Ridley Scott's Napoleon

[El Unicornio, mang]

I love film but I get why directors go with digital. David Fincher's last six films (and his next one) have all been shot on digital and I think they look as good as the 5 he shot on film.

[superthunderstingcar]

4 Oscars.

I know it won Best Picture, but is there an award for Worst History as well?

[touchingcloth]

I know it won Best Picture, but is there an award for Worst History as well?

Yeah, it won all three - Worst History, Worst History in a Supporting Role, and Worst Historess.

[Johnny Textface]

Do people care about that these days? Digital can simulate film perfectly these days.

I'm being silly of course. HOWEVER, it does seem a shame that films like Zodiac will never get a 4k release. And I quite like grain.

[touchingcloth]

I'm being silly of course. HOWEVER, it does seem a shame that films like Zodiac will never get a 4k release. And I quite like grain.

Yeah, there was a short period where anything that was shot on digital instead of film had permanent quality losses (like shooting on 35mm instead of IMAX), but I think those days have passed now.

Digital has grain if you push it far enough or fake it. Wonder if anyone routinely does either for artistic effect in modern movies.

[greenman]

I think you could argue finchers style was quite well suited to digital, very exact.

His films could get a UHD release and show improvement, not massively in resolution(although generally a bit via better compression) but via HDR, the UHD release of Drive looks very good due to that.

Yeah, it won all three - Worst History, Worst History in a Supporting Role, and Worst Historess.

Worst history involving gay bashing and a Scottish paedophile.

[iamcoop]

5/5 from Bradshaw so this will definitely be shit.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Definitely something in that

I've just noticed that his cleft lip thing has moved. Top picture: underneath right nostril. Bottom picture: underneath left nostril.

[lauraxsynthesis]

Scottish actor Mark Bonnar is in this apparently. Good on him being in a Ridley Scott film. He's been ace in loads of telly stuff.

Also Phil Cornwell :D

[Dex Sawash]

Not my favorite pastry, wouldn't pay to see adaptation to film

[seepage]

why do this when Waterloo (1970) exists?

"Has Wellington nothing to send me but these Amazons?"

"Some say they are the finest cavalry in all of Europe but the worst led"

"That may be, that may be, but I shall match them with my Lancers"

*PAAARP*

[Sebastian Cobb]

French bloke who knows I like films asked me if I was going to see it and I said "dunno, it's Mubi's free film next week so might" and then he asked what that was.

It was only later when scrolling twitter and happeing to see someone retweet how empty the French premieres are that I realise he might've been faking the piss and I unwittingly curveballed him.

[Crabwalk]

I'm being silly of course. HOWEVER, it does seem a shame that films like Zodiac will never get a 4k release. And I quite like grain.

I only found out recently, via the marvellous Blank Cheque podcast, that Zodiac was shot in 1080p. Fucking nuts.

[Dr Rock]

It's a myth that he ever said 'Not tonight Josephine.'


His actual words were 'Sacre Blue Josey love, mon pee-pee is, ow you say, 'not feeling it right now'. Now go to bed you strumpet, flick yourself off if you're desperate''

[The Bumlord]

"I 'ave forgotten my blue pills. Sacre bleu!"

[Bad Ambassador]

Kevin Eldon as Josephine's doctor.

It's not great. You don't learn much about the man or what shaped him, and it's essentially a broad-strokes chronicle of his career with quite a bit of embellishment. There's also more then a few laughs, which might not be intentional, including a bizarre sex scene and someone being arrested as they talk about having a succulent meal.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Should I go watch this, or Thanksgiving instead? Thanksgiving might be dumb, but at least it'll be entertaining. This just looks like a load of earnest, po-faced bollocks that I'd be bored of after about an hour and a half.

[Terry Torpid]

Saw it yesterday. As a Napoleon buff, it annoyed me. As a film buff, it was just alright.

There's an inaccuracy in basically every scene, and not all of them can be excused as helping the story. I don't mind some events being truncated and glossed over (the entire Italian and Peninsular campaigns) because there's a lot to get through and they have to hit the main plot points, but some of it would be just as dramatic if they'd stuck to real life.

Spoiler alert

He wasn't in the crowd when Marie Antoinette got the chop, but thematically it works.

Getting wounded at Toulon was omitted, even though that would have been dramatic, and shown him as a flesh and blood mortal.

His sexy slut wife wasn't actually called Josephine de Beauharnais. He didn't like her name Rose, so he just gave her a new one. That would have worked well in the scene where they meet for the first time, and she makes fun of his uniform. It would have been a fun comeback, a bit of verbal sparring, and also show how exacting he could be. Instead, she's just called Josephine already, which was lazy.

The downfall of Robespierre was truncated to the point of being farcical. It was like something out of The Death of Stalin.

The Battle of the Pyramids didn't actually take place at the foot of them, and he didn't shoot one of the Pyramids. There's an old discredited rumour that he shot the nose off the Sphynx, and I'm glad they didn't include that, but it's a shame they added some similar nonsense.

He didn't rush home from Egypt because his sexy slut wife was having an affair (although she was), it was because he knew the political situation was turning and he needed to take his chance. It's odd that they went for the more romantic version instead of the cynical one, when the film is generally about deflating Napoleon. One of the few moments where he's portrayed as better than real life.

