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On Ridley Scott's Napoleon.

[Patreon Exclusive]

We couldn't avoid discussing the new biopic about the "world soul" himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. The film isn't great, but what can we learn from it? And how does it sit in a context in which most biopics today are about musicians, business leaders and scientists? 

We discuss:

Why did Scott choose to focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine?

What is Scott trying to say, if anything, about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars?

Where are the depictions of youth, revolution and modernity?

Are there any redeeming aspects to the film? 

What do we make of Phoenix's portrayal?

Are we seeing the return of films about Great Men of History?

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Comments

Jonas Kyratzes

Ridley Scott is an enormously talented director with precisely zero understanding of story. When he trusts a good script, he can produce great movies, but recently he's had every movie rewritten to death to fit his own, entirely moronic ideas, and his films have become reliably awful. Napoleon is one of the worst ones yet. Basically it's the experience of being cornered in a pub by a slightly drunk older man who thinks he's well-read because he watched some conspiracy documentaries on the Discovery channel and because back in the 70s he read one book by Erich von Däniken, and having him explain at painful length how Napoleon was actually shit, just the worst, we showed that guy.

Steve Bowbrick

I reviewed the 1927 Abel Gance Napoleon over on my (free) substack - he finds much more of the MODERN, republican Napoléon but is still absolutely obsessed with Josephine, who is rendered as a kind of time-shift flapper sex-pot. The five-and-a-half hour film only gets up to the Italian Campaign so we don't get Imperial Bonaparte at all, though… Plenty of material from his early, republican/revolutionary phase and some brilliant revolutionaries - Robespierre is a kind of supervillian figure who wears terrifying dark glasses… https://bowbrick.substack.com/p/gross-part-15-napoleon-final-version

GS- Vlogs and Games

When you guys say body count does that mean her kill count or?