Ridley Scott’s latest blockbuster epic, Napoleon, was one of 2023’s biggest flops. Despite grossing $217 million, this looks quite feeble against a budget of $130-200 million. One of the main factors for its lacklustre success was its mixed critical reception – more specifically, regarding its often-anachronistic approach to historical accuracy. While many view Napoleon’s blasé depiction of the life of one of history’s most iconic characters as a shortcoming, I would argue that people need to relax and have a little more fun!
Having finally gotten around to watching Joaquin Phoenix’s depiction of the self-proclaimed Emperor of France, it’s safe to say that I had a blast. For me, this movie didn’t provide perfect historical accuracy because that wasn’t the point – the point was to humanise Napoleon and ground him below his unimaginably prolific status. Ridley Scott provides an iconoclastic depiction of a man who, ultimately, caused a lot of death and destruction.
A large portion of the backlash, unsurprisingly, came from historians. Patrice Gueniffey called the film “very anti-French and pro-British”, while Franz-Stefan Gady notes the retelling of Napoleonic warfare: "For all of Scott’s fixation on Napoleon’s battles, he seems curiously disinterested in how the real Napoleon fought them”. One example of this and a major point of criticism is in the depiction of Napoleon and his troops in Egypt.
In this sequence, Napoleon rather dramatically fires cannons at the Pyramids of Giza. Egyptologist Salima Ikram states clearly that "he definitely did not take pot shots at them", but by this point in the film, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is an intentional fabrication of events. The scene sits in direct succession to a shot of Napoleon gazing at the Sphinx from atop his horse. This is a direct reference to the 1886 painting ‘Bonaparte Before the Sphinx’, a piece of art that creates a veil of grandeur around Napoleon as he ponders on the titans of history who have come before him.
Cut directly to the next shot and he is firing at the Pyramids like a child playing with their toys – the irony here is intentional and aims to question the legacy that historians have gifted Napoleon over the years. Scott refers to this idea of legacy directly in response to his critics:
Napoleon dies then, ten years later, someone writes a book. Then someone takes that book and writes another, and so, 400 [sic] years later, there's a lot of imagination [in history books]. When I have issues with historians, I ask: 'Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up then.'
The man’s speaking rather frankly here, but he has a point. Historians can only build on the work of those who have come before them, constantly tweaking and revising minor details. Our understanding of historical knowledge works similarly to science – things appear to be the objective truth until they no longer are. Of course, historical objectivity is further tarnished by the seemingly overused adage: history is written by the victors.
Those who are revising the narrative in the present day, like Scott says, simply weren’t there. Furthermore, many scenes in Napoleon – as well as other films depicting historical events – take place privately, behind closed doors. This, in general, is true of so much of history and its biggest decisions. As Aaron Burr states in Hamilton: “We just assume that it happens, but no one else is in the room where it happens.”
While some may see the depiction of such scenes as a complete invention of events, to me, this always invites the potential to imagine how historical figures may have acted on a more human level. Take Oppenheimer, for example – one of the biggest films of 2023 and the highest-grossing biopic of all time.
Depicting the life and times of the father of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer received a glowing critical response for the way in which it humanised a man whose legacy is one of the countless lives lost in Japan and the subsequent threat of nuclear fallout. It achieved this through personal moments with Oppenheimer, mostly by depicting his private life and relationships. As Cillian Murphy, who played the physicist, explains in an interview:
The problem with footage of [Oppenheimer], is it’s mostly him giving lectures so it’s quite performative, it’s not [the real him]. We had to imagine how he would be with his wife, with his colleagues. That we had to make up.
Of course, there are written and verbal accounts of the man’s personality, but within this is a gap to fill, where artistic license must be utilised. These conversations and moments held in private are, then, mostly interpretation. We can find examples of this in almost any based-on-true-events movie: plenty of The Social Network takes place behind closed doors and most of the series The Crown is the imagining of family dramas in Buckingham Palace.
The point I’m trying to make here is that films that are ‘based on a true story’ are just that – based. A team of creatives has come together to take a series of events from history and present them to an audience with the primary desire to entertain. To do this effectively will take some bending of the truth, some rejigging of the order of events. After all, even though you can’t spell history without it, a story as we see it play out in the dramatic sense never really looks as captivating in real life. The real world, most of the time, is simply quite boring.
I would bet very good money on the fact that, when Napoleon met with the British ambassador to France, the tone and content of the meeting were rather mundane. But when in the movie, Bonaparte shouts in the ambassador’s face “You think you’re so great because you have boats!”, that there was a moment where I felt I understood the character, flamboyant as it was.
This is one example of how Napoleon tries to portray a different version of the almighty being we see in paintings and history books: a short-tempered and ego-driven man who was obsessed, above all else, with his legacy. The lack of control Bonaparte often bears over this, through bad press or a lack of respect from other rulers, is a reoccurring theme and, I would argue, is the crux of the movie.
Through the art of creative licensing, Ridley Scott is messing around with history to make us reflect on who it is that influences and dictates our understanding of the past. Sure, Napoleon never actually fired shots at the Pyramids of Giza, but it draws our attention to other such overly dramatic events, like his coronation. Did he really say, “I found the crown in the gutter. I picked it up and the people put it on my head” as he was crowned? Or was this a nice line for the Napoleonic brand, inserted into history after the fact?
So, while Napoleon is far from a realistic retelling of post-revolutionary France, it delivers an account of someone who, despite his legendary military successes and popularity, was still just a man. Whether that account is accurate in any way is of course up for debate but to go as far as to label the movie “a crime”, as Spanish historian Francisco Gracia Alonso did, is just ridiculous.
If you want a history lesson, go to a library, not a cinema. Read a book, or better yet read multiple books. Anyone mad that a film is not doing a historian’s job needs to have a bit more fun and is, well, probably a historian themself. Next time you’re watching such a film, try to think beyond what you learned at school and focus on the creative vision the director has set out to achieve. Above all else though, just enjoy yourself.
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