Napoleon Review: A Muddled Portrait Of A Ruler

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

Napoleon Bonaparte is a historical figure that I have a general knowledge of, but the details of his life, military campaigns, and rule over France are very fuzzy to me. Because of this, I was eagerly awaiting Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French ruler.

What is there to the story beyond being a master military strategist, Waterloo, and a Napoleon Complex?

Scott’s biopic takes the audience from the beheading of Marie Antoinette in 1793 through to Napoleon Bonaparte’s death in exile on the island of Saint Helena in 1821. The years in between are very busy and necessarily condensed in this two-and-a-half-hour film.

During that time, he successfully expelled the British from Toulon, put down a royalist insurrection, executed wars across Europe and Egypt, and rose to Emperor of France before his eventual downfall and not one but two exiles.

He also meets and marries Josephine de Beauharnais, a widowed woman portrayed by Vanessa Kirby, during the Reign of Terror. Their relationship is, shall we say, complicated. Both engage in affairs, but both have a need for companionship that neither can fill with others. However, their inability to produce an heir together further muddies the water between them.

The film’s portrayal of Bonaparte is itself quite muddled. Humans are complicated, and it is often hard to get to the person behind most Great Man myths, but the tone of this film frequently shifts lanes.

At times, it feels hagiographic; at other times, it feels like it is undercutting the grand mystique, and still, at other times, it feels sympathetic.

The greatness is seen indeed in the military accomplishments of the man. In Toulon, he refashions the artillery of the French forces and leads an attack there to overwhelm the British in assault in the dead of night. Later, in the Battle of Austerlitz, his stratagem and ruthlessness on the battlefield are on full display, luring the Austrian and Russian forces into a position where they are sitting ducks as his forces descend upon them from the high ground and send them scampering across a frozen lake to disastrous effects.

The film undercuts Napoleon, mostly in moments that are behind the scenes and out of sight of the masses. While in Egypt, there is an odd scene where the sarcophagus of an Egyptian pharaoh is opened, and he leans in to listen to see if it has any advice from one ruler to another.

The film has several moments where his insecurities are put on display. He lashes out frequently at Josephine in private because of the lack of an heir, but also because of the insecurity of infidelity between them. Militarily, the film emphasizes the folly and recklessness of his invasion of Russia.

Outside of the actual battle scenes, which are fantastic, the incursion into Russia is one of the highlights of the film. There is an eeriness when Napoleon arrives in Moscow to find an abandoned city, proclaiming, “Three hundred thousand souls lived in this city, and they’ve all just left?” His shock and bewilderment are only compounded when the Russians burn their own city to make the French forces leave.

There are moments of sympathy for the character, though few and far between. His need for an heir irrevocably damages his relationship with Josephine, and the film frames it as a tormented choice that he believes he must make and one that he views as being for the country of France as much or more than for himself.

Phoenix portrays Napoleon as increasingly impassive on the battlefield. The first battle we see him in is in Toulon, and his initial anxiety is palpable. When the film reaches Waterloo, the man is almost completely emotionless.

Napoleon’s height is never brought up as a subject of the film. Maybe I was reading into or imagining it, but as the film progresses and his stature increases as a sovereign, Phoenix does seem to get smaller within the frame.

Ridley Scott has a well-earned reputation for being a director who loves to put out a Director’s Cut of his films after their theatrical releases; famously, Blade Runner has about five different cuts. It was reported that there is a four-hour initial cut of Napoleon; this theatrical release feels like there is a lot of connective tissue on the cutting room floor that could fill in some gaps and make things smoother.

There are certainly some artistic liberties taken regarding the historical accuracy of the film, and it is painted with very broad brushstrokes. This is part of the problem with condensing the life of a huge historical figure into a movie, as so much gets glossed over and massaged for the sake of time. It makes me wonder if a miniseries or multi-season show would have been more beneficial.

If there were any questions about where Scott and his film ultimately come down on Napoleon Bonaparte as a historical figure, the answer perhaps lies in the final moments of the film, right before the end credits, where it makes note of the human toll that this one man’s ambitions inflicted upon the people of France, Europe, and the greater world around him.

The cost of human life and Phoenix’s performance reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote, “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.”

While we may have hope for a more complete director’s cut down the line, the theatrical version of Napoleon hews closer to the likes of Kingdom of Heaven or Exodus: Gods and Kings than it does Gladiator or The Last Duel when it comes to Ridley Scott historical epics.

There are some truly impressive battle scenes and a few moments of insight into a giant of historical consequence, and Phoenix and Kirby are compelling presences on screen. Still, it never finds the right balance in depicting the leader on the battlefield, the ruler of a nation, and the relationship between husband and wife.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars