Ridley Scott’s film
Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor’s new clothes: why the French are ready to embrace Napoleon again
With Ridley Scott’s epic set to launch, there has been renewed discussion about the military leader’s legacy – and film fans can’t wait
A Hollywood war epic about the world’s most famous Frenchman – directed by an Englishman – was bound to contain its share of historical inaccuracies. So Ridley Scott’s big-budget battle extravaganza, Napoleon, which opens worldwide next week, has inevitably seen every aspect of its trailers scrutinised in France.
From the age of the actors (Joaquin Phoenix is older than the military leader he plays and Vanessa Kirby is younger than his wife, Joséphine), to a scene in which Napoleon’s cannons fire at the Egyptian pyramids when in reality his troops were kilometres away, nothing has escaped.
But, far from shunning the Hollywood treatment, French historians, film clubs and Napoleonic re-enactment societies are embracing the film as an opportunity to address Napoleon’s controversial story and make history accessible to a wider audience.
Scores of sold-out special screenings will be held across France, with hosts and audiences dressed in period costume, and historians leading debates and dissecting the film.
Since the 200th anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death two years ago, when Emmanuel Macron told France the emperor “is part of us”, there has been renewed discussion about Napoleon’s legacy.
While some see a military leader and political strategist who laid the foundations for the French administration, others view him as a warmongering tyrant who reintroduced slavery that had been banned after the revolution.
“This new film by a non-French director is interesting in what it may reflect about our society today,” said Pierre Czertow, a co-founder of the history association Histoire d’en Parler, which will hold a debate about the film in Épinal in eastern France next week.
“Napoleon remains an important French figure, and like a lot of 19th-century figures in France, he’s complicated,” he said. “We’re interested in looking beyond that historic figure to the notion of his relationship to the people, in France and in Europe.
TANIKO Madagascar 