NOW SHOWING: Napoleon (2023)

 

            “Napoleon” is Ridley Scott’s (The Duellists, G.I. Jane, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven) historical epic about the military and romantic career of Napoleon.  He picked up the torch dropped by Stanley Kubrick.  Kubrick worked for years on a script covering the life of the famous general.  His project was going to star Jack Nicholson and Audrey Hepburn.  The working title for Scott’s film was “Kitbag”, a reference to Napoleon’s claim that every French soldier carried a marshal’s baton in his knapsack.  The theme of the movie, according to Scott, was that Napoleon came from nowhere to rule everything.  He came to rule Europe to impress Josephine and then he overreached himself to win the romantic war with her.  Scott wanted Jodie Comer to play Josephine, but scheduling conflicts nixed that.  The movie clocks in at 2:38.  Scott claims Apple TV will eventually run his 4:30 director’s cut.

            The movie opens memorably with the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette.  She is guillotined with an enthusiastic crowd jeering and then cheering the lifting of her severed head.  Napoleon watches in disgust.  He is a lowly artillery officer, but he has a patron in the government.  Paul Barras gives him command at Toulon which is a French port blockaded by the Royal Navy.  Napoleon leads an attack on an English fort that oversees the harbor.  He is promoted to general and his next mission it to snuff out a rebellion against Barras’ government.  He uses grapeshot.  Napoleon is now on the fast track.  Just like Hitler, the politicians think they can use him for their political ends.  Napoleon courts and marries a widow whose husband was a victim of the Reign of Terror.  He and Josephine have a rocky relationship, although he is clearly in love with her.  He leads an army to Egypt, but returns early because he learns that Josephine is having an affair.  It’s okay for him to do that because he is a man.  They patch things up.  However, her inability to give him a male heir is going to roil the marriage.

            Napoleon leads a coup d’etat against the Directory and then makes himself emperor.  Although he insists he wants peace, England refuses to back down and war ensues with England, Russia, and Austria.  The movie reenacts his greatest victory in the Battle of Austerlitz.  This is the battle in the trailer that shows Napoleon using cannon balls to break the ice under the retreating Austrians.  Peace is not permanent as a meeting with Czar Alexander I seems to go well, but next thing we see is the Grand Army marching into Russia.  He wins the Battle of Borodino, but he finds Moscow deserted.  When it burns, his army begins the catastrophic march home.  He is exiled to Elba, but then returns for the Battle of Waterloo.  The film ends with him on St. Helena.

            “Napoleon” is a movie that is a bit difficult to review because you do not know what was left on the cutting room floor and what will be restored for the director’s cut.  The theatrical version seems to be missing historical bridges between the military scenes and has truncated battle scenes.  It is my hope that the director’s cut will solve those problems and I look forward to a version that is more appropriate for a military career that lasted 22 years and included 66 battles.  Clearly, a two- and-a-half hour film can not do justice to Napoleon the general, much less Napoleon the politician.  Scott pared the battles down to six.  However, if you count Toulons, the Battle of the Pyramids, Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo, that is five.  Are we going to get another bonus battle on Apple TV?  We sure as hell better get more of Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo because all three are way too brief.  Brief probably because the romance takes up so much of the film.  Scott intertwines the romance scenes with the military scenes.  The romance is easy to follow as it moves from courting to wedding to adultery to forgiveness to baby making to divorce to post-divorce.  In between these scenes we see Napoleon the general in scenes that have no buildup.  Why is he in Egypt?  How did Austerlitz come about?  Why doesn’t the meeting at Tilsit work?  Why is the retreat from Moscow a disaster?  How does Waterloo happen?  Scott drops vague hints to answer these questions, but if you are not familiar with Napoleon, you will probably be lost.  He just does not have enough time to do justice to the subject, especially with all the time devoted to the romance war.

