Napoleon (2023) Review Part 1: ‘A conflicted portrait of a complex man’ – A Review by Laura Sadler
A movie still showing an intimate moment in which Napoleon (portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix) hovers his face close to his wife Joséphine's (Vanessa Kirby). Credits: Apple TV+ Press
A Part Two to this Napoleon (2023) Review—a further round-up of academic and non-academic reviews surrounding this much-discussed film as well as reflections on related Romantic poems and critical theory—can be read here. Napoleon (2023) will soon be available for streaming on March 1, 2024.
Laura Sadler is a Northern-Bridge funded Collaborative Doctoral Student at Northumbria University. Her current research project explores the literary ‘afterlife’ or legacy of the Anglo-Irish eighteenth-century author and clergyman Laurence Sterne across nineteenth and twentieth-century French literature, in collaboration with the Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall, Coxwold. Her research is cross-temporal and sits between comparative literature and adaptation studies. She is currently writing on the influence of Sterne’s works on the French Romantics, particularly Le Cénacle (the celebrated literary salon of Charles Nodier), using resources from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. She has recently been Assistant Editor for the 33rd edition of The Shandean and presented at the fifth International Laurence Sterne Conference at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Laura is interested in literary and historical adaptation and has recently written on ITVX’s TV interpretation of Fielding’s Tom Jones: https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/tom-jones-itvx/.
Napoleon Bonaparte is often viewed through a binary lens: French contemporary portraits, such as Jacques-Louis David’s ‘Napoleon Crossing the Alps’ (1801), perhaps the most famous image of the would-be Emperor, portray a vanquisher, patriotic hero and ‘icon of imperial majesty’*. In contrast, British interpretations of the time, such as James Gillray’s popular caricatures, mocked and satirised Napoleon as an overly ambitious, temperamental and pocket-size childlike figure. Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated blockbuster-biopic refrains from adopting a single interpretation, endeavouring to navigate the intricate facets of a man capable of embodying seemingly conflicting identities simultaneously. Accordingly, the film captures such conflicting moments as Napoleon’s majestic military success at the Battle of Toulon, and his reportedly vitriolic outbursts against the Lord Whitworth which, under Scott’s direction, escalate into a temper tantrum concluded with the iconically bombastic line ‘You think you’re so great because you have boats!’
In this oil painting, Napoleon is dramatically featured on a horse standing on its hind legs in a mountainous landscape, with one hand raised pointing upward and forward. Credits: “Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David”, Encyclopædia Britannica
A hand-colored caricature depicting a clownish Napoleon standing amid an upturned globe, furniture and papers which are scattered across the background. The "maniac-ravings" coming from his mouth are captioned in a fire-like shape. Credits: ‘Napoléon Bonaparte ('Maniac-ravings - or - little Boney in a strong fit -')’ by and published by James Gillray, hand-coloured etching, published 24 May 1803. NPG D12811 © National Portrait Gallery, London / CC BY-NC-ND
Capturing such complexities of character within a two-and-a-half-hour cinematic cut poses a formidable challenge. To bring us an arguably more comprehensive portrait, the film offers a broad overview of significant moments from not only Napoleon’s professional career, but also his personal life. This leads to a jarring feeling in the narrative, which is difficult to follow, but also in tone, as we are jolted between war epic, dark comedy and romance. The film’s great strengths lie in its fallbacks into ‘war epic’, and moments such as the Battle of Austerlitz (with which Scott takes significant poetic licence) and the burning of Moscow are visually stunning and dramatically compelling. However, the more intimate conversational scenes struggle to maintain momentum, creating a mismatched pace, so that the final result is as if you are watching a compendium of trailers for a series of upcoming films of varying genres.
Napoleon’s beloved wife Joséphine is to be understood as the central motif to tie this fragmented narrative together. Her name hangs against the blackness of the pre-credit screen to underscore this point and mirrors the opening words ‘Napoleon’ to neatly bookend the film’s opening and close. It is an intriguing, and freshly contemporary, take to emphasise the ‘woman behind the man’ (à la Carol Ann Duffy’s famous The World’s Wife anthology), in line with recent drives to portray more diversified and inclusive visions of history. The film hints at her influence on his life, from driving his initial successes to the correlation between their divorce and his subsequent downfall, beginning with his disastrous campaign in Russia. Yet, their relationship is never fully expanded, prompting more questions than it answers: Who she is and where does she come from? What draws Napoleon to her? What impact did she have on his political or militaristic decisions? Joséphine's upbringing took place in Martinique, while Napoleon hailed from Corsica, presenting an opportunity to delve into their connection to their origins, their affinity as outsiders, and their consequent relation to the French state. But Joséphine remains underexplored both as a realistic individual, and as the complementary foil to Napoleon. Her death is neither affecting for the viewer, nor achieves the sense of dramatic significance for the narrative which seems desired.
