Film Journal 2023: Napolean

Film Journal 2023: Napolean
Directed by Ridley Scott

You wouldn’t be faulted for walking into this expecting a Gladiator type historical epic. By all appearances that’s precisely what this seemed to be advertising. If you were, or are, caught off guard by the fact that a fair portion of this film ends up a comedy detailing Napleon’s quirks, shortcomings and eccentricities, you aren’t alone.

Which isn’t to say this dynamic of the film doesn’t work.the rise and fall of a madman makes for a fairly entertaining watch, especially where it involves a deadpan Phoenix playing up his own off the rails performance. It does take a bit of an adjustment though. Thankfully the rich historical detail help to make this a strong, visual experience.

There is a version of this film that would have been better served by streamlining the lengthy list of conquests and giving a bit more time to Josephine. There was an opportunity here to flesh out the different perspectives, and it would have been interesting to sit in that space with Joseohine as the one left behind. Director Ridely Scott seemed to want to give us a sense of the gradual progression of casualties that trail behind Napoleans obsessions, and the elongated portrait of these subsequent battles, all of which tend to blend together,becomes part of the viewing expeirmce. And full credit to Scott for committing to that vision, for better and for worse. Even if it doesn’t work for you, I think it would be hard to deny the film has a good dose of character and personality.

Napoleon was a man caught between ego and empathy, and that plays into the growing confusion of precisely what he believes he is accomplishing through his unwavering and often delusional conmitment to patriotism. Its here as well that we see the film straddling that line between its humor and the seriousness of the history. It doesn’t always work, but it does afford the film an interesting dynamic.
Seems weird to say, but Napolean might end up more polarizing then The Last Duel, a film I liked quite a bit, and which actually shares some similar sensibilities (including playing around with the gender dynamics of the time).

There’s a reason why Scott keeps coming back to these types of historical dramas- he’s good at imagining them for the big screen.