Napoleon Undressed: Ridley Scott’s Imagination Rules the Screen

Napoleon Bonaparte is the one dictator that the world has a love-hate relationship. More than petty kings and emperors of the past, Napoleon forcibly seized political power and control in a chaotic and revolutionary situation in France. He eventually made himself emperor. He was conqueror of Europe until a fateful invasion of Russia. His ego, and vainglory, was finally checked, once and for all, at Waterloo in 1815.

Ridley Scott, of Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven fame, had an insurmountable task to bring a biopic of the French emperor to the big screen. For this task, Scott enlisted the work of the magnetic actor Joaquin Phoenix to portray the French artillery officer turned emperor and conqueror of Europe. Stretching nearly three decades into a 2 ½ hour film can never do justice to Napoleon’s life.

Scott has already informed the world that he has an over 4-hour Director’s Cut edition which he plans to release in 2024. As with the Kingdom of Heaven, this will radically change the film and give us an entirely new one than what is in theaters. And just like with the Kingdom of Heaven, the Director’s Cut will likely be far superior to the theatrical version now playing.

Some have called Napoleon “the Enlightenment on horseback.” I must vehemently disagree. And so does Ridley Scott. Contrary to the strict rationalism and materialism of the true disciples of Enlightenment philosophy, Napoleon was really a romantic. He was a man of will and representation, a man who was a romantic lover and dreamer who said that most anti-Enlightenment phrase, “Imagination rules the world.” Notice what Napoleon didn’t say: “Reason rules the world.”

The French mythologizing of Napoleon remakes their dictator turned emperor into a rationalist and liberating figure, a man of the Enlightenment who brought modernization and legal change to France and the rest of Europe. Napoleon, therefore, is presented as a “builder in love with peace” and a man to whom “[c]rimes, even crimes of state, were always repugnant.” These are the words of retired General Michel Franceschi and businessman Ben Weider who attempted to “debunk” the idea of the Napoleonic Wars in their work The Wars Against Napoleon, blaming the rest of Europe for going to war against Napoleon rather than Napoleon going to war against Europe.

The American historian Alan Schom, in his one volume biography of Napoleon quipped, “Being neutral about Napoleon has never been easy for Europeans. To the French he is almost universally a national hero, his excess overlooked and unmentioned. By most other Europeans, whose ancestors suffered terribly under his conquests, he is, understandably, hated.” Suffice to say, Ridley Scott does not mythologize the lies of France concerning Napoleon. Napoleon is depicted as an enigmatic figure, superbly portrayed by Phoenix despite his age, both a lover and criminal, a man capable of great feats of humanity but also horrendous acts of barbarous brutality. The barbarism and brutality of Napoleon win out in the end. Scott opted for the view of Napoleon from the perspective of the other Europeans, those “whose ancestors suffered terribly under his conquests.” Napoleon is a petty tyrant, a dictator, awkward, odd, but an undeniably magnetic figure with raw emotion and power running through him (all the characteristics of a romantic and not a man of the Enlightenment).

Even though Scott attempts to deconstruct the mythology of Napoleon the Enlightenment on horseback, we cannot help but still fall for the gaze of Napoleon. In history, this was the result of Napoleon creating his own life and narrative while in exile on Saint Helena which is alluded to at the end of the film. Napoleon constructed a new version of himself: hero, liberator, tragic figure. Phoenix’s performance of Napoleon grips us and reaches into our hearts and souls. Despite all the horror and brutality, awkwardness and oddity, we want to love Napoleon even though Phoenix’s Napoleon is a whiny, petty, little brute of man while Josephine is fancying herself as the Mistress and Empress of Europe—the real spirit moving Napoleon’s triumphs.

Although Scott’s Napoleon is a butcher and barbarian, he is also romantic lover of grandiose delusion. This is the great allure of Napoleon in general and the seductive spirit of Scott’s biopic in particular. It is, of course, helped by the superb performance of Phoenix as Napoleon and the phenomenal portrayal of Josephine by Vanessa Kirby. Scott understood what makes Napoleon such an odd figure, one reviled and loved often at the same time, and Phoenix delivers this in his emotionally powerful and engrossing performance—Joker meets the Emperor of Europe—though we can never quite get over the aged wrinkles over a young Napoleon’s face.

