A Week Without Napoleon

Nearly every human being has some hyper-fixation with a historical figure or event. Whether we know it or not, this commonality binds us in a joyous union that grows a deepening appreciation for said hyper-fixation and the individual(s)–albeit knowing them personally or not–that shares the same or mildly similar obsession. I have come across several of these individuals. Still, it was not until I watched “The Longest Week” that I became acquainted with Conrad Valmont, a character who takes a hyper-fixation and molds it to form an unrealistic reality. Maybe the nomenclature of unrealistic reality is an unfit term–perhaps how the hyper-fixation exemplifies through the forms it physically transcends. Furthermore, it is an object that holds psychological value.

Conrad is a starving artist attempting to write a novel much like those of Hemingway, Wharton, or Fitzgerald. When asked about his progress, his recurring and unchanging answer is, “I am in the gathering stages.” Be that as it may, it is uniquely visible to the audience that his life and unwritten novel are testimonies of this gathering stage. Conrad does not know what to do with his life or novel, which is where the image from this movie comes into play. The audience sees a middle-aged man lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and lost in thought with no desire to do anything but live a luxurious life his parents fund. 

The Valmont family owns a luxurious hotel in New York’s Upper West Side, and this is where Conrad has lived the majority of his life. When Conrad was a child, his parents left on holiday but never came back, leaving Conrad being raised by the hotel staff and its privileges of being handed everything to him on a silver platter. The narrator states, “On the eve of his 51st year, Jean-Louis took Conrad’s mother to the south of France on what was to be a weekend excursion. It has since become a lavish escapade around the world lasting nearly three decades. Over the subsequent years, Conrad was raised by the Valmont’s staff. His chauffeur Bernard had taken Conrad to a Parisian brothel for his 13th birthday as a sort of rite of passage into polite society. It was a family tradition.” Fancy parties, a classical and sophisticated education, and a lifestyle surrounded by women from such a young age kept Conrad happy until an encounter with a dangerous woman named Beatrice.

The audience’s introduction to Beatrice is on a train soon after Conrad gets kicked out of the Valmont Hotel, and the chauffeur resigns from all duties. With nowhere to go, no money and no prospects, Conrad takes his luggage and boards a train. Coincidentally, this was the first time Conrad ever rode a train, a regretful decision. His placement on the train is right across from Beatrice. Watching her read Jane Austin and gazing into her brown eyes immediately seduced Conrad. He does not dare speak to her in this atmosphere, so when they part, he believes this is their first and last meeting. However, they meet again in a bar, allowing Conrad to gather enough courage to create a facade in hopes of winning her over with charm. It is important to note that since Conrad has already been cut off by his parents, he feels obligated to project a nonchalant appearance that does not give away his sudden loss of wealth.

Conrad’s deceitful illustration aligns with Dante’s pursuit of his unrequited lover named Beatrice in the modern world and the afterlife in The Divine Comedy. This literary connection Conrad shares with Dante correlates to similar constructions of creating an alternate reality–in their imagination–to experience a pretend and exaggerated love affair that does not exist in the natural world. Their minds are fooling themselves by disrupting the real world’s gripping and brutal honesty that each Beatrice is not fit for them. Now, Conrad and Beatrice’s week-long unreciprocated and false love, hence the title of the movie, “The Longest Week,” is manipulated by his alter ego that takes the form of his hyper-fixation, Napoleon Bonaparte.

In various scenes throughout the movie, Conrad is seen in front of two iconic paintings of Napoleon: Napoleon Crossing the Alps and Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, Dressed as a Consul, in Malmaison. Both pieces represent masculinity, dignity, strength, and bravery, which do not characterize Conrad. The irony here is Conrad intends to pursue a life of vigilance and determination, but he does not have the drive to do so, i.e. Beatrice and his novel. As audience members, we can ask, if Conrad looks up to Napoleon, why does he not care enough to exemplify Napoleonic traits?

It is first necessary to state that Napoleon is the prominent figure hung in Conrad’s hotel room and apartment because Conrad finds comfort in Napoleon, leading to a psychological hyper-fixation. Hyper-fixations are associated with those diagnosed with ADHD or Autism; many of its attributes include losing track of time, increasing levels of dopamine, and developing irresponsibleness. By assessing these commonalities, a hyper-fixation has a profound coping mechanism approach to those it controls. Control does not always relay negative connotations, though it reveals the intrinsic nature of hyper-fixations and its overarching purpose. Thus, hyper-fixations are a distractive measure individuals pursue–whether intentionally or subconsciously–to grapple with difficult circumstances. For Conrad, these Napoleon paintings represent what life could have been like if he had not wasted it on women and a novel he had no desire to write, which is where we find ourselves.

