The theatrical cut of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon should really be called Napoleon and Josephine.
Apple Studios paid a reported $200 million for Scott’s epic, which traces Napoleon Bonaparte’s rampage across Europe from 1793 to 1815, and ends with his death in exile in 1821. Scott, now a sprightly 85 years old, is not the first director to attempt to conquer the conqueror. After he completed 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, Stanley Kubrick spent the next two years deep in pre-production on a Napoleon biopic that was to have starred Jack Nicholson. MGM ultimately balked at the cost, and Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange instead. The tens of thousands of pages of Kubrick’s prep work ultimately fell into the hands of Steven Spielberg, who is using the material as a basis for a seven-part limited series for HBO.
Scott’s ultimate vision for Napoleon will be revealed when it is released on Apple TV+ next year. It is reportedly more than four hours long. Joaquin Phoenix, who last worked with Scott in Gladiator, portrays Napoleon not as the brash, confident Frenchman who rewrote the rules of warfare, but as a capable soldier torn by self-doubt who succeeds almost despite himself. Unless you have a working knowledge of European history, The Little Corporal’s military and political career will seem pretty incoherent. I can’t be the only history nerd who turned to his wife when it was over and said, “Where was the Battle of Trafalgar?” With all of the care that Scott put into filming the battle scenes, there’s just no way he wouldn’t tackle the biggest naval engagement of the century, so I assume the HMS Victory is in pieces on editor Claire Simpson’s hard drive right now. The lack of the naval side of the story deprives the film of one of three antagonists who had Napoleon’s number during his life: Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, who died in the process of proving the French dictator was beatable. The second was the Duke of Wellington, who finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo by adapting his tactics.
The third antagonist was Josephine, whose defeat of Napoleon on the battlefield of love was complete and total. If you’re like me and have only ever seen Vanessa Kirby in big budget shoot-’em-ups like Mission Impossible, her performance as the Empress will be a revelation. The moment she catches Napoleon’s eye across one of the First Republic’s ever-present cocktail parties, with her fresh-from-the-Terror prison punk haircut, she understands this would-be conqueror needs to be dominated. “What is this costume you’re wearing?” she asks.
“It’s my uniform!” Napoleon huffs.
In Scott’s telling, their epic struggle of wills rewrites the map of Europe. When Napoleon, fresh off victory of the Battle of the Pyramids, hears that Josephine has taken another lover, he abandons his campaign against the Mamluks and rushes home to confront her. When he senses she is attracted to power, he joins in a coup to overthrow the republic, then systematically betrays his allies until he’s the only one left standing.
Scott’s depiction of Napoleonic warfare is equal parts beautiful and brutal. The Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon’s troops drive the Prussians into a frozen lake, is sure to be studied in future film classes. Depicting Napoleon as an insecure braggart who lucks his way into an empire is a controversial choice, but when paired with Josephine’s strategic provocations, his arc makes sense. It’s the chemistry between Kirby and Phoenix that gives this epic its fire.
Napoleon
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