However, the problem of runtime for a career stretching over three decades means we are treated to Napoleon on horseback with title cards with dates helping the audience along. Yes, we get a lot, a lot, a lot, of shots of Joaquin Phoenix on horseback as the film quickly runs through the greatest hits of Napoleon’s life. Yet here is where many fanboys and aficionados of Napoleon will get angry: the best hits are not necessarily the best hits of Napoleon’s life. Yes, we see Toulon, Egypt, Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo. But where is Arcole? Where is Marengo? Where is Wagram? Where is Dresden? Where is Leipzig? The sprawling battles that are shown on screen are chosen for no other reason than to allow a dark and beautiful cinematography to dominate our eyes (except for the Battle of the Pyramids which isn’t much of a battle at all).

Oh, this is something worth noting: the dark, haunting, beauty of the film’s cinematography. Rarely under the sun, we instead get Napoleon under the grey clouds of murkiness. The darkness is meant to signify something to us in a not all that subtle manner.

Scott, who is English, decides to give the British a more proactive role on the screen – one that makes it seem like it was Napoleon vs. Britain instead of Napoleon vs. Europe. The real Napoleonic Wars saw the ancient Habsburg Empire (Austria) fight and suffer the most against Napoleon and his Grande Armée. In his work, Napoleon: The End of Glory, Munro Price reorients the reader’s focus on what was really the cause of Napoleon’s downfall – the trilateral alliance of Russia, Prussia, and Austria during 1813 and 1814. Austria, especially, once joining the allies and whose field marshal, Karl Philipp, Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, was the coalition commander-in-chief, deserve much more credit on the field than the usual story of British resilience, British money, and Russian snow which is what Scott gives us.

Napoleon ultimately falls back into this old narrative of Boney vs. Britain with Ridley Scott’s own vandalistic twist to history. Where Europe matters, it is only as a steppingstone for Napoleon’s triumphs and his blunder into Russia, leading to his inevitable demise at Waterloo. The tragedy and heroism of the Austrians, Spanish, Prussians, Russians, and other Germans – the rest of Europe – in fighting off Napoleon is barely seen if seen at all.

Ultimately, the film is really two different stories stitched together as one.

The first story is the romance of Napoleon and Josephine. We have Josephine as the mover and shaker, the behind-the-battlefield builder, of Napoleon. Napoleon, though deeply in love with Josephine, is also, well, a beast. He is brute in love and in war. We are meant to sympathize with Josephine in this mismatched romance. This is what carries most of the film. Napoleon’s personal life is undressed for the audience with a sense of cringe coming over the viewer. Then there is Napoleon on the battlefield, ordering cannons to fire at ships and at soldiers and cavalrymen retreating across frozen ponds and leading beautifully dressed horsemen into battle to achieve victory.

Napoleon at love and Napoleon at war is the story we are given. Much more Napoleon at love than Napoleon at war. Both stories, however, depict not a glorious hero but a brutal barbarian, a petty soul, a pathetic tyrant: Napoleon the brute in bed and Napoleon the brute on the battlefield.

The film has already garnered negative attention by historians, those joyless and miserable “experts,” and the French. You, dear viewer, can, and should, ignore them. Napoleon is an aesthetically sublime, visually spectacular, and emotionally gripping biopic regardless of its historical inaccuracies and condensed shortcomings that killjoy historians and armchair lovers of Napoleon blabber about. After all, it is a drama – not a documentary. As a darkly dramatic film of a vain, egotistical, liberator turned tyrant, Napoleon is pretty good for its 2 ½ hour runtime. Ridley Scott fires off a broadside at point blank range at the critics and historians and lands a spectacular, devastating, hit. Scott’s vandalism of history in the name of artistic drama is enjoyable to watch – if you understand that is what you’re getting. If you were expecting something else, then you certainly don’t know anything about Ridley Scott. Don’t expect to gain any special insight into the subject of Napoleon. That’s not what this film is for or even about.

Even if this film gives us a condensed best hits screening under the cloudy darkness of a petty megalomaniacal ego, Ridley Scott’s imagination towers over the film and Joaquin Phoenix gives a tremendous performance as a petty and brutish Napoleon alongside Venessa Kirby’s Oscar-worthy depiction of Josephine. But make no mistake about the film – it is really about Ridley Scott’s imaginative directing and cinematography and not about any historical man named Napoleon. When the Director’s Cut comes out, it is a safe bet is that it will still be about Ridley Scott’s artistic imagination and not the historical Napoleon.

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