This scene only lasts briefly, but it quickly becomes the most memorable, whimsical, and inspiring image. The audience has established Conrad’s dream-like state as he lies on the floor. Now, moving from Conrad to the background of the stilled image, the audience visualizes the man within Conrad: a hopeless romantic, a literary snob, and a historical enthusiast. To the far left of the scene, the audience will see four stacks of books. Though the book titles are blurred, there is a fair assumption that based on Conrad’s literary taste, classical education, and artistic heroes, it is safe to say each stack underneath the piano and in the window seals consists of prized collectibles. Each stack is perfectly symmetrical to the piano’s shape. Four stacks—twenty-one, nineteen, fifteen, and eleven—lay neatly against the white walls, balancing the image’s peace and grace. A sign of purity perhaps would be the easiest way to look at the white walls, but I think the audience is reading too much into that–it just brings out the bold piano’s glory in all its elegance, sitting and waiting patiently for someone to play its off tune keys.

Next to the piano, three large windows open the room with light that bounces off the city’s skylines. Like the floor, its seals are home to various books with titles blurred. Some are even hiding behind Napoleon Crossing the Alps. This painting first makes an appearance in the film above Conrad’s hotel bed frame as a sign of dominance and strength. As the audience can see, Conrad may be lying down, not in a bed with a woman, but in defeat on the floor. The painting is also directly above Conrad’s face, an indicator of his current downfall and the sudden realization that the overarching persona he wanted to portray was a fraud.

The second painting, Portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, Dressed as a Consul, in Malmaison, is at the end of Conrad’s feet, symbolizing where he is headed on the tail end of the longest week of his life. All Conrad has to do is get up and reach beyond himself, or just Beatrice, but he cannot do so because Beatrice has become a distraction for Conrad from Napoleon. Conrad comes to this conclusion after breaking into the hotel one night for cigarettes, admitting he never truly loved her, only the idea of her. Meeting her on the train earlier that week caught him at a moment of weakness; their unexpected acquaintance caught Conrad off guard by her beauty and sensibility, blocking his judgment.

Beatrice’s stability and maturity were no match for Conrad–he could not handle surrounding himself with an individual who surpassed qualities he saw as threats to his lifestyle. Admitting to her once and for all, on his bike while departing from the hotel with a box of cigarettes, that his love was fake prompted the nudge he needed to look within and examine his character. Abandoning his Dante-esque dream-like love affair, or lack thereof, for Beatrice was the first step to acknowledging Conrad needed to reach for something beyond his lavish lifestyle and parent’s wealth. The narrator says, “It appeared Conrad’s allergies to grass and clean air had been completely psychosomatic. He began to reflect on his week with Beatrice and thought of the adage, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Conrad reluctantly agreed, for he still thought of Beatrice often. At the ripe age of 42, Conrad Valmont was finally growing up.”

Beatrice encourages and transitions Conrad into the man he longed to be in the novels he never wrote, the books he never read, and the man he saw himself through Napoleon he could not achieve. Napoleon was once the man Conrad idolized and hung above his places of vulnerability and honesty. Now, after all these years, it becomes the motivation behind Conrad’s sudden maturity after Beatrice’s abandonment.

Laying on that white, fuzzy rug and a quick fling with Beatrice did Conrad some good. Each means of reflection and distraction became Conrad’s brief hyper-fixation during the longest week of his life, bringing him back to his original hyper-fixation: Napoleon.

Life after Beatrice did not cause turmoil for Conrad. Well, he was miserable, but at least he kept the apartment he so deeply believed changed his heart from being a hopeless romantic to romantically hopeless. The apartment became a symbol of the woes Beatrice brought. While he kept the apartment, no one knew of its existence; there was no reason to share its existence because it would reveal a week of uncharacteristic behavior Conrad never possessed before.

Conrad later regained his fortune and returned to the Valmont Hotel, continuing the lavish lifestyle he always knew. And he reunited with Napoleon. This time, he not only hangs Napoleon Crossing the Alps above his bed, but he does so with confidence. Napoleon crossing the Alps was Conrad’s way of acknowledging how getting through the longest week of his life categorized itself as a feat. Looking up to Napoleon, literally and figuratively, Conrad recognizes the image he was before and after Beatrice and determines that love comes and goes, but Napoleon does not. Napoleon, the original hyper-fixation, is more reliable than love and affection, according to Conrad, which is why he finds solace in the arts, not women such as Beatrice. He says, “It wasn’t till years later that Conrad would realize love was just like communism – it was a great idea but never quite worked out.” Napoleon, though held hostage in a painting, stayed with Conrad during the hardest week of his life. And this connection made Conrad see the beauty in historical images that remain a staple of consistency and longevity.

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