Beyond the implication of Joséphine as the impetus of Bonaparte’s actions, the film seems to play into several alternative and simultaneous narratives: whilst Napoleon sees himself as a passive figure controlled by destiny, Joséphine describes him as an agent of ‘mistaken ambition’, director of his own mistakes as well as successes. Yet the film also hints towards a third interpretation of Napoleon as ‘political puppet’. Encapsulated in the protagonist’s line: ‘So you expect me to be your sword?’, other governmental figures such as Sieyes, Talleyrand and Barras are depicted as ostensibly manipulating Napoleon towards what he perceives as his ‘destiny’, which is in fact the careful garnering of favouring public opinion and wielding of his military successes for political gain. Joaquin Phoenix’s interpretation of this conflicted character comes across as distinctly underwhelming, and it is hard not to laugh at moments such as him resetting his hat, covering his ears for the cannons, or the uncomfortable erotic scenes between him and Joséphine. It makes it hard to reconcile such a silly figure with the conductor of such horrific violence as is demonstrated against the Royalist mob, blown apart by Napoleonic cannons. When the midshipmen stand in admiration as he dines upon Wellington’s ship, it contrasts harshly with the diminutive figure munching his breakfast in the aftermath of his great defeat at Waterloo. Ultimately, we receive a fragmented portrait whose motivations and beliefs remain indistinct and irreconciled at the film’s close.
With a raised sword, Napoleon leads a few of his men as they charge into the battlefield. Two French flags that are held up can be seen flailing in the air. Credits: Apple TV+ Press
The story initially begins with an overview of the Revolutionary years to position Napoleon’s rise to power within the wider context of French politics and society at the end of the eighteenth century. Scenes within the Assembly, with their clamour, chaos and devolution into violence memorably capture the sense of a country in disarray with no clear direction or leadership. The film goes on to suggest, both explicitly and implicitly, that, in contrast to these initial scenes, Napoleon is seen as the man to restore France to peace and order from the desolation and anarchy of the Revolution and Terror. But France fades into the background after the first hour, as the film changes direction to focus on Napoleon’s campaigns abroad. From then on, we have little sense of the consequent changes “at home” or how Napoleon’s rule has affected shifts in French governance or societal change. Glimpses of France—Napoleon’s public popularity on his return from his Egyptian campaign, or the return to a monarchical rule after Napoleon’s exile—are isolated from their wider narrative so that we have no understanding of their contexts or implications. The heavily British cast who adopt neither French accents nor mannerisms, add to a lack of localisation in the film overall, so that apart from the occasional French flag, the story and characters seem distinctly isolated from their national context. The film has chosen to focus specifically on Napoleon (the man), assumingly thus leaving out Trafalgar due to his absence from the actual battle (being in Germany at the time). In doing so, the film skips over an event that is crucial for our understanding of Napoleon’s actions and motives, for the film’s narrative leading up to his eventual defeat at Waterloo (which the film covers extensively), and for a broader historical narrative about the shifting power dynamics between the Empires, and within the French state.
Ultimately both the historical narrative and the character portrait remain hazy, muddled and fragmented at the film’s end. Perhaps a story attempting to cover so much ground and construct such a complex interpretation of a man and his life would have worked better as a TV limited series, which would have allowed more space to develop some of its shortfalls. Whilst the suggestion of a longer cut raises hope for addressing historical and narrative gaps, I feel that even a four-and-a-half-hour version may fall short of fully capturing the complexity of Napoleon's life and its impact on history. Whether considering Napoleon as a living individual, as a historical figure of political and societal change, or as a mythologised icon, the portrait left by Scott remains little more than an outline. Perhaps the intent was precisely this: the film leaves us with a fragmented and conflicted character and asks us to make up our minds what we think of this military (hero, villain, pawn?) and his actions and intentions. But for the mass audience towards whom the film is marketed, most of whom will (understandably) know little about Napoleon’s biography or French history, and are looking to go away better informed, or at least, entertained, Napoleon remains a frustrating watch.
Footnotes
*Zaczek, Iain. "Napoleon Crossing the Alps". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Apr. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/art/Napoleon-Crossing-the-Alps. Accessed 15 January 2024.
