Napoleon invades Russia, but, despite military victories on the road to Moscow, Russian Tsar Alexander I (Edouard Phillipponnat) outsmarts him by evacuating the city, setting it on fire. Napoleon makes the foolish move to march through the bitter winter to St. Petersburg, but the combination of harsh weather and strained supply lines to his troops leads to retreat, with only about 40,000 of his 600,000 troops still alive to return, defeated, to France in 1813.
As a result of this disaster, forces of the Coalition (Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and some German states—essentially the areas of Europe not previously conquered by Napoleon or free of his yoke [countries he had dominated were largely run by his regents, some of them his brothers]) invaded France in 1814, occupied Paris, restored the monarchy, forced Napoleon into exile on the Mediterranean island of Elba. In 1815 Napoleon is informed that Joséphine is ill, so he returns to France only to find she’s already dead from diphtheria. King Louis XVIII (Ian McNeice) sends a regiment to capture Napoleon; however, he convinces them to accept him as their leader again, but he’s later confronted at Waterloo (now in Belgium) by the British army (aided by Prussian troops), conquered by the Duke of Wellington (Rupert Everett), leading to Napoleon’s final exile to the island of Saint Helena (middle of the Atlantic Ocean) where he dies in 1821, seeming to hear Joséphine beckoning him to join her once again. Epilogue graphics note the numbers killed in his various battles (1792-1815) to be close to 3 million.
So What? Given my previous appreciation for the work of director Scott—nominated for the Best Director Oscar for Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), along with being a producer for Best Picture nominee The Martian (2015 [review in our October 8, 2015 posting]), as well as director of other classics such as Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982)—and principal actor Phoenix—nominated for Oscar’s Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Gladiator, Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005), The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012 [review in our September 27, 2012 posting]), won for Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019 [review in our October 9, 2019 posting])—I was quite intrigued to see Napoleon even though the OCCU has not been very supportive (more on that farther below), so I invested a lot of time plus a good chunk of cash to watch this latest opus from some well-known screen talent (although I wish Scott would hurry up his Alien prequels with the timeline—and the spread-out-release times of these sci-fi movies—getting a bit tiresome). Unfortunately, what I got was just what the OCCU predicted: a lot of history (but leaving out even more about this famous person) crammed into a longer-than-average-running time, yet little sense of the motivations and ultimate goals of this impactful-history maker, except to see him intending to conquer every square foot of Europe at any cost. (Even some voiceovers from Napoleon don't help much [technically, his name should carry an accent on the “e,” “Napoléon,” but given that’s been left off the title {I’m surprised I haven’t noted the French complaining about that} I’ll also leave it off any further references to this movie or its protagonist during the rest of this review]).
The combat scenes of the 1805 Battle of Austerlitz (although various historians reject there were many [any?] drownings in what was actually a shallow pond) and the 1812 Battle of Borodino in the Russia campaign are masterfully done (if anything about the brutality of warfare can be considered “masterful”), but other than that we’re just sailing along through the biographical highlights of a maniacal tyrant (Is there any other kind? Maybe I’ve just seen too much lately of the multi-indicted-guy who just won those GOP Iowa caucuses.) as we shift from battlefield victories (and, most importantly, defeats) to romance turmoil as Joséphine gets credit for knowing her own worth even as her empire easily bids farewell due to her motherhood-inability (as a military leader Napoleon was often successful using battlefield cannons, though his own “cannon” didn’t bring victory with his wife).
