Salvete Omnes,
today a little about the new Napoleon-themed film production directed by Ridley Scott.
so we waited for this latest attempt at the famous French Corsican who waged war, was a law giver and modernized the world around him.
For us, Polish people around the world, Napoleon also may represent our forlorn hope of restoring the Polish statehood - paradoxically this hope was realized by his enemy, tsar Alexander of Russia, who in fact created the Polish state, the so called Congress Kingdom of Poland, and crowned himself as our king in 1815, in spite of the resistance from our friends - Great Britain, Prussia and Austrian Empire.
Ad rem, Mr. Scott directed a feature film, supposedly based on Napoleon's life and times, bu this motion picture is a real biopic?
So I offer you two reviews for your pleasure:
First review is in English - from HistoryLegends of Yt channel of the same name. Among many things, the author, History Legends, analyzes the historic battles, from Toulon to Waterloo, allegedly 'portrayed' in this feature film.
The second one is the more scholarly review, via interview, by prof. Dariusz Nawrot of Silesian University, a Polish professional historian and Napoleonic period reencator, author of many scholarly articles and books. The review was done for the Polish National Radio. You can translate the review via Google translate, which does quite decent translating job from English to Polish et vice versa.
Like other historians eg Helena Schrader et al in their learned opinions about the other film by Mr. Scott, Kingdom of Heaven via Real Crusade History-YT (part 1-one & 2-two on R C H channel ) , here prof. Nawrot is informed, critical and precise in his review.
so could a horse laugh here - it does seem so...
ps,
now, if you wanna see & read an interesting take on the Napoleonic wars you could obtain a French comic novel - The Battle (eg from Amazon) which is a story drawn by Spanish artist Gill after being adapted from a novel by Rambaud.
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| Napoleonic soldier and author of this painting, the battle of Pyramids, Louis-Francois Lejeune is the protagonist of the mentioned French comics |
enjoy
Valete
2 comments:
This film was my introduction to Napoleon as an historical figure and even I suspected it wasn’t a good film. There is a scene where young British midshipmen are listening respectfully to him as he is held captive but it doesn’t feel earned to me because we aren’t shown how effective Napoleon was as a ruler and administrator, and his military genius doesn’t get much more coverage; he refers to Tsar Alexander I copying his battle tactics, which means little when we don’t see most of his battles and have no clear idea of his favoured tactics. In fact, Napoleon doesn’t come off very well at all in the film, spending the majority of his scenes being awkward, emotional, or acting like the “Corsican brute” he is described as, such as having his way with Josephine under the dining room table while growling like a dog. Not that there’s anything wrong with making a character come across as unlikeable but they need some complexity to make them engaging!
Have you seen the 2002 miniseries of the same name where Napoleon is portrayed by Christian Clavier? Not saying it doesn't have its problems but it is a perfect demonstration of why this man’s life needs an entire TV series to do it justice.
Hello Sam, thanks for this succinct but quite precise review. Much appreciated.
I don't recall seeing the 2002 series, I am going to look for it - thanks in advance for the good word about it. I must add I have not seen many French TV series until the coming of Netlfix. by the way have you seen the latest French '3 Musketeers' - 2-'volume' feature films?
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