Many hoped to find in Napoleon a historical film, a biopic, almost a documentary, but Ridley Scott, that’s not what he wanted, that wasn’t at all his vision. From the start, the British-American filmmaker has constantly repeated that his film is not a historical work, but that he wanted to restore the grandeur and scale of the Napoleonic epic, a time when France was feared throughout Europe and beyond. Everything else, Ridley Scott, he doesn’t care, his objective was in fact to make a great epic film, bordering on war, while extrapolating the tumultuous life of Napoleon and at the same time, offering a satirical vision, sometimes ridiculous by the Emperor of France, and that’s a success! Because yes, if you want to go to the cinema to be amazed, with a grandiose production and an incredible photo, then you will be served!
A week after the press screening and the world premiere held in Paris at the Salle Pleyel (redecorated for the occasion), many thought that we would be entitled to positive feedback, but against all expectations, it The opposite happened, with a lot of mixed and even negative reviews. Is the French press still zealous? Did she not understand anything about Ridley Scott’s film? Did the journalists approach the film from the wrong prism? So what is the film’s criticism? First of all, the inaccuracy of certain facts, which we had already seen in the trailers and which had prompted the intervention of a British historian on TikTok. His video had become so viral that Ridley Scott agreed to respond to him. Yes, in the first images of the trailer, we saw Napoleon’s army bombing the pyramids in Egypt, but also Marie-Antoinette being sent to the guillotine with her big hair, while we know that the women to whom we cut off the head, their hair was cut so that the cut was clean with the blade. Not to mention this sterile controversy where it is criticized that Napoleon speaks English in the film. So yes, indeed, there is reason to be disconcerted in the first minutes of the film, and we would have liked that a contemporary French filmmaker could take on a project as crazy as depicting the life of Napoleon, but it would take a producer crazy enough to throw 200 million euros on the table, something which is less certain when we know that the commercial flop of Luc Besson’s Valerian almost cost Europa its life.
REALLY FAR FROM THE HISTORICAL TRUTH?
Historical freedoms have also been denounced, and some historians speak of an anti-French and pro-British interpretation. These criticisms were not to the taste of Ridley Scott, who went straight to the clash by declaring that “the French don’t even love themselves”. It is quite regrettable that we are talking about the film in this way, even if this controversy allows Ridley Scott’s film to have very high visibility in the media, because basically, if we put these historical details aside , which in addition are not that numerous in the end, it is impossible not to appreciate the spectacle that Ridley Scott offers us. Especially if you like “practical” cinema, it’s hard not to come away satisfied by the show on offer. It is shot in natural settings, with sometimes more than 1,600 extras for certain scenes, the battles obviously, a little CGI (and integrated in a very clean way), wide shots, sets and above all incredible costumes, so much so that certain shots resemble paintings, notably the scene of Napoleon’s coronation, it is astonishingly beautiful. It really is difficult to come away disappointed with such entertainment. Because that’s what Ridley Scott wants to offer us, entertainment and guaranteeing that we leave the room filled with the images that were projected, while offering his vision of Napoleon. The film has a duration of 2h39, it’s long (and again, it has become the norm in 2023), but obviously too short if we want to deal with the complete life of such a man. If we want to be historical, precise and in the documentary, it is a series of 10/15 hours that we obviously have to put out, but the public still has to be able to respond, which is far from being certain.
In 2h39, Ridley Scott bases his film on the relationship between Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais, she who was previously married and mother of two children at the time of their union. Despite everything, it will be the great love of this emperor whose image of the strategist and infallible conqueror cracks upon contact. We discover a Napoleon completely in love with his wife, ready to forgive her for her infidelities, even to the point of sometimes making a fool of himself. We see a weak Napoleon in the face of this, incapable of controlling his sexual urges. Obviously, this blind love will also create a kind of hyper-toxic relationship, unwelcome nowadays at the end of 2023, but seemingly anchored in the society of the time. According to Ridley Scott, it is partly because of this complicated relationship that Napoleon had difficulty accepting in the private world which will make him a conqueror and a military genius. Failing to be able to conquer his wife and be the cuckolded emperor, he will dominate the world. It is this duality imposed by Ridley Scott which is interesting, regardless of the liberties taken against the character, because we discover his faults and his tyranny too. In any case, it was necessary to attack the film from a precise angle, because in 2h38, Ridley Scott was forced to make shortcuts and/or temporal ellipses.
THE SHOW FIRST
Of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, we can say that it is an epic, spectacular film, sumptuous in form, also surprising, because the filmmaker seeks to shake up what we already know about the Emperor of France, even if it means denigrating him. on a private level, but without forgetting what made it great. This is not the first time that Ridley Scott has done this, with Gladiator in particular, which was also a little mistreated by the film press at the time, but whose incredible trajectory on cinema and pop culture we know. All filmmakers sometimes arrange events to fit their “cinematic” vision. This is what Scott does, without going into rewriting the past either. It’s a vision of our Napoleon, that of Ridley Scott and quite honestly, it is particularly successful.
OUR RATING: 8/10
