Ridley Scott's Movie "Napoleon" Splits The Critics

[PeterRS]

It's the next big blockbuster from one of the great directors who has not yet won an Oscar. Ridley Scott's 2 hrs 38 minute Napoleon opened in Paris this week to decidedly mixed reviews.

The French, perhaps not surprisingly, did not like it much. Le Figaro wrote it should be renamed "Barbie and Ken under the Empire". CG France said there was something "deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny" in seeing French soldiers from 1793 shouting "Vive la France" with American acents.

American critics have been equally mixed. The entertainment bible Variety claims it is "turgid grime-encrusted spectacle," although adding that it is an undeniably impressive technical achievement. Whoever writes the Roger Ebert column nowadays gives it two stars, saying "it is a deeply shallow screenplay, one that hits major events in the life of its subject with too little passion or purpose."

Only the UK critics seem to have taken the film to their hearts - because they beat Napoleon at Waterloo perhaps - the Battle not the London train station? The Guardian calls it "an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a spectacle," while Rupert Murdoch's The Times says it's a"spectacular historical epic."

Should be coming to Thailand soon in iMax Theatres and others.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67419876

[PeterRS]

Interesting article in today's Guardian about Napoleon in art. Most of us know the painting by Jacques-Louis David showing Napoleon on his horse crossing the Alps, a truly dominant leader yet a curiously static portrait.

David's rather kitsch painting of Napoleon's coronation is equally well known.

One of David's pupils was less adulatory. Antoine-Jean Gros had seen Bonaparte at the Battle of Pont d'Arcole. A dark painting with only Bonaparte's determined face highlighted, Gros is obviously enamoured at this time of Napoleon's greatness. 

Later Gros was to become much less enchanted with his subject. He depicts the Battlefield at Eylau. Now he portrays a more thoughful, subdued and melancholy leader, a preface perhaps of what was to come in the disastrous advance on Russia.

Then there was the great British artist Turner who virtually paints Napoleon's epitaph. Here is shown alone, apart from a guarding British soldier in the background. War: The Exile and The Rock Limpet portrays him in exile on St. Helena, a little man staring down at his shadow in a pool, day-dreaming perhaps of what might have been. 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/23/ridley-scott-artists-napoleon-short-turner

[unicorn]

Well, the movie did focus more on his negative qualities. It did give him some credit, but the credit was muted. More so than Waterloo, his takeover of Moscow was probably more crucial to his downfall. His inability to account for the logistics involved (unlike the Russians, the French weren't willing to resort to cannibalism) caused him to lose the vast majority of his once vast army. 

[PeterRS]

With a free afternoon I went to see Napoleon yesterday at the iMax Theatre in Paragon. I wish i hadn't! I have admired many of Ridley Scott's previous movies. This one should have been left on the cutting room floor. It was just incredibly boring.

The start is confusing, even for those who know some of the history of immmediate post-Revolution France. The scenes with the guillotining of Marie Antoinette were both unecessary and even farcical. Watching on is the young Napoleon - although Joaquin Phoenix never looks anything other than his late-40s self. Indeed I sometimes wondered if he was actually acting. His performance was rather like a glove puppet with just two faces - moody and angry! Could he not actually have smiled during his intimate scenes with Josephine? Or shown something akin to rapture when rutting her from behind which is shown twice? Nope! Just the same old moody face.

Some have praised the battle sequences. The first, the lifting of the siege at Toulon, had some merit but the ships were all too clearly models or computer generated. Thereafer it was mostly "been there, done that". We are shown the march to Moscow with snow on the ground. But this took place in September when the weather in Russia is lovely. He then enters Moscow and there is not even a wisp of snow around. "Where is everyone" he asks on entering the abandoned city. Later he awakens to find the city on fire. Yet the fire had started just before or just after he had entered and before all the inhabitants had left. 

All this - indeed the whole movie - is littered with dialogue which is mostly dreadful. I was tempted to laugh at some points - and that is definitely not the mood Scott was looking for. Overall I found it a totally wasted opportunity to bring to life a character whose existence should have been fasinating. I found the advance trailer for Timothee Chalamet as Wonka much more fascinating!