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.
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.
2 comments:
Michael Briers typo tripped me up.
This film was my introduction to Napoleon as an historical figure and even I suspected it wasn’t a good film. There is a scene where young British midshipmen are listening respectfully to him as he is held captive but it doesn’t feel earned to me because we aren’t shown how effective Napoleon was as a ruler and administrator, and his military genius doesn’t get much more coverage; he refers to Tsar Alexander I copying his battle tactics, which means little when we don’t see most of his battles and have no clear idea of his favoured tactics. In fact, Napoleon doesn’t come off very well at all in the film, spending the majority of his scenes being awkward, emotional, or acting like the “Corsican brute” he is described as, such as having his way with Josephine under the dining room table while growling like a dog. Not that there’s anything wrong with making a character come across as unlikeable but they need some complexity to make them engaging!
Have you seen the 2002 miniseries of the same name where Napoleon is portrayed by Christian Clavier? Not saying it doesn't have its problems but it is a perfect demonstration of why this man’s life needs an entire TV series to do it justice.
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