Napoleon And The Spasmodic Lamb Chop of Destiny
I just wanted a movie worth watching…But like Napoleon’s lust for conquest, glory, and Josephine, we can’t always get what we want.
Can we not find and ensconce ourselves in a happy medium of storytelling, just once in a while, to say we have done so and see how it feels?
Watching Ridley Scott’s Napoleon in the theater left the audience with the impression that their seats were the point of suspension for the great narrative pendulum to pass back and forth before their very eyes for the better part of three hours. Academics, philosophers, historians both amateur and professional, and all manner of cultural commentating rehashed “great man theory” debates in the run up to the film about a figure so dominating that his era is called “the Napoleonic era/wars” after the exploits of Bonaparte. With the casting of Joaquin Phoenix, his skills and body of work suggested perhaps a character study on the insecurities of the great man by an actor known for his intensity and darker roles when dealing with complex characters. So, the question was, which was the audience going to get: great man hagiography with giant battles, or brooding private insecurities of the mythologized legend?
Faced with this choice, Ridley Scott answered the question with “Oui, plus de cowbell!” giving us this pendulum-swing mess of a movie that…
