Joaquin Phoenix-starrer Napoleon: Hollywood habit of turning history into a spectacular joke continues

“You think you are great? You are just a tiny little brute that is nothing without me,” Vanessa Kirby as Empress Josephine tells Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley Scott’s new film, Napoleon. Reactions may have ranged from “epic” to “outrageously enjoyable” to “Ridley Scott’s best film since Gladiator” in the United States and the UK, but French critics and historians seem far from impressed. Movie buffs have by now learnt not to take history lessons from Hollywood historicals, so we will gloss over factual inaccuracies that Scott’s film manufactures in order to pump up the drama, such as Napoleon firing on the pyramids during his military expedition to Egypt or witnessing Marie-Antoinette’s execution in Paris. But historical howlers put aside, what has grabbed attention of many fans in the West is how Scott and screenwriter David Scarpa seem insistent on portraying Napoleon’s life as a spectacular caricature and little else.