Fake History Hunter

This article was originally a thread on social media, which is why it is formatted with lots of images and short responses.
The text is about the image below that paragraph.

Well, I’ve seen ‘Napoleon’ and here’s my review. It’s going to be a long one full of complaining about details and of course with tons of spoilers. You’ve been warned.

As usual, I start with the trailer:

Another warning; Although I already know a few mistakes were made, I’m absolutely NOT an expert on the Napoleonic era, so there will be a lot I won’t even be noticing to complain about. So this review could have been EVEN more negative if I knew more about the topic 😉

Also, I like Joaquin, yes someone who looked more like Napoleon would have been cool, the whole film being in French would have been tres bien, but I do enjoy watching Joaquin act. Although I do think that he was too old for the role, Napoleon being young matters to the story.

Always nice to be given a year in a film, makes it easier to spot mistakes 😉 But yes, they were indeed doing the revolution thing in France in 1789. So far, so good. The music is pretty bad, somehow they sound like 1960s chansons.

The scene with Marie Antoinette is silly. I just don’t get why they didn’t make it a bit more authentic, it would have been no extra effort at all. Napoleon wasn’t there, putting Napoleon there is fake history, but sure, poetic license, it does make for a dramatic scene.

I think artists should never be hindered in their work and Scott could have added aliens, elephants and turned it all into a rock musical if he wanted.
I support full freedom for artistic people. But I just don’t get why they didn’t make it all look a bit more like it really did.
What did it add, did it make the film better?

Such a big budget, so many experts on hand, but why not make Marie Antoinette’s last few moments more accurate? Artistic license? Does it make the film better that she’s not wearing a white under-dress or that she has her wig on in stead of short hair?
We know what she looks like, even if we weren’t there Mr. Scott… We have eyewitness accounts & even a drawing.
No, I don’t expect artists to get everything right or even care a lot about authenticity, but I’m just curious about why the choice was made to dress her up like this.

There was a reason she didn’t wear a wig, there’s a reason people often had their hair cut before being executed on the guillotine. There’s a blade coming. The execution generally has to go as quickly as possible, you don’t want to waste time.

That’s what makes the guillotine so humane and better than many other forms of executions (yes really), it can be over with in seconds and almost never fails. Also, is she kneeling? On the scaffold?
How peculiar, why is she not laying down on the tilting board (bascule)?

Not that they never used them without the bascule, but I think we know they used one for her.
Again, do what you want mr Scott, but why? We have images of her execution and many of other guillotine executions, why do it differently?

To me being tied to a board while standing and then very quickly lowered down and slid under the knife is part of the horror, the swiftness, the speed, that too. Well monsieur Guillotine would not be happy. Did choosing to do things differently make the film better?

Well, 3 minutes in and we’re already drowning in inaccuracies. This film is 2.5 hours long… I don’t see much wrong with the costumes, impressive fabrics, nice details, I’m no expert on this subject but it looks like they put a lot of effort, time & money into getting that right.

Of course there’s way too much blue filter in it and yellow filter for Egypt. There were green fields, horses, bright coloured uniforms, explosions, blood. Colour everywhere But just like in many films these days we’re not allowed to see those, everything has to be dark and sad.
Scott made a masterpiece in 1977, ‘The Duellists’, better story, better cast, better acting and COLOUR. And although also dark here and there, it was GORGEOUS. Like watching paintings come to life. Where did it all go wrong? Go see it.

Tricorne hats are sexy. Bring them back.

Threemasters are sexy. Bring them back.

Nightscenes are always fun, of course the director wants us to see what’s going on, but by adding a bit of light we suddenly end up with a situation were any guard would have noticed the army outside the walls.

See, this is why it would have made much more sense to have Marie Antoinette’s execution look historically accurate. Napoleon meets Josephine. Her short hair is the fashion (mostly) because of the guillotine, because the victims often had short hair under the wigs they rarely wore during those last moments but also because they had a hair cut because of the blade.
The link would have been noticeable.

The whole relationship stuff is boring, I don’t care about the details of Napoleon’s and Josephine’s marriage or love-life. The actors don’t make the characters likeable enough, I don’t root for either of them, I’m not invested.

Josephine is just there for the hanky panky or because some filmmakers still think women won’t come see the film if there isn’t some relationship stuff in it.
She’s not there for Josephine, we learn nothing about how interesting she really was, her passions besides Napoleon, her contributions to art, her experiences during the revolution, etc. She was somebody, she was more than Napoleon’s obsession.

She was not just some random fun time girl who cheats on him… which is a big deal in the story even though Nap cheated on her too. It’s offensive how she’s portrayed. Napoleon was a very unpleasant man, but at least interesting, she doesn’t get te same treatment.

