The disappointment that Napoleon must have felt following his final defeat at Waterloo pales in comparison to the disappointment produced by this film.
Director Ridley Scott has managed to make the life of the man Hegel once described as “the world spirit on horseback” excruciatingly dull.
Simply as a work of art, the acclaimed British filmmaker’s latest feature leaves a lot to be desired.
The movie contains moments of brilliance, such as epic scenes recounting the Battle of Austerlitz and Napoleon’s entry into Moscow.
Yet these are drowned out by the lack of any real narrative, and by the awful dialogue that characterises the painfully awkward interactions between the protagonist (played by Joaquin Phoenix) and his lover Josephine (Vanessa Kirby).
What’s worse, this tortured love story drives what little narrative the film has. Napoleon appears to be conquering Europe simply as a way of overcoming his cuckolding by Josephine.
Indeed, Napoleon’s return from Egypt in 1799 and his return from exile in Elba in 1815 are depicted as being mainly motivated by his discovery of Josephine’s affairs.
A film is not a historical document. And communists are not allergic to artistic licence. The creative liberties that Scott takes, however, mean sidelining the world-shaping events of Napoleon’s life, in order to foreground a turgid romantic tale and push his own rather cynical political message.
“One darn thing after another”
Great historic events are thereby shown throughout the film as merely being, in the words of Henry Ford, a case of “one darn thing after another”.
The audience is left with little idea why Napoleon is suddenly fighting the combined Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz; or why, two years later, he’s meeting with Tsar Alexander at Tilsit.
Scott undoubtedly shares Ford’s contempt for history. In response to criticism from historians about the inaccuracies in the film, for example, the British director has exclaimed: “Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up then.”
With such comments, the award-winning director reveals his own thoroughly postmodern cynicism. ‘If you weren’t there, and it’s not your lived experience, then who are you to say what happened?’
History is thus reduced to a series of subjective ‘narratives’, devoid of any inner logic or objective necessity. And unfortunately, the story that Scott chooses to tell is neither truthful, inspiring, nor especially entertaining.
‘Small Man’ view of history
In the case of this film, Scott seems to be attempting to ‘explain’ the storm and stress of the Napoleonic era by inverting the ‘Great Man’ view of history. Titanic events were apparently driven by no more than the caprices of an awkward brute, wanting to bring Europe to heel in order to placate his insecurities.
Specifically, we are told, Napoleon’s conquest of power is best understood as a product of his mother’s ambition and his need to impress his aloof, aristocratic wife.
In place of any profound statement about one of history’s most significant figures, we have a film that sets out to lampoon ‘alpha-male culture’ and portray the role of powerful women. It even makes a feminist martyr of Queen Marie Antoinette, who strides out to the guillotine like a girlboss.
No mention is made of the crimes of the decrepit Bourbon court, whose lavish parties Antoinette frequented while the famished Parisian masses cried out for bread.
The real heroines of this drama – the poor, radical sans-culotte women of Faubourg Saint-Antoine who marched on Versailles to drag Louis XVI to Paris, and who time and again intervened to push the French Revolution forward, resisting any return to the monarchy – do not feature.
Bonapartism
A superior film might have devoted more screen time to the immense social forces at play during this tumultuous period of history. These make for a far better story than the romance at the centre of Napoleon.
To Scott’s credit, the film correctly depicts French society as it was prior to Napoleon’s rise: convulsed by class struggle.
The radical Jacobins – who had led the Great Revolution and executed King Louis XVI – were overthrown in the Thermidorian coup in July 1794. But the counter-revolutionary Directory regime had no stable base of support, and struggled to maintain order.
In this context, neither contending class was able to triumph over the other, and the state was able to rise above both, resulting in rule by the sword. Napoleon, flush with victories in battle against the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottomans, was an ideal ‘sword’.
This was the essence of Bonapartism: the product of fierce class struggle; and a reflection of the ruling class’ desire for order.
This is all dealt with very briefly and superficially, however; as are Napoleon’s wars, which are presented as an unconnected series of (admittedly spectacular) clashes, driven by Bonaparte’s egomania, with no real historical or political content.
The biopic doesn’t offer us any context or insight into Napoleon’s rule or actions. Instead, the film is more interested in portraying isolated ‘moments’ of drama, whose arbitrariness ultimately leaves them feeling empty.
Anxiety and cynicism
Scott’s directorial choices are no accident. Aside from its pseudo-feminist pretensions about the dangers of petty, violent men with too much power, his latest picture contains a clearly counter-revolutionary message.
The movie opens with the statement: “The people are driven by despair to revolution, but this only brings about more misery.” And the few times that the masses appear, they are presented as a blood-thirsty mob with no real agency.
For instance, during the execution of Marie Antoinette, the incidental music soars as the camera pans over the crowd’s eager faces. The politics didn’t matter to ordinary people, Scott seems to be saying; the ignorant masses just enjoyed seeing the rich go to the national razor.
Given the present crisis of capitalism, with living standards deteriorating daily, you cannot help but detect a sense of anxiety. “Yes, things are bad, but they could be worse,” the film appears to be warning. “So if you’re thinking of revolutionary change, be careful what you wish for!”
Ultimately, in this respect, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is another victim of culture in the epoch of capitalist decay: riddled with the cynicism of the ruling class in its age of inexorable decline – a cynicism that bleeds into Hollywood.
By contrast, if you’re looking for a feature that provides a worthy glimpse of the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary ascendancy, we’d recommend Sergei Bondarchuk’s classic Waterloo: a triumph of Soviet cinema, and thus a product of revolution.
