discussion Napoleon the movie

[wotan]

So since it was snowing today and it's cheap tickets Tuesday here SWMBO and I decided to go and see the movie Napoleon. I'll give my detailed comments below but if you want to avoid any spoilers ,not worth watching! Now you can skip the rest.

If you did stay around then here's what I thought. Only 4 battles really referred to although there is a brief cameo by the Pyramids. Siege of Toulon.... meh. Austerlitz, not bad but a bit speculative. Borodino a minor skirmish. And finally Waterloo. Now what to say about Waterloo. Certainly lacking scope if you saw the original Waterloo with Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer. Worst parts: No Hougumont and La Haye Saint, Napoleon joining in on a final cavalry charge? NO OLD GUARD troops!! and finally Blucher seems to appear on Wellington's RIGHT flank? Victory makes a very small cameo for some interior shots. SWMBO was not impressed either even though Boney spends most of the movie fawning over Josephine like some Barbara Cartland romantic novel.

So there you have it, great costumes by the way.

John

 

[Dave Ward]

As a 20 year old, I was fortunate enough to visit St. Helena & see Longwood House, where Napoleon died - a stunningly beautiful island, that must have been hell for Napoleon. The company that I worked for visited Ascension Island & St. Helena on a two monthly cycle. Ascension had a US airbase, but St. Helena was only served by sea ( it does have a runway now ). Two of the most remote inhabited islands in the world!
Dave

 

[Neil Merryweather]

I saw it last night and tried manfully to 'suspend my disbelief', which is the term used to describe how we are able to accept theatre performances which our heads will tell us is plainly fake(sorry but I did do stage-design at art school and we learned this stuff).
It looks utterly fabulous.
I struggled with Napoleon having an American accent amongst all the other very English ones, although as SWMBO pointed out,he was a Corsican outsider, but that didn't really help for me.
I can't comment on the accuracy of the battle scenes,(apart from Waterloo) but for me they were very effective and spectacular. Ridley was clearly referencing Kurosawa and Eisenstein in places- it's a pity he ignored Bondarchuk(Waterloo). He does achieve a real sense of the epic scale of these battles, and there's a very good depiction of British infantry manoeuvring from line into square and back into line again , and the cavalry just galloping impotently around the square.
As for Napoleon joining a cavalry charge at Waterloo...well really!
And someone was heard to shout "come on lads, over the top" :tears-of-joy:
On the other hand, other than the few thousand 'experts' around the world who would know, who the hell cares? Most people who bother to see it will judge it as a story, and it's not that great really. I don't think history is going to suffer because Ridley Scott made this film.
I'm glad I saw it , I didn't enjoy Phoenix's performance, for me he couldn't decide whether he was Robert Deniro, Al Pacino or Harvey Keitel. I guess he was just trying not to be Rod Steiger...
I am a massive fan of Ridley Scott and I really wanted to love this film, but sadly I loved only some of it.

 

[Tim Marlow]

I’ll watch it when it comes on telly. Not worried about seeing it at the flicks. Not really worried about historical accuracy either. It’s entertainment, not documentary after all. If I want a proper historical viewpoint I’ll read another book. There are more books written about Napoleon than probably any other figure in history so I won’t be short of options, and I already have a dozen or so.

To be honest, from this, and from what I’ve read elsewhere, if they wanted to tell a broad picture of the life of Napoleon they could probably have dispensed with the battles all together. The best they could do was add cameos in the time available, which they appear to have done. In summary, if the battles don’t move the plot on why bother?

From the ones you’ve mentioned I would say this.
Siege of Toulon, yes, worthy of inclusion as it projected Nappy to fame.
Pyramids, no point. Simply a sideshow that did nothing for his rise to prominence. Probably used because it looks good on screen.
Austerlitz, yes. Established his primacy in Europe and is rightly seen as his tactical masterpiece.
Borodino, no. A draw that wasn’t the cause of the loss of the grande armee. Again probably picked because it looks good. The retreat from Moscow, down the route they had already taken and stripped of resources was the cause, so if the retreat isn’t in there it probably should have been.
Waterloo, yes. Needs to be there as it shows the defeat that led to his ultimate downfall. Could be shortened to show his loss of control due to illness and the disintegration of his army after the defeat though.

The most accurate portrayal of a battle on film I’ve seen was Gettysburg. It was also by far the dullest. If you didn’t know what happened in the battle it wasn’t going to help you out! It was just hours of soldiers marching about and getting shot at. Personally, I’d rather have a story.

