‘Napoleon’ (2023) Or ‘Josephine’ (2023)?
Controversy? Scott should have changed the title
“When I have issues with historians, I ask: ‘Excuse me, mate, were you there?’. No? Well, shut the fuck up then.”
— Ridley Scott (Interview in The Times)
“If you want to really understand Napoleon, then you should probably do your own studying and reading. Because if you see this film, it’s this experience told through Ridley’s eyes.”
— Joaquin Phoenix (Napoleon)
I finally got around to watching Napoleon directed by Ridley Scott last night and have to say I was at the end very disappointed and felt short-changed by a movie not really about Napoleon Bonaparte but more about Napoleon’s obsession — I believe it is known as ‘love at first sight’ — with a widowed aristocrat Joséphine de Beauharnais.
We first see her cloaked and awaiting her turn with the guillotine during The Terror and then eventually — after an extremely dangerous liaison with another French soldier — marrying Napoleon and becoming Empress of France. Now that is one hell of a story and that is what we fundamentally get. Josephine is a far more interesting and intriguing personality than Napoleon is allowed to be in Scott’s movie. I think it might have been more accurate if the film had been titled…