Scott clearly couldn’t chose between telling a complete story about Nap’s army/political career or telling the complete story about his complicated love-life so in stead we don’t get enough of either.
Both napoleon & Josephine just seem like some weirdos to me, which, to be fair, they also were in real life and which most of us also are. But I just found myself losing interest in their relationship status minutes after they met for the first time.
I hear a 4 hour director’s cut is planned, which makes sense as Scott clearly didn’t have enough time with this film. Scott does this a lot, he makes a film and then makes an director’s cut which is MUCH longer an seems to have the bits that are missing in the main cut. Annoying.

Much of the film is just boring. I almost wish there were more errors, more annoying mistakes, an extra wearing jeans, a plane flying over, something. But it’s all just relationship bla bla bla with a little battle here and there.
And that damn blue filter…

Nothing is explained, we’re not told why Napoleon does anything, why he fights and for who or why some campaigns or battles even happen is ignored. Nap just does some romantic stuff, then goes to do some war stuff, has a glass of wine and repeat.

The Italy campaign but even the Egypt campaign barely gets any attention, we’re not told why these were so important.
Where’s the battle of Trafalgar??

Oh we do of course get a battle near the pyramids (the battle wasn’t near them) and cannons that could not have hit the top of these pyramids… hitting the pyramids.
Why? Scott made up some excuse but I bet he just thought it looked cool.
It doesn’t, it’s silly.

I did like him meeting a mummy, I would have done that if I was given the chance, have a little chat with the dead.

Some of the best acting in the film, yes, I mean the dog. He does a great job at being scared by a chair being thrown.

Phoenix shows a Napoleon who is a different person in almost every scene, which doesn’t make the film easy to watch. You want a steady, understandable, realistic human who develops throughout the story you’re watching.

This Napoleon doesn’t seem to know who he is or what he wants from one moment to the other. Which is perhaps realistic & human but it doesn’t help when you’re trying to tell a story. He’s also just too old, sorry.

Nap being young for much of his career was impressive. A young Nap meeting Josephine and being awkward would have worked, being impressed with a 20 something winning a massive battle would have worked, but here it’s just some guy almost as old as I am, which is old.
And I’m saying that as someone who really likes Phoenix. I also don’t think he gets Napoleon right, this isn’t the man who was worshipped by many of his troops, who achieved some impressive things, this is the Napoleon we know from British cartoons, a silly billy.

He convinces men to join his rebellion but from the film we don’t know why, we don’t get how he earned their loyalty, he has no passion. That’s the story I wanted to see, why was he who he was, why was he revered, show me that, not a romance novel with a bit of war on the side.

This scene looked great though:

I don’t know enough about the battle of Austerlitz to point out all the errors (of which there are several) but again we’re not really told why this battle was so important or even why it was fought. It looks impressive, but it’s a bit exaggerated, not that many drowned:

I should have watched this film with my Napoleonic re-enactment pals, their screaming & crying would have added to the entertainment.

Rupert!
He’s always jolly good:

Did they have trenches at Waterloo? In that muddy soggy field?

Oh now Nap fought at Waterloo himself? Yeah, but no. He wasn’t that daft.

Oh and we have some sniper shoot a hole in Nap’s hat?
Yeah, no, didn’t happen, we literally, allegedly, have the hat he wore at Waterloo, it has no hole in it.
Again, why? Scott can add whatever he wants to his story, but I’m just curious, what did this add?

By the way, I had two family members fight at Waterloo, on the winning side. When I point out mistakes in films people sometimes respond with “but it isn’t a documentary!”.
Ironically in this case the film feels more like a documentary, but a bad one.
Just a bunch of events, some battles, but no real drama, no story to follow, no people to truly care about. This film felt more like a History Channel documentary, lots of dramatised big budget scenes with spiffy re-enactors, but not very movie-ish.

Wait, Wellington & Napoleon meet?
This happens in a lot of films, directors sometimes can’t resist the temptation to have enemies meet even if it never happened.
But it does mean we’re now getting into alternative history, why not have Nap win Waterloo while we’re at it.

So, conclusion, even without the historical inaccuracies it’s just not a very good film. It’s a bit of a mess, lots of random stuff, too much happening while at the same time not enough is happening.
Nice ships though.

A good film can get away with a few mistakes, those can be forgiven, but here it’s just one of the many flaws in this film.
The film didn’t make me care about Napoleon or Josephine, it didn’t teach me Napoleon did some impressive things and was quite interesting in several ways.

Say what you want about the incredibly silly and historically inaccurate ‘Braveheart’, but at least it worked as a film, it had a story & characters you sort of cared about.
Napoleon was a big pile of meh.
There’s a reason not just us sad nerdy history addicts are disappointed.

Go watch the 1977 Waterloo film in stead(it’s on youtube), or like me, go watch ‘Master and Commander’ as an antidote. I need it to wash this film out of my hair. Even though the M&C story was fictional, it was more real and accurate than this Napoleon mess.

Oh and PS, yes mr. Scott, you did, you really did:

Scott’s childish and silly angry responses to historians pointing out his mistakes only makes him look even sillier.
Which is sad because he’s a very talented director who has made some films I really liked.

And before you decide to get angry about this review;