 

[wotan]

I appreciate others points of view, however my main criticism is that Napoleon was portrayed as a bit of a dithering moron when clearly he was not.

John

 

[Neil Merryweather]

I agree John.
I think the focus of the film , as Tim says, was as much about his relationship with Josephine, which was at best sophomoric. and as such really made the battle scenes irrelevant.

 

[Tim Marlow]

I appreciate others points of view, however my main criticism is that Napoleon was portrayed as a bit of a dithering moron when clearly he was not.

John

He wasn’t particularly politically astute though was he. Militarily he had it all pretty well covered, but politically he was quite naive. putting family members on thrones around Europe just caused him more problems than it solved. Putting Joe Boney on the Spanish throne, for example, lost him a major ally, gave the Brits a foothold in Europe and caused him a political problem he never solved.

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Saw it yesterday myself.
There will be spoilers ahead
It's a 'good' film that moves along at a cracking piece for something so long, but you it also gets very disjointed. More, and consistent captions wouldn't have gone amiss. Still, you have to wonder what Kubrick would have done. I was thinking Scott might follow the pattern of 'The Duelists' and jump between periods, but sometimes things aren't coverrd that should have been and vice versa

Good points - accurate uniforms and period details, especially putting Austrians and Mamelukes on screen. Berthier apppears! A man that gets so little credit, even though he turned Napoleon's orders into executable commands. Napoleon falling down the stairs during the coup. Trying to cover nearly thirty years in one go is praiseworthy for ambition if not execution. Rupert Everett as Wellington is hilarious. Oh, and stating the Grande Armee had Austrian, German, Italian and Polish contigents, not just French, was great
Bad points - going from the retreat from Moscow to the abdication without mentioning Leipzig, or showing RUSSIAN troops entering Paris. Still, I get that Tsar Alexander clumsily trying to woo Josephine is meant to parallel that. Waterloo is just, weird. Though seeing British drilling from line to square was a delight. Even if they were on the wrong side of the hill. But STILL they don't show the bloody Dutch! And The Italian campaign gets one line

If Scott was going to just the Napoleon/Josephine romance/relationship, the battles and politicking could have been much more of an aside. I'd say the film isn't quite sure what it wants or is trying to be

Will the average viewer care? Maybe not
One reviewer wondered why Napoleon's men loved him so much, completely missing a scene where he's handing out bread to soldiers passing on the march

Honestly, for Scott doing a semi-historical epic, I think I'll stick with the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven. Napoleon is definitely missing the 'Jerusalem has com' moment

 

[Tim Marlow]

Nice that Berthier gets a mention. His loss (by defenestration, possibly on the orders of British intelligence) is given by some historians as a contributing reason Nappy lost the hundred days campaign. Soult just couldn’t turn Nappy’s orders into coherent commands as competently as Berthier..

 

[wotan]

Interesting discussion. Tim I must disagree with your view of Napoleon's political aptitude. He did write the Code Napoleonic, which is the system that both France and Quebec largely adhere to today.
Cue John Cleese "What 'ave the Romans ever done for us?" and while I am on the subject I think Batley towns Womens Guild re enactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbour is more dramatic than Scott's battle scenes.

John

 

[Tim Marlow]

Completely missed that John, a very good call. Pretty much codified the principles of the revolution in that document. Interestingly, it was the driving force behind Britains implacable opposition to Napoleonic rule across Europe because the ruling elite didn’t want our peasants to get uppity like the french
Revolutionary France also implemented the metric system, which is the basis of scientific measurement the world over, under his rule as well. In fact, his interest in, and support of, history, science, and the arts were the driving force behind his abortive Egyptian campaign.
I was focussing more on his international political acumen (or lack of it) than his internal political manoeuvres though.

Agree about the Batley girls, by the way. Their knitted tableau showing the sinking of the Arizona is simply breathtaking……

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Nice that Berthier gets a mention. His loss (by defenestration, possibly on the orders of British intelligence) is given by some historians as a contributing reason Nappy lost the hundred days campaign. Soult just couldn’t turn Nappy’s orders into coherent commands as competently as Berthier..

Absolutely. Or Ab-Soult-lutely
See what I did there...

I'll get me cloak

 

[Guest]

I shall no doubt see it on Dave some 10 years on. This is the reason I don't like films about historical periods. They rarely are true, pick out some love triangle and show people at the time with perfect teeth :smiling3:.