The transition from Directory to Consulate to Empire is so rapid that anyone not familiar with the history would have no idea what's going on, and why, and the differences between the administrations.

Crowning scene was fairly accurate, and clearly based on David's painting. It was nice to see the artist sketching then later painting the scene. Art imitating art imitating life.

Austerlitz was bollocks. There were a few drownings in a frozen lake, but that was only a small part of the battle, not a major trap by Napoleon. It was a brilliantly directed sequence though, very much the work of the director of Gladiator.

He seems to meet the Tsar on dry land instead of a raft in the river. They should have shown them kissing.

Wife #2 gets one scene, then bam she's produced a son. I can't tell if that's a clever bit of filmmaking, or she just fell through the cracks of the script.

The invasion of Russia and subsequent march home was quite well done. Nice gory detail of soldiers eating a horse.

They go from Russian to abdication, skipping Leipzig completely, which is just batshit.

Elba was kept appropriately brief, but they've fudged the timeline. He already knew his sexy slut ex-wife died when he was on the island, but in the film they're still corresponding, and he races home to a devastating surprise. That was very Hollywood.

The scene where he gets the troops to join him is straight out of Waterloo (1970), but not as good. Scott cribbed that films a few more times, less effectively.

Waterloo was bollocks, and that's the bit you clearly can't get wrong. The Prussians came from the wrong side. WW 1 trench warfare. Napoleon mucking in with the cavalry?!

Napoleon and Wellington never met.

He keels over and dies outside, instead of on his deathbed. They even misquote his last words!

[close]

Great sets and costumes. Fun battle scenes. Looks good, sounds good, but it's a film about Napoleon made by a cranky British Knight.

I'd never heard of her before, but Vanessa Kirby is brilliant (despite being the wrong age). She's stunningly beautiful and sexy and slutty and I love her now. Phoenix was shit. He spends most of the film squinting morosely, and mumbling. No sense of charisma, ability to inspire, or administrative and military genius.

Should I go watch this, or Thanksgiving instead? Thanksgiving might be dumb, but at least it'll be entertaining. This just looks like a load of earnest, po-faced bollocks that I'd be bored of after about an hour and a half.

I'll say that it's not earnest or po-faced at all, in fact it's mostly irreverent, and as others have noted quite funny at times. For example, he snorts like a pig whenever he want to fuck his sexy slut wife. Cut to him rutting away doggystyle while she looks unimpressed. It's a downright bawdy comedy at times, and got plenty of laughs from the audience.

[Bad Ambassador]

The cut to shagging was like what I thought a Confessions film would be like, and Death of Stalin was a touchstone throughout. 

[Small Man Big Horse]

I was on the tube earlier when someone saw the poster and was incredibly excited, and loudly exclaimed to a friend about how Ridley Scott was their favourite director, the man was a genius, and every film he'd made was an absolute stone cold classic. And that just confused me so much. I can maybe imagine having that point of view in the eighties / nineties, but in 2023? It's madness, I tell you, madness.

[13 schoolyards]

I think Scott gets away with it because his career is so all over the place - there's no real steady decline, because he'll do a bunch of shit films and then something like The Martian which isn't brilliant but gets the job done.

And there's always some batshit ones there too like The Counselor (which I love, but is, uh, not for everyone). It's pretty rare he does a boring film but when he does it's the most boring thing in the world.

[greenman]

Yeah I can't really imagine being a "Ridley Scott Fan" in recent years, maybe I spose epic history films but really there was a big gap between Kingdom of Heaven and the recent stuff but really he's more a work to order director with better visual style than most, does sometimes get stuff like The Counsellor or Matchstick Men which is interesting but isnt going to try and bring that to everything.

Even the visuals I do think have obviously dropped off, they still look "nice" but I feel the last time they were really inspired was way back in the late 80's, something like Someone To Watch Over Me still has that inventiveness and desire to make every shot interesting even if the story is more straight forward.

[Terry Torpid]

I was on the tube earlier when someone saw the poster and was incredibly excited, and loudly exclaimed to a friend about how Ridley Scott was their favourite director, the man was a genius, and every film he'd made was an absolute stone cold classic.

Maybe they've only seen his good ones.

[Gulftastic]

.... and someone being arrested as they talk about having a succulent meal.

"Zat piece of 'alibut was good enough for Jehovah.'

[Bad Ambassador]

It had more to do with being democracy manifest. I was expecting Nappy to ask Jo if she was prepared to receive his limp penis.

[Toki]

I was on the tube earlier when someone saw the poster and was incredibly excited, and loudly exclaimed to a friend about how Ridley Scott was their favourite director, the man was a genius, and every film he'd made was an absolute stone cold classic. And that just confused me so much. I can maybe imagine having that point of view in the eighties / nineties, but in 2023? It's madness, I tell you, madness.

Maybe they've only seen his good one.

[badaids]

Maybe they've only seen his good one.

I bet they think it is Prometheus.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Or Top Gun.

[madhair60]

fidley scott

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Diddler of Bots