An Englishman telling the life of the French Caesar. A story that begins with a mistake (Napoleon Bonaparte attending the beheading of Marie Antoinette, when he was not there) and concludes with a string of figures about the millions of dead he left in Europe (the subtext: he was a predecessor of Hitler and Stalin ). Worse still: with the Empereur and the rest of the French protagonists speaking in English. What could go wrong?
Ridley Scott’s film, which opens this week, has struck a chord in France. There are not so many leaders in the world who have their mausoleum in the center of the capital: Lenin, Mao… And Napoleon, whose remains rest in the Invalides monument. This country cannot be understood without the man who embodied the last true moment of French power in the world, and built the architecture of the modern state.
“I am a Ridley Scott fan,” historian Jean Tulard said Tuesday night. In addition to the director’s unconditional blade runner, Alien and Gladiator, is that of Napoleon, or at least one of his most distinguished scholars and biographer of reference. Tulard was speaking at a colloquium organized by the magazine The Figaro History at L’Arlequin, a Parisian cinema where the audience had just attended the preview of Napoleon. The historian specified: “I speak to you as a film buff.”
Precision was important. Because, then, both Tulard and the other historians who participated in the colloquium proceeded to dismantle – elegantly, but relentlessly – the film we had just seen. Some evaluations heard on the stage of L’Arlequin: ”It hides the political landscape”; “I was disappointed by the setting”, “in the battle of Austerlitz, nothing is understood”; “he is an incomplete Napoleon”; “sometimes, monolithic.”
Tulard, who at almost 90 years old exhibits a bibliography of dozens of books on Napoleon Bonaparte, was sincere at the end of the talk when asked if the new film was a good entry point for those who did not know Napoleon. His response: “I admire Ridley Scott, but as a history professor at the Sorbonne I would advise against watching this film.” Applause in the stalls. “As a movie buff, yes,” he summarized. “As a historian, no!”
As with any fictional recreation of the past—from the Puy du Fou theme park to the best historical novel—criticisms of the Napoleon by Scott are displayed in two planes. The first is that of facts. And there the French audience may be more punctilious and irritable than the rest, because they talk about yours. There is a feeling, although this expression is not used, of cultural appropriation. We usually talk about cultural appropriation when a majority uses the symbols or traditions of an oppressed minority. In this case the appropriator would be an Englishman and the appropriater, the French.
Tulard points out, for example, that Napoleon never carried the saber at Waterloo, although he understands this because “it is the side Gladiator, and Ridley Scott is forgiven.” Another historian specializing in the period and the character, Patrick Gueniffey, has denounced in the weekly Le Point more errors. One is the aforementioned presence of the future dictator at the beheading of Queen Marie Antoinette, when at that time Bonaparte was at the siege of Toulon, more than 800 kilometers from Paris. Another invented scene is the bombing of the Pyramids.
There is a second level in the criticism, which points to the image of Napoleon that Ridley Scott conveys. It is not that in France his sins are ignored, such as the dictatorship, the reestablishment of slavery or endless wars. But it is annoying that the protagonist appears as “the caricature of an ambitious man, the Corsican ogre, a sulking oaf and at the same time rude to his wife,” according to Gueniffey. “Ridley Scott,” he adds, “does not realize the logical absurdity: how did such a stupid, mediocre and ridiculous character come to write such a destiny?”
The historian, author of the monumental Bonaparte, considers that Scott “resumes the old caricature that was made of Napoleon just after his fall, and that came from the Restoration or the English enemy at the time of the Congress of Vienna.” “Visibly, he does not love Napoleon,” he laments. And here an idea emerges that runs through part of the reception of the film in France: “It is a film against Napoleon, who, certainly, does not deserve only praise, but it is made without nuance or intelligence.” It is a film, he concludes, “very anti-French.”
Anti-French? “The ending is,” Tulard responded as he left the theater. “The enumeration of the dead soldiers, which appears unexpectedly, shows that there is a desire for hostility towards Napoleon.” Another participant in the colloquium, Geoffroy Caillet, editor-in-chief of The Figaro Historyadds: “Ridley Scott tends to make us believe that the Empire is reduced to a story of the dead, but the Empire is something else: it is the foundation of modern France after the chaos of the Revolution and also recovering a part of the heritage of the monarchy, and this whole dimension, unfortunately, disappears.”
The figure of three million dead, which closes two and a half hours of battles and love affairs, is disgusting. “We must remember that Napoleon did not commit genocide. There is talk of deaths on the battlefield,” says Caillet. And he summarizes: “It is not an anti-French film, but it does have a very Anglo-Saxon point of view.” But this uncomfortable and controversial ending refers to other British visions of the emperor, such as that of Paul Johnson, author of a short biography that concluded: “No dictator of the tragic 20th century—from Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong to pygmy tyrants like Kim Il Sung , Castro, Perón, Mengistu, Saddam Hussein, Ceaucescu and Gaddafi—was free of the echoes of the Napoleonic prototype.”
During the screening at L’Arlequin, no one left the room, nor were there any boos. No applause either. A spectator sighed when he saw the three million figure. Another commented: “It’s not that it’s an anti-French film, it’s just empty.” The criticism has not been enthusiastic. In some cases, directly hostile, beyond ideologies. The leftist newspaper Liberation has written: “Without really adopting a particular point of view or approach, Napoleon “It is a quietly indecent film, very sure of its inanity.” Napoleon is not touched. Or he touches himself carefully. At the end of the colloquium in L’Arlequin, several shouted: “Long live the Emperor!”
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