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There are two ways to make films: to make easy films, and to make difficult films.
Throughout his career, Ridley Scott has always chosen one or the other. Just to give an example: Gladiator is an easy film; Blade Runner is not. And by easy, mind you, we do not mean easily achievable (we are still talking about Ridley Scott), but easy in an artistic sense and, let’s say it, spiritual sense.
With the much-awaited Napoleon, at 85 years old (almost 50 years of career behind him), he decides to do both.
Wanting to portray in just two and a half hours a complete picture of one of the most complex and famous historical figures who ever existed, and wanting to do so simultaneously with his exploits, is an operation worthy of a butcher.
To quote Napoleon himself: “From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step”.
So, if one has the courage to tackle his figure, which embodied in the most absolute way some of the intrinsic characteristics of the human genre, one must have the opportunity and the pretence to give him a congruous space.
For this, a film that only the duration of a work by Claude Lanzmann or Lav Diaz could respect would be needed. And even that would not be enough. Abel Gance had already tried in 1927 with his masterpiece of over five hours.
But this is not always feasible, for numerous reasons, and the issue can be overcome simply by deciding to focus on a single aspect.
Not making a film “about Napoleon” but about “something of Napoleon”.
One could choose to focus on his exploits, with a purely historical or didactic approach (certainly less interesting nowadays), to tell a specific episode, such as the famous Waterloo (1970) by Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk (with Rod Steiger’s most impressive performance). Or one could take a more personal approach, to tell of his love and his feelings, or a moment in his life, his exile, his fears, and his vulnerabilities.
And surely today, that is what most urgently needs to be discovered: the human being behind the figure, the name before the surname.
Moreover, a recent trend in cinema is that of telling great historical, political, or collective imaginary figures – even in fiction – without representing them in their public life or in their best-known aspects, in their invincibility (whether for good or for bad), but in their most personal and human aspects. A striking example is Todd Phillips’ extraordinary Joker, played by the same Joaquin Phoenix who here takes on the role of Bonaparte.
In short, one can choose to make an epic film or an intimate film, and Ridley Scott chooses to make neither one nor the other but to make both together.
On one hand, he focuses on certain moments of the French general’s private life, especially in his well-known and troubled love affair with Josephine. Glimpses of truth that create a sense of “sympathy” in the true sense of the term with the protagonist, who ceases to be a character from history books and simply becomes a man.
Especially in the nighttime scenes, where the use of exclusively natural lighting creates a hyperreal and intimate effect.
But these are only moments, glimpses of reality – certainly elevated by Vanessa Kirby’s performance – within an absolutely inconsistent work.
Scott tries to build a contrast between the historical Bonaparte and the “real” one, between the emperor and the man, between the “heroic” (if we can still label an emperor heroic) and the simple, but he carries out this operation in a haphazard and slapdash manner, stuck between plot holes and contrived time jumps that seem like a way to cram all the major milestones of the life and career of one of the most famous figures of all time into a couple of hours.
The milestones that are told with the usual visual grandeur typical of Scott’s films, which is not inherently bad, but when not supported by adequate intention and content, it eventually becomes tiresome. It merely feels like a waste of money.
In short, the latest work by the celebrated director is a film of the “almost” kind. Almost a film of his late career, almost historical, almost grandiose, almost intimate, almost poetic, almost sincere; A film that is almost beautiful.
But enough with the middle ground, it is time for art to embark on more courageous and extreme paths.
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