Published in The Ugly Monster
6 days ago (medium.com)
Napoleon has been represented in art before, from the neoclassical ‘Napoleon Crossing the Alps’ painting by Jacques-Louis David to being referenced in ‘Minions’ as a figure of great importance. He is the modern Alexander the Great, a conqueror and strategist. A man who was able to take control of a country after the greatest revolution in history brought it to its knees.
Ridley Scott’s 2023 film on Napoleon begins with the image of a country in chaos. We begin with Marie Antoinette being chased by the revolutionaries, surrounded by her children and afraid, before cutting to a crowd in a square.
In the center of the crowd is the guillotine, already rusting with the blood of the royals. The crowd spit on her and insult her, as she walks with her head held up high. They walk her up to the guillotine, and the queen herself is forced to her knees before the violence of the people. The blade comes down, severing her life from its strands and severing France from her control.
In the crowd a man watches. He is solemn, silent and expressionless, and yet with an air of superiority, as if he is somehow above the masses, better than them in some way. It is important that the film begins this way because it spends the rest of its 150 minute runtime proving that this man sucks.
‘Napoleon’ (2023) is a film about how pathetic Napoleon was. Ridley Scott character-assassinated Napoleon, and he did so with good reason.
The first time that we see Scott do this is when Napoleon sieges Toulon. After the revolution the English are still within France’s borders and they need to get rid of them. The exact political dynamics between this siege of a port castle is irrelevant to what the whole sequence sets up for our “hero”, Napoleon.
Despite Joaquin Phoenix’s age, in this sequence Napoleon is meant to be young, and more importantly inexperienced. And it is this second part that Phoenix encapsulates in such a fun and pathetic manner. When the French are sneaking their way to the castle and preparing their ladders to climb up the ramparts, Napoleon is watching from a distance.
As he watches, he is nervous. This is important. This is not the careful stoic tactician that we see in Jacques-Louis David’s neoclassical painting, or what we expect from the trailers of the film. This is a young man who keeps repeating to himself that they (the English) haven’t noticed the soldiers.
Napoleon is ready for blood. When the attack begins and the English are caught off guard, Napoleon charges into battle, muttering to himself along the way. His actions do not speak of a man who is careful and methodical, but one who is driven by instinct and adrenaline.
He rushes up the ladders and onto the ramparts and instead of the fluid expert swordsmanship we might expect, he is clumsy. He is barely able to even kill anyone, and when he does he doesn’t do it with much grace. It feels like Napoleon is stumbling his way into a victory rather than truly being the mastermind we imagine him to be.
You might criticize me in this moment, saying that this scene serves a different purpose. You might say that it is used to create contrast, to show us Napoleon’s growth as a character and general. The man might seem clumsy and impulsive at first, but will grow into a methodical individual who reasons his way into victory.
And in any other movie I might agree with you. But when later on in the film you see the same Napoleon, who is at that stage meant to be much older and wiser, still stumbling his way into a victory through the use of force in the scene when he wrests control from the Consulate, I cannot disagree with you more.
In this scene, his brother needs to read out the command that would dissolve the Consulate and give control over to Napoleon and his co-conspirators. It is a coup in every sense of the word. But Napoleon is impatient. He cannot wait for his brother to reason the Consulate into giving up their authority. He rushes in from behind the curtains, where he has been waiting in the darkness, and demands that they give up their roles and hand over all power.
The Consulate, obviously, refuses and they overwhelm Napoleon. He runs away in the most pathetic and comedic way possible. He runs to the soldiers for help and they force the Consulate to stop their pursuit. Exasperated and out of breath, Napoleon announces that he has taken control of France.
Napoleon is a little bitch. He’s afraid of losing power, and will run away from a confrontation when he knows he’s going to lose and will need greater strength to win. He didn’t win by “talking”. Napoleon doesn’t have a silver tongue. He doesn’t even have an iron heart, or a will of steel. Napoleon is like cheese left out in the sun: soft, ineffective, and pathetic. And this is the point of the film.
Many criticized the film because they felt that it was unfocused, jumping between Napoleon’s military exploits and his love life, without a clear direction. I disagree. Those who see it this way fail to understand what the film is really about, and the film is really about how unimpressive Napoleon is. Every scene and sequence is built to communicate one central message: men like Napoleon are pathetic.
