Ridley Scott's "Napoleon" (2023)

[Nellie LaRoy]

I have seen the trailers, but otherwise don't know an awful lot about Ridley Scott's new passion project, Napoleon, which stars Joaquin Phoenix in the title role and Vanessa Kirby as Empress Joséphine.

The movie will reportedly get an IMAX and/or 70mm release, like Oppenheimer did (although from what I've been able to find online, the movie was NOT filmed in 70mm). Still, a digital movie blown up to 70mm should look pretty darn nice.

As with the recent Killers of the Flower Moon, this is a movie financed largely by Apple and being shown in theaters in partnership with a major Hollywood studio. An even longer version than the 2-1/2 hour theatrical cut will reportedly become available on AppleTV+ at a later, as yet undetermined date.

Oh, and it's supposed to open during the Thanksgiving weekend. Although tickets aren't on sale yet.

[Nellie LaRoy]

Well, where should I start?

Guess I'll start out by saying that if you're going to watch this in theaters, you may as well splurge and go watch it in IMAX, even without the 70mm prints, as it's the best way to appreciate what's best about the movie - the production, cinematography, and the big battle scenes.

But if you're not all that excited, maybe it's just as well to wait and watch it when it starts streaming on Apple TV+, as reportedly director Scott will release a much longer "director's cut" straight to streaming, that could be closer to 4 hours long.

It should go without saying this one doesn't hold a candle to Abel Gance's 1927 version. That movie is unquestionably one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, and specially memorable if you've been lucky enough to watch it in a cinema.

I don't think this new version is the masterpiece that Scott intended, but I found it downright soporific during long stretches, and even the usually lively Vanessa Kirby can't breath much life into the less interesting parts of the movie, which are quite a few (at least in the theatrical version).

Rupert Everett does breathe a bit of life into the movie as the Duke of Ellington, but that's in the last stretch of the movie, and by then it's kind of "too little, too late".

[Swithin]

I love big movies and am looking forward to it. I've read some of the UK reviews, which have been mixed, but I still want to see it, and it's at my local theater, including in IMAX.

As you've said, the Abel Gance film is one of the all-time masterpieces. I'll never forget seeing it at Radio City Music Hall, in 1981, with a live orchestra conducted by Carmine Coppola. I later saw a version of it in London, on television, so not ideal, but the magnificence still came through.

[Feinberg]

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

[Swithin]

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

I haven't seen a lot of Ridley Scott films, but I'm not a great fan. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I didn't even like Alien that much (there are better films about aliens on spaceships); and I found Bladerunner to be a big bore, to use your term, "the film had no soul."

I think Phoenix's best performance is as the Abbé du Coulmier in Quills (2000).

[Nellie LaRoy]

As you've said, the Abel Gance film is one of the all-time masterpieces. I'll never forget seeing it at Radio City Music Hall, in 1981, with a live orchestra conducted by Carmine Coppola. I later saw a version of it in London, on television, so not ideal, but the magnificence still came through.

Yes! Watching it theatrically with a live orchestra is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I remember it vividly, and it was never less than totally compelling, despite being nearly twice as long (with breaks) as Scott's version.

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

I haven't seen a lot of Ridley Scott films, but I'm not a great fan. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I didn't even like Alien that much (there are better films about aliens on spaceships); and I found Bladerunner to be a big bore, to use your term, "the film had no soul."

I think Phoenix's best performance is as the Abbé du Coulmier in Quills (2000).

To be fair, the technical elements of the movie are all first-rate. It's just that I don't think he quite cracked the story, and the Duke of Wellington aside, I think the leads could have been cast much better. In some ways, it's not all that unlike his 1492: Conquest of Paradise: sumptuous visuals, great production design, some memorable images - but otherwise, weak storytelling.

[nakanosunplaza]

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

Totally agree with you.

[Allhallowsday]

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

I haven't seen a lot of Ridley Scott films, but I'm not a great fan. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I didn't even like Alien that much (there are better films about aliens on spaceships); and I found Bladerunner to be a big bore, to use your term, "the film had no soul."...

Yet he gave us the wonderful Feminist statement, THELMA AND LOUISE.

[Nellie LaRoy]

No one is going to mistake Scott's Napoleon for a feminist statement.

[Allhallowsday]

No one is going to mistake Scott's Napoleon for a feminist statement.

And it looks boring...

[skimpole]

How does it compare to War and Peace (either the Vidor or the Bondarchuk version)?

[Nellie LaRoy]

How does it compare to War and Peace (either the Vidor or the Bondarchuk version)?

