Christi Junior on Nostr: Some thoughts on the Napoleon movie: - It's really weird, and definitely not good. At ...
Some thoughts on the Napoleon movie:
- It's really weird, and definitely not good. At times it almost seems like a parody, a Death of Stalin-type satire. Except for some brief flashes of brilliance and valor, you really don't get the feeling that Napoelon was a great man at all, and if you wanted to actually understand the man you're shit out of luck, beyond being presented with the idea that he had mommy issues and a dysfunctional marriage. The movie skips over so many of Napoleon's great triumphs that historically illiterate people will be left with little understanding of what the hype was all about.
- Joaquin Phoenix is supposed to be this great actor, but here he's either miscast, given bad direction or just doing a shit job. Napoleon comes across like a petulant manchild with a ridiculous ego, and all of his emotional outbursts just sound like Arthur Fleck yelling at Murray.
- The focus on Napoleon's marriage with Josephine pretty much ruins the movie, because it just doesn't work as drama - a manbaby and a whore don't make for compelling main characters, and so the eventual end of their marriage neither works as a tragedy, nor as a heroic sacrifice for the greater good, nor even as a moment of feminist liberation.
- I'm surprised that the movie was supposedly written and directed by men, because there's something distinctly "feminine" about it - the misguided focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine over his military campaigns and various other far more interesting historical topics, the snide insinuation that Napoleon couldn't satisfy his wife sexually, the mommy issues, the unspoken short jokes, the way pretty much no male character comes across favorably except maybe the Duke of Wellington. Above all, there's the way Napoleon's life is summed up at the end - it mentions the number of battles he waged (apparently getting said number wrong), but instead of pointing out how many of those battles he won, it just lists the amount of deaths they resulted in. Not that the number of deaths caused by Napoleon's wars is irrelevant, but in no sensible summary of the man's life is it the *only* story.
- Some parts of the movie do work, and even give you some sense of why Napoleon became such a legendary figure - like the depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz, and the way he returns from his first exile and manages to win back his old army. Hell, even during Waterloo there's a certain aura of greatness surrounding him, and the disastrous invasion of Russia is also pretty well handled, neither dragged out nor glossed over.
- It's really weird, and definitely not good. At times it almost seems like a parody, a Death of Stalin-type satire. Except for some brief flashes of brilliance and valor, you really don't get the feeling that Napoelon was a great man at all, and if you wanted to actually understand the man you're shit out of luck, beyond being presented with the idea that he had mommy issues and a dysfunctional marriage. The movie skips over so many of Napoleon's great triumphs that historically illiterate people will be left with little understanding of what the hype was all about.
- Joaquin Phoenix is supposed to be this great actor, but here he's either miscast, given bad direction or just doing a shit job. Napoleon comes across like a petulant manchild with a ridiculous ego, and all of his emotional outbursts just sound like Arthur Fleck yelling at Murray.
- The focus on Napoleon's marriage with Josephine pretty much ruins the movie, because it just doesn't work as drama - a manbaby and a whore don't make for compelling main characters, and so the eventual end of their marriage neither works as a tragedy, nor as a heroic sacrifice for the greater good, nor even as a moment of feminist liberation.
- I'm surprised that the movie was supposedly written and directed by men, because there's something distinctly "feminine" about it - the misguided focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine over his military campaigns and various other far more interesting historical topics, the snide insinuation that Napoleon couldn't satisfy his wife sexually, the mommy issues, the unspoken short jokes, the way pretty much no male character comes across favorably except maybe the Duke of Wellington. Above all, there's the way Napoleon's life is summed up at the end - it mentions the number of battles he waged (apparently getting said number wrong), but instead of pointing out how many of those battles he won, it just lists the amount of deaths they resulted in. Not that the number of deaths caused by Napoleon's wars is irrelevant, but in no sensible summary of the man's life is it the *only* story.
- Some parts of the movie do work, and even give you some sense of why Napoleon became such a legendary figure - like the depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz, and the way he returns from his first exile and manages to win back his old army. Hell, even during Waterloo there's a certain aura of greatness surrounding him, and the disastrous invasion of Russia is also pretty well handled, neither dragged out nor glossed over.