It does this in different ways, from what has been mentioned above, and we can see it in his relationship to Josephine, but also in the way he fights.
There are three types of sequences in this film:
- Josephine sequences
- Military combat sequences
- Diplomatic sequences
These often overlap, but overall each of these show us a new side of Napoleon’s pathetic-ness.
You might be asking why this was the case? Why did Ridley Scott (and writer David Scarpa) choose to present this monumental historical figure in this light? What was the purpose of this exercise?
The reason for this ties into the criticism that the film received. Many outlets commented on the historical inaccuracy of the film.
This is nothing new with historical films. We expect a degree of historical inaccuracy. It comes with the territory. And yet the discourse around Napoleon was different. Sure there were the usual articles posted along the lines of “everything wrong with ‘Napoleon (2023)’”, but there was something else as well.
What were the criticisms? They centered around the fact that ‘Napoleon’ was so egregiously inaccurate that it painted Napoleon as a bumbling ineffectual fool, trending to incel-esque in his interactions with Josephine, and overall just a pathetic man who wasn’t worth venerating as the great general which history believes him to be. This got so bad French historians said the film was “Like Spitting in the Face of French People”. This prompted Ridley Scott to say that “The French Don’t Even Like Themselves”.
All this fun drama aside, it is interesting that it escaped many who watched the film that this was the point. Presenting such a famous historical figure in such a pathetic light tells us one key thing — something that is increasingly important to remember in our current socio-political context.
That thing is: Men like Napoleon are truly pathetic, and it is pathetic for us to venerate or respect them. They are sad men who demand power through violence and can’t imagine anyone else having autonomy or agency over their lives.
They are so pathetic that they can’t imagine why an entire nation would want to exile them to an island, away from everyone else. They are so pitiful that they can’t accept their fate, live a better life, change as people and accept the new world they have been given. Instead, they leave the island they have been exiled to, march their way straight to the capital and demand to be placed back into power.
They are like children. They refuse to be placed into timeout when they play bad with their other friends in a sandpit, and so march back defiant and demand to be included in their games. Until of course they get defeated and put back in their place, when they finally resign themselves and accept their fate.
As Napoleon sits on the island of Saint Helena writing in his journal, he asks two little girls to stop playing and come closer. He asks them what is the capital of France, and then he asks them what is the capital of Russia. Then he asks them who burned it down, and they reply that they were told that it was burned down by the Russians themselves to get rid of the French. He asks who told them this and they say: “It is common knowledge, sir.”
Napoleon is visibly disappointed, as if he expected them to say the Russians burned their city to get rid of him specifically. Or maybe he just wanted to hear his own name somewhere in the answer.
The man who once triumphantly marched into the capital of the largest Empire in the world at the time only to find the entire city empty and burning — by their own hands — has now been forgotten. His name isn’t even a word on the lips of the youth. They have already forgotten his actions. It is common knowledge that he didn’t even exist. And the only thing that he can do is throw dates at them and tell them to return to their play as he returns to his journal.
The final shot of the film is Napoleon framed from his back as he falls out of screen. This is much like how a chess player tips their king when they want to give up. Napoleon has given up the chess match and he has tipped himself. The emperor which once ruled half of Europe is no one anymore, so humiliated that he tips himself off of the board.
The film ends with a tally count of the deaths attributed to Napoleon. This is the essential point to end on. For all that it might be fun to tear down a figure like Napoleon and laugh at how pathetic he was, there was a cost to his actions. And the cost was real human lives. The film shows us the material cost of men like Napoleon. There is no defending a man who has the blood of 3 million people on his hands.
In this moment, as we read those words in the darkness, we are reminded of the haunting image from earlier in the film when the Austrians and the Russians fight Napoleon on a frozen lake. Napoleon surprises them by shooting the frozen lake and causing the army to drown in the icy waters. We are reminded of the lone banner soldier sinking into the depths of the lake surrounded by his comrades. The real cost of men like Napoleon is human lives. We too often forget this.
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Written by Lady Horatia
·Writer for The Ugly Monster
Bisexual Goblin who writes about whatever they feel like at any moment. Lover of films, TV shows, and Books. Consider supporting me with Donations Please.
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