Well, as I said before, there's a 4-hour cut that Scott has reportedly prepared for AppleTV+, and so I'm willing to wait until that starts streaming to revisit this and see how it stacks up against some of the other 4-hour epics that you mention.

However, I revisited Waterloo (with Rod Steiger as Napoleon) after watching Scott's theatrical cut, and I'd say they're both about equally boring, despite all of the lavish battle scenes that both movies feature.

[CinemaInternational]

Epic yes, but IMO the film had no soul. Phoenix and Kirby are terribly miscast with zero charisma.

I haven't seen a lot of Ridley Scott films, but I'm not a great fan. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I didn't even like Alien that much (there are better films about aliens on spaceships); and I found Bladerunner to be a big bore, to use your term, "the film had no soul."...

Yet he gave us the wonderful Feminist statement, THELMA AND LOUISE.

Although he did a fine job directing that, much of the credit for that one should go to the script and its leads (Geena Davis has written afterwards that Sarandon taught her to be more of a feminist and improved her life while making that film, and you honestly can feel both she and her character both expanding the longer the film goes on). Scott had originally signed on to that one only as a producer, but slid into the director's chair when he decided he really wanted to work with Sarandon and Davis personally.

[Swithin]

Fascinating article about Napoleon in his various adaptations, in today's FT. Here's a clip. I'll try to figure out how to share the whole article. It's by Simon Schama, a respected British historian.

"Ridley Scott's not-half-bad epic stars Joaquin Phoenix and his saturnine mumble, periodically punctuated with heavy breathing or aggravated yelping. But Phoenix's performance, swinging between clenched rumination and neurotic energy, nails what the historian Georges Lefebvre thought was Napoleon's mainspring: the mercurial, dynamic temperament. Moreover, Phoenix's vocal manner is a big improvement on both Marlon Brando's adenoidal lisp in Désirée (1954) and Rod Steiger's strangulated barking in Sergei Bondarchuk's otherwise gripping Waterloo of 1970."

[Swithin]

Here's a bit more from the FT article. This is only a fraction of a very long article which also dealt with books and paintings related to Napoleon.



Napo­leon and the myth­makers

From Jacques-Louis David’s canvases to Rid­ley Scott’s new biopic, the French emperor has long exer­ted a mag­netic pull over artists. What is it that tempts so many to risk a cre­at­ive Water­loo?

By Simon Schama

Rid­ley Scott’s not-half-bad epic stars Joa­quin Phoenix and his sat­urnine mumble, peri­od­ic­ally punc­tu­ated with heavy breath­ing or aggrav­ated yelp­ing. But Phoenix’s per­form­ance, swinging between clenched rumin­a­tion and neur­otic energy, nails what the his­tor­ian Georges Lefe­b­vre thought was Napo­leon’s main­spring: the mer­cur­ial, dynamic tem­pera­ment. Moreover, Phoenix’s vocal man­ner is a big improve­ment on both Mar­lon Brando’s aden­oidal lisp in Désirée (1954) and Rod Steiger’s stran­gu­lated bark­ing in Sergei Bond­archuk’s oth­er­wise grip­ping Water­loo of 1970.

It may well be that the chal­lenge of repro­du­cing the vox Napoleana (the tone of which his­tor­ical sources are strangely quiet about) is pos­sibly best met by the cap­tions of silent movies such as Abel Gance’s his­tri­on­ic­ally unhinged mas­ter­piece of 1927. You have to won­der, though, what Jack Nich­olson, picked by Stan­ley Kubrick for his unreal­ised biopic, would have soun­ded like.

It takes Napo­leonic self-con­fid­ence to take on the sub­ject, since com­mer­cially, until now, the most ambi­tious movies have all met a com­mer­cial Water­loo. After Gance’ savant-garde, manic-expres­sion­ist, five-hour movie was met by more head-scratch­ing than pub­lic applause, he was denied the fund­ing to achieve his heart’s desire of mak­ing a fur­ther five films tak­ing Napo­leon all the way to exile on St Helena.

Sergei Bond­archuk’s lit­er­ally stun­ning Borodino in the Soviet-era War and Peace is still the most con­vin­cing cine­matic rep­res­ent­a­tion of what it feels like to be trapped inside a battle, a chal­lenge since the ttwo most sali­ent char­ac­ter­ist­ics, as John Kee­gan’s The Face of Battle poin­ted out — invis­ib­il­ity (the smoke) and inaud­ib­il­ity (the thun­der of can­non) — are not audi­ence-friendly. Inev­it­ably, the budget-bust­ing, seven-hour Tol­stoy movie was shut down by its Soviet pro­du­cers before its proper con­clu­sion, short-chan­ging the incin­er­a­tion of Moscow. The dis­aster did not, however, pre­clude Bond­archuk being hired to dir­ect Water­loo (with a fab­ulously droll Chris­topher Plum­mer as Wel­ling­ton), com­plete with 15,000 extras and 200 cav­alry horses, a movie so com­mer­cially dis­astrous that it played a part in the stu­dios’ reluct­ance to go any­where near Kubrick’s loom­ing mon­ster.

