Michael Broers on the Ridley Scott film

Having read so many bad reviews I decided not to bother with Ridley Scott's film, but I may be more interested in the four hour directors cut not yet released.

The film apparently focused very much on war and sex, or more particularly on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine. Phoenix is older than Napoleon was at the end of his career, and Josephine, in the film played by Vanessa Kirby, is portrayed as younger than Napoleon when in fact the reverse was the case.

Michael Briers who ironically was involved in the preparation for the film, indicates in a perceptive article that there was so much more to Napoleon than is revealed by the film.

Michael Broers Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 (Pegasus 2022)

Broers is for me the best of the historians of the Napoleonic period, and this interview about his latest book, Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 is also very much worth listening to. Broers offers an interesting perspective on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine, indicating that her aristocratic background was important to a young man who grew up in the ancien regime feeling socially very insecure.

Broers concludes that Waterloo was more important for the reputation and career of Wellington than it was for Napoleon. The 100 Days was a gamble with the odds stacked heavily against him. Even had he won that battle, the strength of the armies allied against him made his ultimate defeat almost inevitable. On Elba he very much feared that the only one of his enemies that would treat him fairly was Alexander with whom her personally got on well. So with very real fears that he might well end up on St Helena or worse, the decision to return to France was the last throw of the dice.

Elsewhere on my blog I have written about Waterloo and its importance for British nationalist mythology and also on the factors that seem to have made Napoleon decide to leave Elba.