Napoleon (2023)
Directed by Ridley Scott
An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.
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Phoenix splits the difference, playing Monsieur Bonaparte like a human accordion whose size appears to shrink or expand by several feet within the span of a single scene (thus making his Napoleon a natural accompaniment to Martin Phipps' free-reed score, which Scott often ditches in favor of repurposing the music that Dario Marianelli wrote for Joe Wright's “Pride & Prejudice”).
You hear it, too, in the sparkling piano chords of Dario Marianelli's 2005 “Pride & Prejudice” score, repurposed in an Austen-tatious musical gesture that adds a touch of poignance to the characters' looming tragedy: Joséphine is Napoleon's most meaningful and elusive conquest, and she is destined to precede him in exile.
Which is to say, don’t expect from Napoleon something akin to the playful levity of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette or the brilliantly sustained archness of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
As a result, there is a lot of stuff that feels missing here, to where it's entirely possible that Scott's planned four-hour cut of the film (due for release at some point in the near future on Apple TV+) fills in a lot of those gaps, not unlike how the director's cut of Scott's previous historical epic Kingdom of Heaven is considered to be far superior to the theatrical version.
These virtues also mask that, again like Kingdom of Heaven and plenty of other Scott films, Napoleon has been transparently edited down to a commercial length that stumbles its ambition.
Scott's director's cuts have become almost legendary — his alternate cut of "Kingdom of Heaven" is an almost completely different — and far superior — version than what was released in theaters.
Academy Award-Winning Costume Designer Janty Yates, known for her work on Gladiator, is teaming back up with Scott for Napoleon, so get ready to be awe-struck. Yates and Scott have collaborated on several films, including Kingdom of Heaven and The Last Duel, and from those alone we know to expect immaculate sets rife with opulent fabrics—in this case, of chiffon, silk, satin, and lace adorning the neoclassical styles that were widely popular during the Napoleonic era.
What's undeniable still is Scott's grasp of military spectacle, as previously displayed in Kingdom of Heaven and The Last Duel.
Some night time shots are utterly spectacular, and seem to be of the same school as those celebrated in Jordan Peele's Nope, but there are vast periods in which everything looks washed out, and it is almost certain that minutes of this film will be barely legible (too dark) to anyone who eventually watches it at home.