It doesn’t take an advanced degree in cul­tural psy­cho­logy to notice that all these heavy-hit­ters were not just mak­ing films about Napo­leon so much as climb­ing into his saddle, beguiled by the siren song of Movie Des­tiny.

Gance used the his­tory to cre­ate a cine­matic revolu­tion, one that deployed an artil­lery bar­rage of effects — hand­held cam­eras (unique for silent movies), cam­eras moun­ted on pen­du­lums, wildly rapid cut­ting and the triple-screen open­ing of the final scene of the French army poised to des­cend on Italy — all inten­ded to strong-arm the audi­ence into becom­ing part of the action. At first sight, Kubrick damned the exper­i­ment­ally oper­atic film as “ter­rible”, although the impres­sion lingered long enough for him to want to beat it by dir­ect­ing “the best movie ever made”.

To those who, late in his career, asked Kubrick whether he might think of reviv­ing his own Napo­leon project, aban­doned around 1970, the maes­tro insisted he had never really wanted to make the film; and, per­versely, that there never had been a shoot­ing script. But when that script and the monu­mental archive of its devel­op­ment were unearthed, the scale of Kubrick’s attack of Napo­leon syn­drome became breath­tak­ingly appar­ent.

Bet­w­teen 30,000 and 50,000 extras, sup­plied by the Romanian army, were to have been trans­por­ted to loc­a­tions by a fleet of 1,000 trucks. Two years of obsess­ive research gen­er­ated a lib­rary of 18,000 doc­u­ments, many of which Kubrick had pored over, and a cache of 15,000 pic­tures. Lenses were to be pro­cured that could shoot in avail­able light (as they would for the majestic Barry Lyn­don a few years later). Love scenes were to be lit only by candles, glim­mer­ing on floor-to-ceil­ing wall-to-wall mir­rors that Kubrick thought were Napo­leon’s thing: Ver­sailles, only pornier.

At other times, Kubrick was obsessed by his­tor­ical accur­acy to the point of want­ing to shoot battles on the loc­a­tions where they had actu­ally taken place. Dis­ap­poin­ted to dis­cover that many of them had long been built over, he col­lec­ted soil samples to scat­ter over altern­at­ive sites. For all this, his estim­ated budget — between $3mn and $6mn, chicken feed now but hefty then — was less than the $10mn spent on 2001: A Space Odys­sey, which had recovered its costs and more. But the scale of everything still frightened MGM off and Kubrick went to Warner Bros to make A Clock­work Orange instead, adap­ted from the novel by Anthony Bur­gess, who also wrote the bril­liantly mis­chiev­ous Napo­leon Sym­phony.

The dark side of what Napo­leon wrought is not, of course, good box office. Although Rid­ley Scott is a dab hand at ren­der­ing the spec­tacle of extreme viol­ence — a horse evis­cer­ated by a can­non­ball — the pathos of the humble is not his thing. Only one film that I know of — Yves Angelo’s won­der­ful Le Col­onel Chabert (1994), based on a Balzac novella in which an officer pre­sumed dead at Eylau returns to attempt to claim his prop­erty and wife — gives full weight to the wretched after­math of a great battle. Against an infernal land­scape of death, the car­casses of horses being cremated in bon­fires, the grimy hands of scav­engers tug and pull inside the uni­forms of the dead to retrieve any­thing that might be worth hav­ing, while Beeth­oven’s “Ghost” trio plays unbear­ably over the piti­less des­ol­a­tion.

Pro­fess­or­ial carp­ing over liber­ties taken with the his­tor­ical facts is beside the point, and Scott for that mat­ter doesn't take that many of them. Joséphine’s stumpy black teeth were never likely to fea­ture in the come-hither mouth of Vanessa Kirby, who does a mean job of inhab­it­ing the empire-line cou­gar. A big­ger pity is the pre­sump­tion, belied by movies such as Steven Spiel­berg’s Lin­coln, that pro­vok­ing an audi­ence to reflect on his­tory’s big ques­tions must neces­sar­ily be a drag on enter­tain­ment.