Even with Joaquin Phoenix as emperor, Ridley Scott loses the “Napoleon” battle – rts.ch

1793. Marie-Antoinette is guillotined before the eyes of a jubilant crowd and a young lieutenant: Napoléon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix). Aspiring to join the destinies of Caesar and Alexander the Great, the slightly megalomaniac Corsican proves his strategic talents by liberating Toulon from the yoke of the English.

Promoted to general, Napoleon became a major figure in French politics after the Terror. His meeting with Joséphine de Beauharnais (Vanessa Kirby) sealed a passionate and conflicting love which would guide the life of the future emperor until his death in 1821, after six years of exile on the island of Sainte-Hélène.

A scene from the film “Napoleon” by Ridley Scott. [Sony Pictures]

A series of sequences

Historians have already barked at the historical errors of this “Napoleon”, a fresco that is both spectacular and intimate. We have the right to ignore their remonstrances to focus on a filmmaker’s vision of an iconic character. In short, being interested in the film, just the film, is all the more promising since Ridley Scott began his career with the extraordinary “Duellists” (1977), a story of the vengeful madness of a lieutenant during the Napoleonic wars. , and that he took a unique look at ancient Rome (“Gladiator”), the discovery of America (“1492: Christopher Columbus”) and the crusades (“Kingdom of Heaven”).

But after an hour of this “Napoleon” which looks like a series of sequences sent out like so many cannonballs, we come to seriously wonder what interested the director in this project.

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An endless game of “Risk”

If we cannot deny Ridley Scott’s know-how, the battle scenes are grandiose, the image is careful, the craftsmanship is undeniable, we remain much more skeptical about the interest of this “Napoleon” which scrolls through the scenes and characters like leafing through an album of images devoid of flesh and heart. The filmmaker tries to fit everything into his two hours and forty-five hours, which are insufficient to contain Bonaparte’s entire existence. Austerlitz, the siege of Toulon, the Egyptian campaign, Waterloo: the strong moments follow one another without a strong look and leave the feeling of a filmmaker playing an interminable game of “Risk” alone.

We then cling to something else. An original and captivating vision of Napoleon Bonaparte? We will vaguely be treated to the portrait of a retarded adolescent, poor lover, strategic genius and patented megalomaniac, whom Joaquin Phoenix embodies with apathetic pouts when leading his troops on the battlefields (one finger in the air and the cannons fire, a slight wave of the hand and the cavalry rushes, a frown and the infantrymen charge). At this point, we say to ourselves that Ridley Scott has absolutely nothing to do with his neglected hero.

A lot of noise for nothing

We turn to the announced common thread of this “Napoleon”: the obsessive love that Bonaparte has for the woman of his life, Joséphine, restored by the epistolary exchanges read in voice-over at regular intervals by the main interested parties. But between the issues of fidelity, procreation, reciprocal dependence and mutual domination, this relationship supposed to be the heart of the film gives rise to a representation on screen that is more theoretical than embodied, with Ridley Scott treating the death of Josephine.

Vanessa Kirby and Joaquin Phoenix in “Napoleon” by Ridley Scott. [Sony Pictures]

As for any political dimension, on a France torn apart on all sides, on the warlike and colonialist thirst of Bonaparte (the end of the film reminds us that he initiated 61 battles, causing three million dead soldiers), on the resonances of character with any contemporary figure, we can search in vain, forced to say that Ridley Scott shot on automatic pilot a work which has nothing other to say than its own self-sufficiency.

Much ado about not much with this “Napoleon” which will be broadcast in a short time, in a long version, on the platform of Apple TV+, co-producer of the film. Sorry, we will have swimming pool.

Rafael Wolf/ld

_{“Napoleon” by Ridley Scott, with Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim. To be seen in French-speaking cinemas since November 22, 2023.}