napoleon movie review

napoleon movie review

Analyzing the Depiction of Napoleon Bonaparte in Movies: A Critical Review

1. Introduction to Napoleon Bonaparte and His Historical Significance in Cinema

Napoleon is perhaps the most frequently portrayed individual in French history. Authors, critics, and the examining public have established Napoleon as Frenchmen’s favorite habitus. He shows up as a protagonist in more French novels than any other historical or legendary figure. Napoleon has brought forth an incredibly rich body of plays and movies. As political writers, historians, essayists, scientists, novelists, and playwrights have conquered his staging, screenplay writers, “filmed authors,” actors, directors, and other craftsmen from the French film industry have depicted him over a period of more than a century and a quarter, from 1890 until today. Indeed, we should observe repeating themes from books to movies and from one director to another, from legitimate poses to dissident possibilities. Napoleon has passed the test of decades of filmmaking with flying colors. While problems are always open to debate, these films communicate with an inquisitiveness, admiration, and a desire to convey a multiple and misleading expertise, as we have noted. In this article, we mirror on this wealthy and versatile fusillade. After advocating setting the historiographical and historiophotographical scene, we bypass four indicative and important acts, staying longer on the first three, which are currently more frequent. Our article will finish with some reprobations and openings to potential ramifications.

While not quite a religion in France, reverence for the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest political genius and most militarily successful of France’s sons, shines as brightly as it did when he was a living myth. For well over a century, numerous French writers, readers, and filmmakers across the political spectrum have transfigured Napoleon and his career through their vibrant print and cinematic representations. Even when they mounted bitter and telling attacks on Napoleon from outside the French Republic, foreigners have also increasingly kept alive the memory of Napoleon’s interview with glory, and through it, the statue of Napoleon. No other French statesman enjoys such enormous respect from such an enormous collection of enthusiasts in France, nor such rich and diverse demonstrations of admiration throughout the planet. Such popular acclaim has only been matched by the eager pursuit of this political icon by visual artists. Since the late 18th century, sculptors, painters, illustrators, and filmmakers have been drawn by the lure of the Emperor of the French.

2. Key Films Depicting Napoleon: A Comparative Analysis

The depictions of Napoleon fell into five distinct categories as far as interpretation is concerned. In possession of an extraordinary photographic memory, charismatic orator, influential educator, valiant and prophetic army commander, loving elder brother, chivalrous man of letters, considering his aides and soldiers as his children and cats! However, with the glorious exception of Alexandre Dumas, the eldest brother of Victor Hugo, as jurist and lawyer, it is rarely commented that literary anecdotal inspiration of his all pocket descriptions of people from low social classes. Each soldier, bathed or undressed, had a woman in his arms. With one of his grandnieces, he crashes and drinks. The dramatic highlights of historical events and figures are giving way to laughter. Napoleon, for example, is a funny midget dressed in velvet! Those amusing or funny anecdotes and jokes are no more in keeping with history or the meaning of life than are the melodramas of the terrible situation through which she found herself to be a multiple woman! Any kind, rebuttable, even biological interpretation can also anger certain persons!

Before the advent of the movies, the depiction of Napoleon on stage produced a long line of imitators, beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing even to present times. This, the author is of the view, suggests that the movies’ presentation of Napoleon is not all that different in terms of behavior and looks. Many actors, in attempting to depict Napoleon, have focused on agitation and anger, and have had the actor walking at speed in what they thought would be a military bearing. One senses though, that the actor would have been doing little more than playacting, and thus, would not have evoked any empathy from the audience. Another failure of some actors is to overuse the weak French accent. Here also, it was only by watching other celluloid Napoleons that we could identify what we did not like.

