Who was Napoleon? "I found the crown of France in the gutter. I put it on my head."

Ridley Scott’s film Napoleon had to face criticism before it reached theaters. Historian Dan Snow explained on TikTok that Napoleon never bombed the pyramids, and when Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France, was beheaded, her hair was short, not the blonde hair she appeared in in Scott’s film. Napoleon did not personally stand in the crowd during the queen’s execution, just as Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the title role, stands and watches the terrible scene unaffected.

Ridley Scott responded to the historian’s accusations, suggesting that he start living instead of wasting time on such nonsense. And Scott, one of American cinema’s greatest strategists, is right, of course. As for the film itself, it doesn’t matter at all whether Marie Antoinette’s hair was curly or short on October 6, 1793. The fact that Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa so quickly integrate their hero with the audience during the execution is a smart cinematic move: it’s about pressure that doesn’t diminish in Sometimes about poetry.

Much of the life of the man born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, is hidden in the fog of war. “What actually happened on October 5, 1795 remains a mystery,” writes his biographer Adam Zamoyski, although the events of that day were crucial for the Revolution and for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was baptized in Italian. “His role in this story is the most elusive,” Zamoyski adds.

We’re talking about the day Napoleon apparently ordered dozens of cannons brought up shortly before sunrise to put down an uprising against the young republic whose leader had just staged a coup. Napoleon defended, so to speak, the power of the people against a nation which, after so many years of revolution and a reign of terror, yearned for the tyrannical hand of the king.

Historians also debate the attribution of unspoken words to Napoleon.

On June 26, 1813, Napoleon is said to have said to the Austrian Foreign Minister Metternich, whom he had succeeded in engaging in a disastrous war with Europe: “A man like me does not care about the lives of a million people.” Allies. Metternich publishes this phrase in his memoirs. You don’t have to look at Israel and Gaza to understand that the first casualty in war is always the truth, left by guerrilla propaganda.

The vast majority of what we know about Napoleon, not taking into account what we don’t know, could not be captured in less than three hours of film. Scott, almost 86, one of the world’s most combat-hardened directors, who has made almost as many films as Napoleon’s Battles (56 out of 61), deftly tells the life story of the distinguished commander, emphasizing the most important moments. Among them was the battle with the Royalists in 1795, in which, as usual, the apparently calm Napoleon gave the order to fire. Guns roaring. Bullets fly. The smoke disappears. Loyal kings have died. Napoleon’s rapid rise continues – again, as always, over the dead.

A scene from the movie “Napoleon”

It all started with the Battle of Toulon, when a young officer came up with a bold plan to seize two forts held by the English. The cannons there would have been used to fire on the English fleet in the harbor and the city would have had to surrender. The young leader, who was under 25 years old, showed great calculations, but he was also reckless. As was his custom, he jumped into the fray. A cannonball hit his horse. This historically documented scene can also be found in the film. After the victorious battle, Napoleon digs into the animal’s intestines, takes out a bullet, throws it to his brother Lucien and says: “To the mother.”

Women play a major role in Napoleon’s life. “Tell me you are nothing without me—and without your mother,” whispered Josephine de Beauharnais (Absolutely gorgeous: Vanessa Kirby) to her husband.

Napoleon, Phoenix, pretends to be the strange sociopath his biographers consider him to be, courting her with monosyllabic words until she, no stranger to social ambitions, agrees to marriage. A few scenes ago, he had stormed home in a rage after the Egyptian expedition, which was going rather poorly, whether he actually shot the pyramids or not.

The way modern tabloids spread rumors about Josephine’s affair reached Cairo. Phoenix just stood in front of the Sphinx (here Scott respectfully copies Jean-Léon Gerome’s famous painting “Bonaparte in front of the Sphinx”) and had a quiet conversation with the mummified pharaoh. He decides to return home, risking being charged with desertion.

A scene from the movie “Napoleon”

“Who is this country?” – He shouts to the representatives of the puppet power after the fall of the revolutionary leader Robespierre, whom he accuses of fleeing. He answers: “Mine.” Shortly thereafter in the film, Napoleon is crowned Emperor. In fact, these two events are years apart. The film is gaining momentum. “I found the crown of France in the gutter,” Napoleon laconically sums up the coronation ceremony. “And I put it on my head,” he says.

The Church is happy to have survived the revolution relatively unscathed. Rich people all over Europe turn up their noses at the Corsican tyrant who has clawed his way to the top without any restraint.

Scott admitted this in an interview For a long time, Phoenix had difficulty getting into the role of Napoleon. The director and actor met two weeks before the start of filming and discussed all the issues in detail. The scenario has changed, and according to Scott, it has become better. The film does not exactly match what historians say about the general and the ruler. His true psychology and motives remain at odds. The decision to skip the childhood and youth of Corsica and the students’ schools serves the narrative economy, but leaves the most important issues in the shadows: the genesis of excessive ambition, misanthropy, and the decision to seek progress through cunning, deception, and endless escalation. Of conflicts.

Phoenix himself advises viewers interested in the film to read one of the countless biographies of Napoleon to better understand him. You can also wait for Steven Spielberg’s seven-episode HBO series, which the other Hollywood giant is currently working on based on Kubrick’s unrealized project.

Still, Scott’s film is a masterpiece, a complete battle picture the likes of which haven’t been seen since “Braveheart” or “Gladiator.” In particular, the Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon lured his enemies into a frozen lake and drowned them in a barrage of artillery shells, has an intensity and terrible beauty that will go down in history in the same way as Napoleon’s era – creating an event that commemorates it in its entirety.

“Napoleon” is in cinemas starting November 24.

Rowena Robinson

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Who was Napoleon? “I found the crown of France in the gutter. I put it on my head.”

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