‘Napoleon’ is an eye-catching but hollow experience

Ridley Scott is a director that needs no introduction. Although he is difficult to categorise within one specific genre or style, his illustrious body of work, including Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, and Gladiator, has solidified his legacy as one of Western cinema’s most revered artists. The scale of Ridley Scott’s films is often admirable in itself; regardless of personal opinions on the overall quality of his filmography, one cannot deny his meticulous attention to detail that allows him to build such expansive narrative worlds.

Those who have been closely following the release of Napoleon will certainly have already seen many of Ridley Scott’s dismissive comments towards the film’s numerous detractors. As a product of the rebellious ‘New Hollywood’ movement, Scott’s maverick behaviour should not be considered unexpected, although his belligerently defensive stance towards this particular film suggests that we are being presented with a project of significant artistic magnitude. After all, it chronicles the rise and fall of one of history’s most culturally significant figures and is the first major film to do so in nearly 100 years, since Abel Gance released his five-hour-long epic in 1927.

Alas, the film is too caught up in the spectacle of Napoleon’s thrilling exploits to comprehensively interrogate his character

It is difficult to know what to make of Napoleon at first glance. The trailer itself was striking for its wilful indulgence in historical inaccuracies – if the anachronistic prominence of English in 19th-century France didn’t bother historians, then the blatant revisionism of Napoleon firing canons towards Egyptian pyramids certainly did. Regarding this particular sequence, Ridley Scott’s indifference towards historicity (he claimed in an interview with The Times that he didn’t “know if he did that, but it was a fast way of saying he took Egypt.”), might suggest that Napoleon is attempting to substitute realism for a more character-driven narrative. Indeed, Scott verbalises a level of contempt for Napoleon Bonaparte’s tyrannical ways, comparing his dictatorial stance to that of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, while simultaneously recognising his strategic greatness. Furthermore, by emphasising the role of Napoleon’s wife, Joséphine, it appears that Ridley Scott sought to evoke a more complex portrait of the man. Alas, the film is too caught up in the spectacle of Napoleon’s thrilling exploits to comprehensively interrogate his character.

At times, I felt as though Napoleon was verging on satire. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance emphasises the perceived insecurity of the man, often portraying him as comically infantile in both marital and diplomatic affairs, while David Scarpa’s script derives much of its substance from pointed observations on Napoleon’s emasculation and impotence. During their first meeting in the film, Joséphine disparagingly refers to Napoleon’s uniform as a ‘costume’, and Ridley Scott thereafter frames her domineering influence as one that drives his tyrannical actions. The major issue here is that the film does not sufficiently explore the relationship between these characters outside of this speculative interpretation of their power dynamics. Instead, the audience is left with two undefined caricatures whose scenes together hint at substance but do not display any. Joséphine, in particular, suffers from being underdeveloped; Vanessa Kirby gives a convincing performance, but Scott and Scarpa’s vision of the character translates as nebulous, shying away from the complexity that defined Joséphine’s tumultuous relationship with Napoleon unless it revolves around her sensationalised infidelity. Not once are we invited to reflect upon the multifaceted motivations which would have driven Joséphine’s gravitation towards this man.

During the Austerlitz battle, we are shown prolonged shots of enemy troops falling into a large frozen lake, a creative fabrication which offers some striking visuals of bloodied clouds in icy water, but a directorial choice that ultimately cannot rectify the narrative’s emptiness

Of course, it should be noted that the theatrical cut is heavily abridged, although Scott now claims that this edition equates to his final vision, encompassing all that he intended to say with the project. If we are to take this at face value, then what individual artistic perspective can be ascertained from Napoleon? The film features various moments that hint at a desire to deconstruct the mythological status of this figure, not only through the aforementioned emasculation, but also by highlighting Napoleon’s insatiable need to be perceived as a ‘great man’ equivalent to Julius Caesar. Ridley Scott repeatedly accentuates the artifice behind the opulence, and at one point in the film, Napoleon asks: “Do I resemble my portrait?” Nonetheless, Scott’s exploration of this character facet does not lead us any closer to examining the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte. The film omits any substantial reference to Napoleon’s relationship with the Enlightenment, failing to convey what exactly made the man (and thus the French Revolution) so appealing at the time. Without this wider perspective, the portrayal of Napoleon’s rise and fall lacks nuance, leaving us only with sprawling battle sequences that are a marvel to behold but are bereft of substance. In fact, Scott is forced to embellish these sequences with dramatised spectacle; during the Austerlitz battle, we are shown prolonged shots of enemy troops falling into a large frozen lake, a creative fabrication which offers some striking visuals of bloodied clouds in icy water, but a directorial choice that ultimately cannot rectify the narrative’s emptiness. With every subsequent battle, the excess of violence becomes more and more meaningless. This is not to mention the obliviousness towards Napoleon’s imperialistic tendencies, which are questionably airbrushed by the guise of portraying the man as merely a childish brute.

Perhaps it might be best to label Napoleon as the expected antithesis to the formality which has defined other recent historical epics such as Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. Admittedly, it is refreshing to see a biopic that is willing to playfully subvert our expectations, allowing the audience to confront the sheer absurdity of history. Yet, Ridley Scott’s film is simply too unfocused and tonally inconsistent to be a standout. Like its eponymous subject, Napoleon offers a delusion of grandeur which it fails to live up to.