Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/ridley-scotts-napoleon-complex/
Scott is Ultra Hack because he reduces the moral complexity of his stories to the same easy consumption we get from a TV advert. But Napoleon is protracted, as if running time and rambling narrative incidents (the back-and-forth from battlefield to Josephine) amounted to substance. Napoleon parades an empty spectacle for a market uninterested in learning from history. And Ultra Hack’s indifference encourages that disinterest. He stages Napoleon’s legendary boast so that Phoenix lisps “I found the crown of France in the gutter and placed it atop my own head” to convey the same deadly egotism as the swaggering, drug-dealing protagonist of American Gangster. But then his battle of Austerlitz is an eyeful. In this large-scale set piece, the French army fires cannons at Russian soldiers on a field of ice, and the explosions plunge them into the water. Not a sustained feat of cinematic vision, as is Eisenstein’s battle on the ice in Alexander Nevsky; it’s just splashy.
History means nothing when its facsimile can be summoned up by Hollywood’s keyboard warriors. Not even Scott, an unemotional aesthete, can pretend that he cares about history. (Exodus: Gods and Kings was dazzling yet meaningless, and the Oscar-winning Gladiator was overrated for the beefcake-peplum genre.) Ultra Hack’s brother, the late Tony Scott, was so committed to genre junk that he frequently achieved effective narratives (Unstoppable, Domino). But Ridley is less successful with his own phase of lurid melodramatic trash such as The Counselor, House of Gucci, All the Money in the World. These spectacles of bad behavior misrepresent our anxieties about power, immorality, and national destiny. Abel Gance visualized those concerns in his 1927 three-screen silent film Napoleon, a movie so magnificent that its vision makes grown men cry. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is just a Breaking Bad costume drama.
Well...
I'll still watch it. I might even go to the theater just for the spectacle.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/ridley-scotts-napoleon-complex/
Scott is Ultra Hack because he reduces the moral complexity of his stories to the same easy consumption we get from a TV advert. But Napoleon is protracted, as if running time and rambling narrative incidents (the back-and-forth from battlefield to Josephine) amounted to substance. Napoleon parades an empty spectacle for a market uninterested in learning from history. And Ultra Hack’s indifference encourages that disinterest. He stages Napoleon’s legendary boast so that Phoenix lisps “I found the crown of France in the gutter and placed it atop my own head” to convey the same deadly egotism as the swaggering, drug-dealing protagonist of American Gangster. But then his battle of Austerlitz is an eyeful. In this large-scale set piece, the French army fires cannons at Russian soldiers on a field of ice, and the explosions plunge them into the water. Not a sustained feat of cinematic vision, as is Eisenstein’s battle on the ice in Alexander Nevsky; it’s just splashy.
History means nothing when its facsimile can be summoned up by Hollywood’s keyboard warriors. Not even Scott, an unemotional aesthete, can pretend that he cares about history. (Exodus: Gods and Kings was dazzling yet meaningless, and the Oscar-winning Gladiator was overrated for the beefcake-peplum genre.) Ultra Hack’s brother, the late Tony Scott, was so committed to genre junk that he frequently achieved effective narratives (Unstoppable, Domino). But Ridley is less successful with his own phase of lurid melodramatic trash such as The Counselor, House of Gucci, All the Money in the World. These spectacles of bad behavior misrepresent our anxieties about power, immorality, and national destiny. Abel Gance visualized those concerns in his 1927 three-screen silent film Napoleon, a movie so magnificent that its vision makes grown men cry. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is just a Breaking Bad costume drama.
Well...
I'll still watch it. I might even go to the theater just for the spectacle.
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Well... slightly disappointed.
Spectacular battle scenes, nice camera work and after all not too long for a historic movie.
But...
Napoleon speaking English? American production, I know, but the Russians spoke Russian and the Germans spoke German, so it would have been nice to hear a francophone Napoleon and compatriots.
The fact that Scott cherry picked the savoury details of the relation between Napoleon and Josephine didn't really bother me (he's director so he can choose whatever he wants).
CGI was sometimes too obvious, but probably inevitable.
Characters sometimes gave a dull impression.
Lots of (minor) historical errors, e.g.: Napoleon mentions the Belgian frontier. Belgium was born in 1830 and was never called like that before.
Joaquim Phoenix is too old for this role, wrong typecasting.
Bad movie? No, but I expected something better.Too late now to elaborate (11.15pm), going to bed now.
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As much I anticipated Joachim Pheonix in this role, he had an impossibly hard act to follow from the onset against Rod Steiger’s portrayal of Napoleon in Waterloo (1970).
I’ll wait for the Blu-ray.
@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:
Link to videoRod Steiger’s portrayal of Napoleon in Waterloo
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@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:
Link to videoRod Steiger’s portrayal of Napoleon in Waterloo
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Thanks for your thoughts.
Worth seeing on a big screen, or will it be good enough for a reasonably-sized TV?
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I agree cinema is better. I just find the cost of going to the cinema has gotten out control. Besides that I dislike crowded venues such as cinemas, concerts and sport events and try to avoid them whenever possible. I am the sort who goes to the grocery store 5 minutes before they unlock the doors at 7 am. on Wednesday or Thursday mornings just to avoid other shoppers (and take full advantage of soon to expire mark downs of perishables).
Elbows up!
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I agree cinema is better. I just find the cost of going to the cinema has gotten out control. Besides that I dislike crowded venues such as cinemas, concerts and sport events and try to avoid them whenever possible. I am the sort who goes to the grocery store 5 minutes before they unlock the doors at 7 am. on Wednesday or Thursday mornings just to avoid other shoppers (and take full advantage of soon to expire mark downs of perishables).
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I agree cinema is better. I just find the cost of going to the cinema has gotten out control. Besides that I dislike crowded venues such as cinemas, concerts and sport events and try to avoid them whenever possible. I am the sort who goes to the grocery store 5 minutes before they unlock the doors at 7 am. on Wednesday or Thursday mornings just to avoid other shoppers (and take full advantage of soon to expire mark downs of perishables).
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I'll watch it then. The recent version seems like it's missed the mark. I don't mind a 4-hour movie if it's good.
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caption this
@bachophile said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:
So you were told that we get off at what station? ….Waterloo Station?
Elbows up!
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The (American) Civil War was the first war to use railroads, encouraged by President Lincoln — himself a former railroad lawyer — who understood how vital they were for moving men and supplies.
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@bachophile said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:
So you were told that we get off at what station? ….Waterloo Station?
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The (American) Civil War was the first war to use railroads, encouraged by President Lincoln — himself a former railroad lawyer — who understood how vital they were for moving men and supplies.
@Copper said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:
The (American) Civil War was the first war to use railroads, encouraged by President Lincoln — himself a former railroad lawyer — who understood how vital they were for moving men and supplies.
Not entirely accurate. The Prussians were the first to use the railway in war - as troop transport during the First Schleswig War a dozen years before the US Civil War:
