Despite having passed away nearly a quarter of a century ago, the spectre of Stanley Kubrick lingers heavily over the contemporary film industry – either it is a case of his iconic work being references or influencing the visual and narrative style of those who are inspired by his films, or we see projects that he planned to make eventually go into production, usually in the hands of directors insistent on bringing his vision to life. One of the projects that was closest to his heart, but which unfortunately never made it past the conceptual stage, was a biographical film about Napoleon Bonaparte, the incredibly famous French leader whose name is synonymous with many different qualities: power, ambition and greed, all of which were defining factors in his illustrious military career that eventually led to his ascent to become Emperor of France. For years, there have been attempts to realize Kubrick’s vision and make the definitive film on the leader, and it eventually fell to Ridley Scott, who may not have directly followed Kubrick’s intentions, but still does what many of his peers have been trying to do for decades. Napoleon is a wickedly audacious and incredibly complex examination of the titular character’s life, starting at the tail-end of the French Revolution, when he was just an ambitious young Corsican upstart trying to make his mark in history, right up to his final moments, where he said in exile on Mount Helena, where he met his eventual fate. For nearly three hours, Scott takes us on a whistle-stop tour through the iconic leader’s life, touching on many of his most famous moments, including the various battles and political campaigns that defined his career, and which formed the foundation of his lasting legacy. Scott continues an impressive streak of leaping into the past to tell stories that interest him, and while it is important to note right from the start that this is far from his best work, Napoleon is still extremely entertaining. There are certainly worse ways to spend 160 minutes, especially when it is focused on exploring the life and times of one of history’s most enigmatic and influential leaders.

Scott is certainly not a director known for either selectiveness or subtlety, and late into his autumnal years, he continues to produce films at an alarming pace, which is thrilling to those who are fond of his style of filmmaking, but frustrating to those who are patiently waiting for a return to the days of making very ambitious, bespoke films, rather than an endless stream of biographical dramas and historical epics. There is a purpose to these films, but they’re not always the best representation of Scott’s filmmaking prowess, which has never been in doubt but is slowly eroding as he continues to focus on making every film that crosses his path. However, we can’t begrudge his desire to make Napoleon – he’s a fascinating figure, and considering this is the director behind many other terrific historical films, Scott was not a bad choice to helm what is likely going to be considered this generation’s definitive account of his life. The only problem is that Scott has gone on the record in acknowledging the severe historical inaccuracies that surround this film – it is mostly correct, and the main events occur as history depicts, but the small details have been the source of a lot of contention. This brings up an interesting question – is it entirely necessary to have films focused on complete authenticity, or is some artistic liberty excusable? If anything, not only can we defend Scott’s incredulity towards having everything historically ratified, but we find that it hearkens back to an era where directors went in wildly disparate directions to tell stories, and where the truth was manipulated and reformed for the sake of entertainment purposes. This is a good place to start when looking at this film since it functions less as a history lesson, and more as an entertaining journey through the leader’s life, made not to educate but rather to provide enjoyment, and there’s certainly value in such an approach. When we have a film that manages to be this wickedly entertaining, it is easy to overlook the shortcomings and find value instead in the smaller and more intricate details placed there by the director to embellish the experience. Scott is the directorial equivalent of an eccentric showman, so expectations should be tempered in terms of how we experience this story, since it is as bold and off-the-wall as many of his recent historical dramas, which are less about the authenticity of the story, and more about the overall concept. 

