Tanuj, I also got that feeling that Scott had a little too little regard for the Egypt that Napoleon conquered. Maybe I’m biased because I can’t think of Egypt without thinking of Edward Said.
Unlike you, I’ve never read War and Peace. That seems like a good vantage point from which to get to know Napoleon. What I know about Napoleon is from history books and popular culture. I think you’ll agree that we can cut Scott some slack, because he didn’t have the luxury of Tolstoy, he had a couple of hours to tell a big story. (I would have loved to have seen more of Talleyrand. Much, much more. I guess Ridley Scott was too busy filming the battle of Austerlitz. That was cinematic bliss, but I’d rather have seen more of Talleyrand.)
Also unlike you, I watched Scott’s movie on the big screen, in all its flawed and messy glory. I took my 16 year old along, and we had a blast dissecting the movie on the way home. We thought Phoenix did a good job playing Napoleon as a straight up narcissistic psychopath, which he was. Compared to him Brando’s Napoleon in Desireé is a benign pussycat.
I could have done without a lot of the guts-and-glory nonsense. And I most *certainly* did not need to see Napoleon giving Josephine back shots. Twice. That was cringe. My 16 year old daughter looked across at me and rolled her eyes.
And, speaking of getting shafted, I wish the movie had done much more with Josephine. It’s unlikely that an upstart from Corsica would have made it in the rarefied inner circles of Paris if it hadn’t been for his marriage to the widow Beauharnais. Napoleon would have had trouble getting past the butler if the she hadn’t been well connected. I thought Scott’s Josephine was a hot bimbo bitch goddess with a bit of bipolar disorder thrown in. Alternately seducing and cuckolding. Never satisfied. Weird.
P.S. The scene with the pyramid being vandalized was laughable. Maybe I could have forgiven the historical inaccuracies if the movie had included Champollion, the guy who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs. No such luck. (I know, I know. Some guys are never satisfied, eh?)
Thanks for this wonderful note, Sanjay. I agree with everything you've said about the movie. I think 1789 to 1815 Europe needs long seasons of serial filmmaking, Waterloo or St. Helena being the final episode. Scott had his limitations, and, yes, the movie is not without merit. In War & Peace, Tolstoy's portrayal of Napoleon is driven by a larger thesis, which is being suspicious of the idea of big events and major actors in History. Given that, there is a predilection for showing Napoleon in his weaker moments perhaps, and his possible genius being kept 'off the screen', so to speak. Scott comes to Napoleon with perhaps quite a different view of History, but where they seem to align is that the personal drives the political/historical. Josephine would have interested Tolstoy greatly had he been writing about Napoleon more centrally, as I mention in the article.
I wonder what Tolstoy would have made of the whole Hitler phenomenon. None of what Hitler did would have been possible if the entire German nation had not been complicit. Sure. But would the gas chambers have happened if Hitler had loved Jews?
Half of America has made Trump possible. Hardcore Hindus made Modi. It’s true. So maybe It’s appropriate to look upon history as one gigantic mess, composed of millions of individual events, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But it’s also interesting to note that certain large patterns of mob behavior are inflected, shaped, nudged, and coerced by a handful of small men with tiny dicks and huge egos.
Yes, Sanjay. Tolstoy's successor Vasily Grossman did try to make sense of the Hitler phenomenon, and wrote, in my opinion, the sequel to War and Peace in two parts.
1. Stalingrad 2. Life and Fate with a similarly long list of characters caught in similarly complex circumstances. But Grossman's prose is sweeter and far more searing.
Tanuj, I also got that feeling that Scott had a little too little regard for the Egypt that Napoleon conquered. Maybe I’m biased because I can’t think of Egypt without thinking of Edward Said.
Unlike you, I’ve never read War and Peace. That seems like a good vantage point from which to get to know Napoleon. What I know about Napoleon is from history books and popular culture. I think you’ll agree that we can cut Scott some slack, because he didn’t have the luxury of Tolstoy, he had a couple of hours to tell a big story. (I would have loved to have seen more of Talleyrand. Much, much more. I guess Ridley Scott was too busy filming the battle of Austerlitz. That was cinematic bliss, but I’d rather have seen more of Talleyrand.)
Also unlike you, I watched Scott’s movie on the big screen, in all its flawed and messy glory. I took my 16 year old along, and we had a blast dissecting the movie on the way home. We thought Phoenix did a good job playing Napoleon as a straight up narcissistic psychopath, which he was. Compared to him Brando’s Napoleon in Desireé is a benign pussycat.
I could have done without a lot of the guts-and-glory nonsense. And I most *certainly* did not need to see Napoleon giving Josephine back shots. Twice. That was cringe. My 16 year old daughter looked across at me and rolled her eyes.
And, speaking of getting shafted, I wish the movie had done much more with Josephine. It’s unlikely that an upstart from Corsica would have made it in the rarefied inner circles of Paris if it hadn’t been for his marriage to the widow Beauharnais. Napoleon would have had trouble getting past the butler if the she hadn’t been well connected. I thought Scott’s Josephine was a hot bimbo bitch goddess with a bit of bipolar disorder thrown in. Alternately seducing and cuckolding. Never satisfied. Weird.
P.S. The scene with the pyramid being vandalized was laughable. Maybe I could have forgiven the historical inaccuracies if the movie had included Champollion, the guy who deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs. No such luck. (I know, I know. Some guys are never satisfied, eh?)
Thanks for this wonderful note, Sanjay. I agree with everything you've said about the movie. I think 1789 to 1815 Europe needs long seasons of serial filmmaking, Waterloo or St. Helena being the final episode. Scott had his limitations, and, yes, the movie is not without merit. In War & Peace, Tolstoy's portrayal of Napoleon is driven by a larger thesis, which is being suspicious of the idea of big events and major actors in History. Given that, there is a predilection for showing Napoleon in his weaker moments perhaps, and his possible genius being kept 'off the screen', so to speak. Scott comes to Napoleon with perhaps quite a different view of History, but where they seem to align is that the personal drives the political/historical. Josephine would have interested Tolstoy greatly had he been writing about Napoleon more centrally, as I mention in the article.
I wonder what Tolstoy would have made of the whole Hitler phenomenon. None of what Hitler did would have been possible if the entire German nation had not been complicit. Sure. But would the gas chambers have happened if Hitler had loved Jews?
Half of America has made Trump possible. Hardcore Hindus made Modi. It’s true. So maybe It’s appropriate to look upon history as one gigantic mess, composed of millions of individual events, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But it’s also interesting to note that certain large patterns of mob behavior are inflected, shaped, nudged, and coerced by a handful of small men with tiny dicks and huge egos.
Yes, Sanjay. Tolstoy's successor Vasily Grossman did try to make sense of the Hitler phenomenon, and wrote, in my opinion, the sequel to War and Peace in two parts.
1. Stalingrad 2. Life and Fate with a similarly long list of characters caught in similarly complex circumstances. But Grossman's prose is sweeter and far more searing.