You could get a lot of this same information in a much more concise manner by simply watching this short video (15:53) about Napoléon from the Crash Course on European History series. Another series on YouTube, one I often cite in these postings, is the Top 10 Things Right and Wrong in whatever cinematic experience is under review here, with the one devoted to Napoleon (12:11 [ads interrupt at 2:30, 9:29]) mostly agreeing with what’s shown on screen except for M. Bonaparte not being at Marie Antoinette’s execution, Napoleon doesn’t rush away from Egypt when he hears of Joséphine’s infidelity, it’s not true how he learned about her death (he already knew before he left Elba), and there was no bullet shot through the side of his hat during the Battle of Waterloo. However, if you want to get more deeply into French complaints about Scott’s inaccuracies in this movie you can consult this article which details how historians find much fault with Scott’s approach; not to be outdone by his critics, Scott retaliates here. Certainly, filmmakers have license to present their own interpretations of historical facts for entertainment purposes, but just as Lisa Marie Presley was upset with her mother’s approval of how Elvis was presented in Priscilla (Sofia Coppola, 2023 [review in our January 4, 2024 posting]), so a good number of French people seem quite put off with how director Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa have depicted the long-ago-Emperor of France. You’re welcome to whatever response you'll have if you choose to watch this movie, but, for me, it's more about lack of dramatic involvement than historical-presentation failures.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Napoleon opened domestically (U.S.-Canada) on November 22, 2023, is still in a few theaters (none that close to me), has pulled in $61.4 million so far ($216.7 worldwide), but is mostly to be found now via streaming on Amazon Prime Video, etc. for a $19.99 rental, if you care to pursue it (oddly enough, despite Apple as a production company and distributor it hasn’t come to Apple TV+ yet). Critics are in borderline CCAL/OCCU mode with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 58%, the Metacritic average score surprisingly-higher at 64%. Nevertheless, what I truly wish I could recommend to you regarding at least a partial look at the life of Napoléon Bonaparte (what I’m about to describe was originally intended to be 1 of maybe 6 films about him; this one covers his life from 1783 at a military college to his invasion of Italy in 1796) is Napoléon (note the "e" accent) by Abel Gance (1927), a multi-hour extravaganza by a French master of silent cinema just as the industry was in the earliest days of converting to sound. There are a several cinematic experimental incorporations in this older film that surprised audiences of those days, with the most dynamic being how the final scenes were suddenly part of a 3-screen-triptych as 2 additional projectors brought the visuals into a marvelously widescreen configuration, with some of the imagery in vast horizontal panoramas, some of it in multi-image juxtaposition. It also evokes this successful soldier’s fond connections to the ideals of the Revolution, whereas Scott’s version seems to forget that completely once Napoleon is (temporarily) secured as Emperor.
Due to the extended length, the difficult technological requirements to properly show what Gance had created, and the need for a full orchestra to provide audio accompaniment to match the power of the visuals, this masterpiece was rarely seen after the mid-1930s until film historian/restorer Kevin Brownlow began working on a decades-long-project to bring Napoléon back into theaters, at least for singular special events. For awhile in 1980 Francis Ford Coppola released his own edit of the Brownlow footage which ran for nearly 4 hours at 24 frames per second (a standard speed for silent films), a musical soundtrack by his father, Carmine Coppola, attached (I saw this version when I lived in Dallas, TX; it was quite spectacular), but the most triumphant version of Napoléon I’ve had the pleasure to encounter was in 2012 in Oakland, CA at the magnificent Art Deco Paramount Theatre where it ran for 5 hours, 32 minutes at 20 fps, with the triptych finale, accompanied by a live orchestra using Clive Davis’ score (there were 3 intermissions, 1 of them an extended dinner break).
My review of this long-ago-marvel (a rare 5 stars praise) is in our March 30, 2012 posting (early on in this blog’s existence, lousy layout with too much text relative to the visuals; my apologies). I wish I could easily steer you to a video transcription of it—and there are some—but I have no idea how well they capture the visual impact of this film, let alone what soundtrack (if any?) is used. You can get the 1980 Coppola version in a U.S. region DVD for only $9.99 from this site, but the (hopefully) best investment comes from another site which seems to be the 2012 Brownlow version DVD for $29.99 ($76.39 for Blu-ray), but this is a Region 2 DVD not playable in the U.S.-Canada market (intended for Europe, most of Asia/Oceania, most of Africa, parts of South America) unless you also buy a Multi-Region Code Zone Free PAL/NTSC player for an additional $29.98; I’ll leave that choice to you, but assuming this all works as intended it would be a marvelous investment to be able to own/see the wonder that is Gance’s Napoléon. If you don’t want to go to all that trouble, though, you might content yourself with this trailer from that film, along with my chosen Musical Metaphor for Scott’s current biopic of Napoleon, which I think should be Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (from his notable 1965 Bringing It All Back Home album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF9 wmfGI0iA (live concert in Manchester, England 1965), choosing it not so much for what happens in most of the movie but more about how it all falls apart for Napoleon by the end: “You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last / But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast […] All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home / All your reindeer armies, are all going home […] Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you […] Strike another match, go start anew / And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.” No clarity on who the Baby Blue is here (some even speculate it might be self-referential, Dylan’s former-folkie-persona), but for me it sounds an awful lot like the Napoleon Ridley Scott's constructed for us, no matter how he might resemble the historical Emperor of France.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Options for you: (1) Emmy Awards list for 2023 TV programs; (2) 2024 Critics Choice Awards list (film winners similar to Golden Globe winners; TV winners somewhat similar to Emmy winners); (3) Killers of the Flower Moon now available on Apple TV+ (still my choice, Best Picture of 2023).
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