There have been countless screen depictions of Napoleon across every conceivable medium, so there is certainly not a shortage of interesting interpretations over the years. However, the casting of the role still required a lot of thought, since this was not a film that was intent on the conventional biographical approach, and instead was aimed at getting to the root of the character’s psychological state – it’s possible to view Napoleon as less of a thoroughly accurate historical account of his life, and more a complex character study about the man behind the iconography, which is a good method of allowing Scott the freedom he craved to tell the story his way. Joaquin Phoenix has collaborated with the director in the past, notably being given one of his first major roles in Gladiator, where he played a similarly self-centred, maniacal megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and the willingness to destroy his enemies on a whim. He was not a logical choice for this role, but he’s definitely an interesting one, and he once again commits wholeheartedly to the film’s manner of exploring this cultural icon and his place within history. Phoenix is an extremely serious actor, so it only made the film even more entertaining to see him play this role with such intensity, despite some of the absurd scenarios in which Scott placed the character – and there isn’t a moment when his performance isn’t amplified to the highest setting, which may delight those who dismiss Phoenix as an unbearable ham, but shows that he is one of our most magnetic, engaging screen presences, and the perfect person to help realise Scott’s vision, as wacky as it may have been. The character development is fascinating since it portrays Napoleon as someone who always craves dominance, and following his rise from an ambitious upstart to one of the most feared men in Europe to someone who left this mortal coil a mere shadow of his former self gives both the actor and the director quite a bit to work with, especially since it is clear that the film is not interested in taking a vocal stance around whether he was a great leader or a raving lunatic, settling for something in the middle, which is perhaps the best possible approach that could have been taken with such a different way of telling this story.

It is difficult to speak about this issue without sounding like a Luddite who is resistant to change, but the recent movement towards more generative filmmaking, where technological innovation has made making films even easier, has resulted in an erosion of this genre. Scott is an old-fashioned filmmaker (although he is not entirely against technology – he is responsible for some of the greatest science fiction films ever made), so it is difficult to not appreciate his insistence on a more old-fashioned style of filmmaking, one in which the spectacle is authentic, with filming on location and sprawling crowds of people making it very clear that traditional filmmaking is not entirely redundant just yet. Napoleon is a classical historical epic, and as a result, it does contain excess, albeit in the best way possible – lavish set design, elaborate costumes and an extremely broad scope, almost to the point where the film gets lost in the spectacle. It is an over-the-top, excessive drama, and there are few moments where it feels anything less than exhilarating. There is a place for this kind of epic scope, and while it may be messy and often quite jarring (we haven’t even spoken about the tone – there are moments when the film feels like a comedy, and it could easily be described as Barry Lyndon had it been made by Mel Brooks), but it’s still sincerely captivating since Scott is one of the rare contemporary filmmakers who still understands the power of a historical extravaganza, where accuracy is dismissed and instead replaced by a sense of pageantry, which is both garish and wildly entertaining. Napoleon is a film of epic proportions, and Scott is the right director to have made it – it’s certainly never particularly simple, but what it lacks in nuance it more than makes up for in sheer gumption, and it is impossible to not be utterly beguiled by everything that this film represents, especially in its slightly more complex moments, which help punctuate an otherwise gauche and excessive project that may have benefitted from an increased level of narrative control, but which still succeeds in being worth our time, particularly for those who have a penchant for the more absurd side of history.

Perhaps it may not be the most historically accurate account of his life, nor one that is particularly consistent in any way, but it would be foolish to suggest that Napoleon isn’t one of the most sincerely entertaining films of the year, although it does require some semblance of a sense of humour and a great deal of patience, since without them, the film is an overlong slog that is filled with moments of unintentional humour and an endless stream of excess, which goes against the preference audiences have shown for more subtle approaches to historical events. It’s not a particularly good film, but it is also far from a disaster, and we find that there is quite a bit of merit in giving such a story to someone like Scott, who never does anything halfheartedly, instead creating a film that is engaging, exciting and always thrilling, even at its most obvious. Phoenix is fantastic, and while it is certainly not close to the more intense, complex work he has done in recent years, he is having fun with the role, which is a rare occurrence for a character that would normally be subjected to more extensive development, and the rest of the cast is also very good with Vanessa Kirby being quite good as the subject of Napoleon’s affections, his beloved wife Empress Josephine, who was perhaps the most important motivator, and his entire raison d’etre. Throwing caution to the wind (along with historical accuracy), and embracing the inherent absurdity that sometimes proves that fact is usually more surreal than fiction could ever hope to be, Napoleon is a strange and entertaining blend of historical epic and psychological character study, with major lashings of dark humour and melodrama thrown in for good measure. It may not be subtle or nuanced, but it is certainly wildly enjoyable, and if anything just proves that there is still a place for mature historical epics that are driven less by complex ideas and more by sheer spectacle.