By Maia Venuti
Staff Writer
Ridley Scott’s latest film, “Napoleon” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby was released on Nov. 24. The film is a biopic telling the story of failed French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and has been met with mixed reviews and criticism since its release.
With Ridley Scott’s heated remarks against historians leading up to the film’s release, “Napoleon” is a historically inaccurate retelling of the rise and fall of Napoleon and is a French story without the French.
Arguably the most jarring detail about “Napoleon” was Phoenix’s American accent. Every person who was considered “French” had an American accent, or at least not a French accent. This made no sense, while the movie is being shown and marketed towards Americans, this is not an American story.
It is understandable maybe not wanting to have an American actor put on a poor French accent, but there is a very easy solution to this issue: hire French actors. There are probably thousands of Frenchmen who look identical to Napoleon who are looking for their big break. While Phoenix’s performance was good, it felt like it was missing something the whole time: the Frenchness. Same with Kirby’s, it felt flat and lacked the Frenchness that is integral to this story.
The historical inaccuracies in this film were jarring at times, to say the least. No, Napoleon did not fire cannons into the Pyramids of Giza. Yes, he took Egypt, but he did not fire cannonballs into the Pyramids.
The other biggest inaccuracy was the age difference between Josephine, Napoleon’s wife, and Napoleon. When he ascended to emperor, Napoleon was 35 years old and his wife was 41, six years older than him. In the film, Phoenix is 49 years old and he is supposed to be playing a 35 year old, and Kirby is 35 years old playing her age.
The age gap is so integral to Napoleon and Josephine’s relationship, because it is a huge reason why their marriage failed. In reality, Josephine could not have children due to her age, and it led to Napoleon leaving her so he could have children. The film glosses over why she cannot have children, and it cannot say it is her age because they aged her down.
One thing I can say I liked about “Napoleon” is that the battle scenes were extremely well done. I loved watching them, and they were all perfectly shot. There were several large battle scenes throughout the film's two and a half hour runtime, and they were so captivating and engaging. Ridley Scott is very good at directing battle scenes, and I am not even a fan of war movies or excessive battle scenes. These scenes didn’t feel overly excessive and were overall really impressive in how they were executed.
Overall, “Napoleon” fell flat for me. It feels like all the Frenchness was sucked out of the story, and it was just an Americanized retelling of a famous French story. So much more could have been done, it felt both in depth and also really broad at the same time. Scott had the opportunity to accurately portray and tell this story, but he chose not to, and it fell flat.
