Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix), mumbling like an infant, shuffles into the chambers of his wife Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby) and begs her for sex in front of her maids. He whines until she sends her employees out of the room, lifts her skirt and allows him to see her like copulating from behind with a rabid, uncontrollably twitching dachshund.
Napoleon is highly controversial as a lustful newt
So that’s him, the world spirit on horseback, the great general, the proud emperor of the French. No wonder director Ridley Scott chose to direct his main character in Napoleon received one slap after another . But anyone who criticizes that is wrong: showing the general as a lustful newt is an absolutely brilliant idea.
Check out the trailer for Napoleon here:
Napoleon – Trailer 2 (German) HD
The film is unintentionally funny, writes The Wrap. Scott allowed that Phoenix was completely crazy, said the New York Post. None of this is true. The biopic epic proves neither incompetence nor madness. Rather, it achieves what many of its genre comrades fail to do.
Napoleon is different: Many biopics fail because of their distorted main characters
Biopics about great personalities, interestingly especially artists or military commanders, often break down because of one central problem: The main character has to be relatable enough to root for. But mysterious enough to admire. Many films exaggerate the eccentricities of their heroes.
Who remembers a blonde-haired Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell) who, accompanied by an ominously humming male choir, having group sex in a tent while his army starves? Or the permanently stoned Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) from The Doors, who couldn’t go to the bathroom without making a cryptic remark about the human condition? One of Phoenix’s predecessors in the Napoleon role, Herbert Lom in War and Peace, also embodies a tragic sociopath at his core.
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Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby in Napoleon
Why is that? Maybe directors don’t want to frustrate audiences by portraying larger-than-life heroes. The brilliant talent for war or art must be balanced by social incompatibility. Anyone who conquers countries and still communicates their feelings in a healthy way As a superman, he immediately loses some of his mystery. Viewers want to see uniqueness staged like the heightened sense of hearing of a blind person.
Ridley Scott makes Napoleon neither a misanthrope nor an animal
At least that’s what many directors seem to believe. Ridley Scott is not one of them. His Napoleon remains close to us on the battlefield and in the marriage bed. Phoenix’s character lovingly puts his arm around Joséphine over a glass of wine, and when she teases him about his uniform, he’s not offended but charmed. Her infidelity angers him, but not excessively: after he angrily throws her belongings out of the house, he still allows herself to be persuaded to have a conversation.
Ridley Scott does not show a cold-blooded misanthrope or a rude animal, but a person with understandable emotions. But then why the bizarre scenes in which he begs for sex and crawls under the table towards Joséphine’s lap?
Napoleon has no idea why he is a lustful newt
They have the same reason as Napoleon’s tendency to sleep standing up or with his eyes open: they create a void that neither the film nor we can fill. It doesn’t work without mystery; for our admiration, part of his personality must remain an enigma. And Here Scott demonstrates unique sensitivity.
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Napoleon on the battlefield
Because instead of steamrolling Napoleon’s eccentric moments with explanations, accusing him of mental illness or physical peculiarities, he simply leaves them uncommented. Not an indignant servant has to drag the sex-crazed Napoleon out of a brothel. No officer should push him so that he doesn’t miss the cavalry charge. The bizarre scenes come, happen, and then go away again.
This has the advantage that Napoleon’s behavior is not viewed through a template of inadequacies. Moments of his human warmth stand for themselves. It is almost as if the source of his childish lust, like his genius on the battlefield, remained hidden from the hero himself. And if we share his amazement at his impulses, we can understand him and sometimes even admire him at the same time, for example, when he outmaneuvers his enemies in Austerlitz. That’s a lot more than can be said about the main characters of Alexander, The Doors or 998 other biopics.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t laugh out loud during Napoleon’s rammel scenes. But in a way I laughed with Napoleon. I want to hug the love-crazed nerd, despite his bloody wars. There are enough sociopaths in war films. Ridley Scott’s hero is a teddy bear on a campaign of conquest.
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