Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’ turns a legend into a loser (2:44 PM 12/13/2023)

Angelus ^ | December 5, 2023 | Andrew Fowler

[Bonemaker]

For sure. Most of the store music I run into is as unrecognizable as it is unbearable.

[Uncle Miltie]

It was engag8ng, but left me wondering why would anybody follow Napoleon?

Of course there were reasons, but the film left them out.

[Dr. Sivana]

The British eventually poisoned him, of course.

I understand an a test was done not too long ago where they checked for poison, and it came back negative.

[Tijeras_Slim]

The Alien franchise had been run into the ground before Prometheus. Scott seems to have lost a step.

[MinorityRepublican]

He got old and became woke.

[Rockingham]

I saw the movie with an old friend who is a West Point graduate. Between us, we complained of numerous omissions as to the military action, with the hope that they would be part of the longer version. Moreover, there was little sense as to why Napoleon was so effective as a commander and political figure.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Also fell in love with CGI. Bladerunner has the most amazing effects, all “analog” as I like to say. A much overlooked film of his is “A Good Year” just a light comedy, but good fun.

[vpintheak]

This garbage and the white man is evil “Flower Moon” movie. SMH. 🤦‍♂️ these people will just never get it.

[buwaya]

The movie does attempt to explain Napoleons successes as a commander. Not terribly well, but there we go, its a movie. In the Toulon sequence it tries to explain his mastery of artillery, and his ability to analyze a military situation, finding a weak spot. In the Austerlitz sequence (btw, if you have an interest in Austerlitz, get “Napoleon and Austerlitz”, Scott Bowden, which is way into the category of TMI, but in the best way. It also does a fine job on the whole campaign of 1805), the movie goes some way into explaining that Napoleon had anticipated and prepared for the allies’ moves beforehand - which he had. He had a knack of reading minds. Some minds sometimes anyway.

In a more general way, get Duffy’s “Campaigns of Napoleon” for a comprehensive view of how Napoleon approached both campaigns and battles. It is NOT a proper history of the Napoleonic wars. I have a rather embarassingly large Napoleonic library.

[buwaya]

It does go rather deep into the Directory politics. Paul Barras (another paramour of Josephine) is quite a prominent character, and he does quite a lot of explication. And the roles of the other Bonaparte brothers Joseph and Lucien, are prominent as well - though conflated into just Lucien in the movie. Both were power brokers. The advancement of Napoleon was part of the family business.

[Rockingham]

Most action dramas tend to have asides and quiet moments that set out larger themes. Napoleon in its theatrical version lacked that, perhaps for inadequate time or for fear of slowing the action down.

I have read quite a bit of history over the years, including military history, enough to know that Napoleon was genuinely skilled as a military leader. A few asides in the movie would have helped explain his talent and success.

Most of all, someone could made the point that Napoleon had an unusual ability to see and understand a battlefield at a glance and to size up a strategic context and know what had to be done. Nowadays, modern professional militaries routinely study and try to develop such skills, but in an era of parade ground soldiers, purchased commissions, and royals in command, Napoleon was an outlier -- a smart, tough, and talented political and military leader.

In addition, France of the late 18th Century was wealthy and stirring with energy and ideas from the Enlightenment, far more so than the Bourbon regime and Louis XVI could contain or manage. Although the Revolution liberated France from the monarchy, it set it into political turmoil, with Napoleon then providing order and a sense that he would secure and extend the Revolution.

That combination provided a potent source of motivation and permitted mass mobilization of French society for war. The established monarchies of Europe recoiled in fear, eventually prevailing only because of British support, Napoleon's overreach, and Wellington holding at Waterloo until Blucher arrived.

[Rockingham]

By most accounts, Joseph Bonaparte kept a faltering Napoleon from withdrawing rather than defending the residue of the Directory government from a mob and then seizing control. What Napoleon described as a matter of a “whiff of grapeshot” was more like Joe making his kid brother stand firm and fire his cannon. If not for that, the name Napoleon might well be no more than an obscure note in a multi volume academic history of the era.

[hopespringseternal]

There was no ahistorical woke in this one that I could see. Josephine was what she was, and IMHO quite well written in this. This is no feminist screed.

Napoleon is turned into an impotent clown with a powerful wife who has all the brains just like every other thing put on film in the last ten years and you don't find anything woke about that? Is that you, Mr. Magoo?

[buwaya]

“impotent clown”?

The guy who pushed aside the Pope and crowned himself?

Thats not the movie I saw. Napoleon had complex, sometimes bizarre motivations, and often inexplicable judgment, some of which can be due to his relationship with Josephine, and insufficiently stressed here, his mother.

The movie makes a huge deal of his dumping Josephine, which certainly didnt make her happy. This is made out to be a nasty series of humiliations for her - culminating in the scene of the signing of the annulment, a painful, awkward power play. The entire grey theme of her exile at Malmaison, which Napoleon only rarely deigns to visit, makes a clear point. She’s done, passe.

This leaves Napoleon feeling guilty, as he indeed was, but hey, raisons d’etat.

[Texan4Life]

How Napoleon Ended The Terror Of The Spanish Inquisition | Files of the Inquisition | Real History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDg2e1SdfkY