Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?

[George K]

@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

So you were told that we get off at what station? ….Waterloo Station?

I took the Lake Shore Limited from Waterloo to Chicago...

[Renauda]

@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.

https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/civil-war-innovations/#:~:text=The Civil War was the,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:

https://historum.com/t/first-schleswig-war-transport.2712/

[Copper]

The Wiki description is slightly different

The American Civil War in 1861–1865 was the first large war in which railroads were both a major tool and a major target of military action.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_railways#

[Renauda]

Good for WiKi.

Either way, there were no railroads during Napoleon’s time to move his or his enemies’ armies and supplies.

[George K]

The Critical Drinker..."Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquim Phoenix, was the historical epic that everyone hoped would close out the year in spectacular fashion. Unfortunately, it turned out to be something... different. "

Link to video

"Napoleon by Ridley Scott makes Braveheart look like Master and Commander."

[Renauda]

@George-K

Ouch.

From what I have read about Napoleon’s life, I have very little to no sympathy at all for the historical character Josephine.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Ouch.

Yeah, it's a pity. Could have been a great movie. I'm saying that not having seen it, of course. But the comment about Braveheart...

Ouch, indeed.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Could have been a great movie.

Ridley Scott has made some great movies. As far as I'm aware, none of them were known for historical accuracy

[89th]

Exactly, I have zero caring how accurate the film is. Hope it's a good movie... and hope the soundtrack is good. I don't know much about Martin Phipps but as an Original Soundtrack (OST) nerd, my favorite end-to-end soundtracks of all time are: Gladiator (Zimmer), Braveheart (Horner), Bourne Supremacy (Powell).

[Renauda]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

@George-K said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Could have been a great movie.

Ridley Scott has made some great movies. As far as I'm aware, none of them were known for historical accuracy

Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was such. A good movie script built around Saladin’s retaking of Jerusalem in the late 12th century. The general sense the historical narrative was there but there was plenty of artistic license regarding the specifics.

[Mik]

I'm not really a fan of directors taking much of any artistic license with historical fact. It turns fact into fiction and lends itself to all sorts of revisionist mischief.

[Renauda]

@Mik

It depends. No one who actually knows the historical narrative being depicted is going to be fooled. A director like Scott or the late greats Stanley Kubrick, David Lean and Sir Richard Attenborough would have known this and applied their respective talents to the production regardless of the liberties it would entail. They were after all, creating a 3 or 4 hour screen illusion not different from Shakespeare’s stage plays surrounding historical events and people. They did not set out to stage a history tutorial or lecture.

Unless it is a total distortion as in Braveheart or worse, Ken Russell’s Lisztomania, I am content to be entertained by the short lived spectacle of it all.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was such. A good movie script built around Saladin’s retaking of Jerusalem in the late 12th century. The general sense the historical narrative was there but there was plenty of artistic license regarding the specifics.

I’ll have to check it out.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was such. A good movie script built around Saladin’s retaking of Jerusalem in the late 12th century. The general sense the historical narrative was there but there was plenty of artistic license regarding the specifics.

He didn't like it - at all. And your comment about "plenty of artistic license" is like saying there was plenty of water in the Titanic.

Link to video

[Renauda]

@George-K

Ha, ha!

I note he didn’t say anything bad about or pan Eva Green’s character in the film.

Too bad he took the story line so seriously.

I should watch it again. It’s been a dozen or more years since I saw it. I remember my wife hating it.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

I should watch it again.

Supposedly, the theatrical cut is not very good, and Scott has disowned it. Gotta watch the 3 hour director's cut.

[Renauda]

I think it is the director’s cut we have on DVD. Not sure.

[George K]

Oy...

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/08/ridley-scott-did-something-i-thought-impossible-he-made-napoleon-bonaparte-boring/

Having loved “Gladiator,” I mistakenly grasped onto the vain hope that my friends’ dire warnings that “Napoleon” had gone amiss. After all, how bad can it be? This is a movie about Napoleon, and I was doomed to watch it, no matter what anyone said.

Yet, a few minutes into the movie, I found myself hoping it would end.

Tragically, Scott seemed utterly disinterested in Napoleon, in giving a moral or political message, or even in giving audiences a reason to care about the multimillion-dollar spectacle before them.

He decided not so much merely to bite off more than he could chew, but to gobble down a skyscraper. “Napoleon” features Toulon, Austerlitz, Russia, and Waterloo, and somehow manages to make none of them mean anything.

Unlike “Gladiator”—which focuses on revenge, justice, and freedom, bringing ancient Rome to life—”Napoleon” merely tells most of Bonaparte’s life’s story without any clear theme or moral point.

[George K]

Anyone seen it yet?

Apple TV's gonna have it in about 3 weeks.

As I mentioned, Scott has a director's cut that's about 90 minutes (!) longer.

All of the reviews seem to say, "Nice movie. Imagine how much better it would have been if it were accurate." I rewatched the Critical Drinker's review and his comment that it would be better suited to a 10-part miniseries on Amazon, Netflix.

He's such an incredibly complex character that I don't see how it can be done in 2 hours or so.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon?:

Anyone seen it yet?

Mrs. Phibes saw it at the cinema. She said it was a fun movie. She wasn't expecting realism.