            I look forward to the director’s cut.  However, I am concerned because even if the military events are fleshed out that will not change the fact that Scott has allowed a lot of historical inaccuracies to mar what we can see now.  He claims to have done a lot of research and consulted with historians and had a historical adviser on set.  He has taken umbrage with critics who have criticized the historical blunders.  His basic response has been “get a life”.  If you read the historical accuracy section below, you will find that the critics have a case.  Some of the mistakes are laughable and can not be excused as historical license.  Most of the historically illiterate audience is smart enough to know cannon balls were not fired at the Great Pyramid.  The film does get the romance arc right, but that is where the historical fudging would have been justified

            As an epic, we get the attention to period details and costumery.  The sets are sumptuous with British mansions and cathedrals filling in for the French locales.  Josephine wears gowns that will entertain the female audience.  (Heads up, guys.  For an R-rated movie, the film keeps Josephine clad.)  Most likely, men will remember the bicorns Napoleon wears.  I would buy stock in whoever makes them.  Unfortunately, epic does not apply to the battle scenes.  Scott uses CGI to fill in his armies, instead of the thousands of Russians used in “Waterloo”, for instance.  It’s not distracting and enough real horses were used to give a visceral feel to the charges.  Even with the CGI infantry, Austerlitz and especially Waterloo look significantly smaller in scale than the actual battles.  And much simpler and shorter than the battles.  This is very apparent in the handling of the complex Austerlitz which is portrayed as a charge into a French encampment followed by an ambush and a race across a frozen lake with artillery breaking the ice.  This is the big “Saving Private Ryan” Omaha Beach wannabe.  There are underwater shots of the drowning Austrians tinged with blood.  The battle is the highlight of the film and it is not bested by Waterloo.  Again, a complicated battle is boiled down to one frontal charge and the counterattack.  Naturally, the cavalry against the squares is reenacted (using CGI for the crow’s eye views), but anyone familiar with the battle will be underwhelmed.  And the battle ends with Napoleon leading a cavalry charge and stabbing with his sword.  Did the historical adviser have any hair left by the end of the movie?

            One of the big drawing cards for the movie is the casting of Joaquin Phoenix.  He is fine, although I do not predict he will win an Oscar.  I have problems with the use of de-aging technology, but it might have been a good call here.  Phoenix looks much too old to portray the young Napoleon.   He has Napoleon’s personality down well, especially the private Napoleon.  However, we don’t get a feel for the charisma of the public Napoleon.  The film does not show why his men would go through hell for him.  We also don’t get a good feel for his megalomania.  Or his deft political sense.  In fact, the movie has nothing about the reforms Napoleon made that improved France.  Scott’s Napoleon is not a tyrant, nor is he a benevolent despot.  The movie does not leave you wondering whether he was a hero or a villain. This is not “Patton”, but it should have been.  I am hoping the director’s cut will be similar to “Ike:  The War Years”.  Napoleon definitely deserves a miniseries.  You will be left wondering why he was a military genius, because the movie is weak on strategy and tactics.  Well, not when it comes to baby-making.

            As far as the rest of the cast, it is not all-star.  Vanessa Kirby is fine as Josephine.  She is lovely and the character is close to the actual Josephine.  She is feisty and puts up with her romance-challenged husband.  The movie gets their romance mostly correct, but there is too much emphasis on Napoleon being motivated to do military acts because of her.  There is a lot made of her inability to give him a male heir.  There is a cringe-worthy scene where he brings his son by Marie Louise to see Josephine.  Instead of being hurt by this act of cruelty, she coos to the child!  It’s things like this that strike false notes throughout the film.  I had to check the cast list to find out that there were actors portraying Marshals Ney, Davout, Junot, Berthier, and General Dumas (he’s the black guy lurking in some scenes).  None of them are developed.

            Before I lower the boom, I need to remind my readers that I am reviewing “Napoleon” as a war movie, not as a drama.  When a biopic covers one of the most famous generals in history, it is not too much to ask that it get the facts right within a reasonable amount of historical license.  Napoleon is fascinating enough without adding silly, unrealistic aspects to his life.  Scott did not feel he had to enhance the romance much, so why does he go so far afield in the military scenes?  Napoleon had a lot of hubris and so does Scott.  Even if the director’s cut makes the military chronology more understandable, that will not make up for the mishandling of events Scott decides to cover.  The film may be disappointing to some war movie lovers.  Actually, it should be.

GRADE  =  C

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Napoleon was not at the execution of Marie Antoinette, but he did witness the imprisonment of the king and queen.  He was not a fan of mob rule, so this scene is acceptable license.  By the way, she had her hair shorn before the execution, but who cares?  Get a life.  Barras was a mentor, but he was actually sent by Robespierre and Saliceti to Toulon.  He requisitioned cannons there, not dug up old ones.  He took over an armory and had more cannons and ammunition made. He was a workaholic, which the movie does not make clear.  The assault on the fort (called  is acceptable.  His horse did get him by a cannon ball, but saving the cannon ball is just bizarre.  He was wounded and bayonetted in the escalade.  The taking of the fort did and did bombard the fleet with heated cannonballs.  According to his report, many ships were set aflame and there were some ammunition explosions.  He exaggerated.  The movie shows his version of the fireworks.  

              He did fire on a mob with cannons to protect the revolutionary government, but oddly the dialogue does not include his famous “whiff of grapeshot” line.  At this point, Scott makes the dubious decision to skip over Napoleon’s success in Italy.  His greatest act of courage was the famous charge he led across the Arcole bridge.  This was probably the last time he risked his life in a charge, but not according to the movie.  He next goes to Egypt with no context.  He was hoping to burnish his military reputation with an exotic conquest that would singe the English lion’s tail.  There is a brief scene alluding to the Battle of the Pyramids (which was not fought near the pyramids).  For God knows what reason, Scott has Napoleon’s artillery firing at the top of the pyramids!  This is possibly inspired by the myth that Napoleon’s men destroyed the nose of the Sphinx.  Maybe Scott wanted to portray Napoleon as an uncultured brute who would destroy the last Wonder of the Ancient World for no reason.  And yet, he seems to care about the mummy.  The movie implies Napoleon returns to Paris because his wife is having an affair.  It was true that he found out Josephine was foolishly cheating on him and he did throw her out, but he actually returned because his fleet was destroyed in the Battle of the Nile by Horatio Nelson and he abandoned his army to beat the momentum-weakening news coverage.  Speaking of which, the news editors and cartoonists did make sport of Napoleon’s cuckolding, but it was mainly English newspapers like Punch.

            The one silly scene that bears some resemblance to reality was Napoleon getting roughed up by the legislators opposed to his power grab.  His brother Lucien did grab a sword and swear to kill Napoleon  if he was a traitor.  The best line in the movie, when Napoleon tells the English ambassador he thinks England is “so great because it has boats”, was not actually said, sadly.  The film does not flesh out Napoleon’s political acumen well.  However, the scene that reenacts his crowning himself emperor is the most accurate in the film.  Napoleon’s ascension to emperor brought on the War of the Third Coalition (which is not identified in the film).  His victory at Austerlitz won the war and was his masterpiece.  The film does not give any background, it just drops us in the middle of the battle.  Do I need to tell you that Napoleon did not disguise himself as a peasant to scout the enemy?  Ridiculous and insulting.  I won’t go into detail on the battle, but the attack on the French encampment did not take place.  The battle was famous for the drowning of many Austrian soldiers in the frozen lake.  It was not a well-planned ambush.  It was more a stroke of luck for the French.

            Scott includes the famous meeting with the young Czar Alexander at Tilsit.  The men did get along well as Alexander was something of a Napoleon worshiper, but the movie then has Napoleon invading Russia without make clear why.  The Battle of Borodino is brief and only a title card mentioning the 28,000 French losses gives a hint of what a pyrrhic victory it was.  Moscow was set afire which caused the disastrous retreat.  If you want a better appreciation for the tragedy, watch Scott’s superior “The Duellists” or Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace”.  The movie has Napoleon abdicating because of the retreat which is too simplistic as he fought several battles trying to keep the allies at bay.  His defeat in the Battle of Leipzig forced his abdication.  He did get exiled to Elba, but it is ludicrous to have him returning because Josephine was flirting with Alexander, although they did apparently meet a few times and it made the newspapers.  However, Napoleon knew she was dead before he left Elba.

            So, does the movie finish strong with the Battle of Waterloo?  Not if you have seen “Waterloo” and/or have any knowledge of the battle.  The mistakes are infuriating.  Of course, there is no mention of the Battles of Ligny and Quatre-Bras.  Scott has Napoleon postponing his attack because it’s raining when actually the rain was the previous night and the postponement was due to the mud.  The English were not behind breastworks.  Napoleon did not initiate the battle with a frontal infantry attack all along the line.  The cavalry and the squares are the only thing that rings true and the depiction is realistic, although not as good as in “Waterloo”.  Having Napoleon join a cavalry charge and stab someone is just the cherry on top of a movie that mocks military history.  By the way, the Prussians came into the battlefield from the left of the British, not the right!  P.S. Napoleon would not have saluted Wellington and they did not meet after the battle.  On the plus side, Napoleon did get sent to St. Helena, where he died.  Kudos, Scott.