3. Portrayal of Napoleon’s Character and Legacy in Cinema

The idea that art influences and is influenced by society, widely accepted as corollary of humble records of shared feelings about timeless and universal themes, means that much information can be obtained through the visualization of the Napoleon who beams. The Emperor who is perceived by the most diversified audience, interested or not, in the French press or within foyers in London, Rio, Moscow…, their needs and values. Such elements, found mainly by the realization of the movie, allow the construction of a narrative, along with knowledge of who, how and where a leader is being elected today, effectively influencing in their representation, and who reverberates and extends their paradoxes. The artistic and present search reunites creators, intermediaries, and public, giving them visibility and depth, especially in the historical-political method, legitimate to recognize the efficiency of the thesis and whose dimensions require central attention.

The depiction of the Emperor since the birth of cinema provides insights into the vicissitudes of his image throughout the two centuries since his death, according to the evolutions in society, as well as the transformation of naive media into a powerful industry and art. The multiple aspects of one of the biggest figures in the history of France and of the world, related to his personality, his reforms, as well as to the wars he waged, originate an abundant creation in the artistic field, as evidenced in paintings, sculptures, and literature of all countries and all periods since the first Bonaparte. Our mission is to register what the seventh art tries to translate, to extract the role it confers, to study the notions it emphasizes or silences and their motivations, enlightened through the seen context of the film and the cherished audience.

4. Cinematic Techniques Used to Capture Napoleon’s Era and Personality

Finally, an opinion that underpins the adopted approach is that in movie portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte, the historical or psychological contributions of the actor’s performance can be achieved by means of cinematic esthetics at audio and visual high levels. To construct a Nazarean movie representation means to use a variety of media, in a vivid and strictly significant way, so as to give the audience the opportunity, via emotional identification or intriguing not to reject or deny it, to look back at themselves and recognize in Napoleon their own social impulses and historical development. Napoleon, the man through whom the viewer reconstitutes his diverse, inconclusive and incomplete realities, history itself.

Providing a rich gallery of panoramic pictures which express the moral aspect of Napoleon is also crucially dependent on actors, who should understand and transfer to the public, the social, psychological and historical time that Napoleon inhabits. It can be safely argued that because of the multiplicity and diversity of the factors that shape Napoleon’s personality, the historical or the psychological approach are absolutely needed to help the movies produce a cinematic effect that makes possible the expression of all the probable choices and meanings related to his contradictory infinite interests.

Historical authenticity is achieved by directing the movies so as to present some high-level or outward characteristics of that time. A variety of techniques are used such as the architectural structure of the screen pictures, the scenery, the decor, the costumes, music and pictorial layout, including lighting schemes appropriate for reproducing that era’s paintings. On the other hand, the inner history of Napoleon’s life, identity and psycho-climatic motives, affects and history-making decisions are illustrated by clearly visible and factual means, especially in the dialogue components of the films, in the diplomacy of the national and international context of their time and in Napoleon’s dialogue with important characters.

Concerning the cinematic techniques used to capture Napoleon’s era and personality, two general approaches can be uncovered: a historical and aesthetic approach and a psychological approach. The former focuses on transmitting the grandiosity of Napoleon’s era by using specific features, while the latter aims to reflect, through the various changes and different roles that Napoleon embodies on the screen, the psycho-climatic and historical behavior and development of his personality by using various means.

5. Impact of Napoleon Movies on Public Perception and Historical Understanding

Hence, Euthineich proposed the use of a work-narrative-based strategy in education, as he argued that movies and TV series would seem ideal pedagogical tools. To paraphrase, he suggested the identification of a set of movies and TV series before analyzing them according to various themes, such as: causes of the plot, social and economic institutions, relationships of power, the use of violence, symbolism associated with hero figures, and the accomplishment of the mission. Clearly, Napoleon’s representation in the movies could cover many of these themes, as he was not only a war hero but was also either elected or appointed to the roles of head of government or head of state. That is, to recognize that Napoleon’s representation has important pedagogical potential in that the process of deconstruction and interpretation of the ideas of individuals, their actions, and the historical moment of which they formed part is inherently dialectical.

In view of the numerous and sometimes contradictory depictions which exist in the societal memory (see the Introduction), it might be suggested that cinema has played an important role in shaping our understanding of this historical character. In other words, the general public often learns about Napoleon in history classes at school, but they also complement their historical knowledge of him from books, documentaries, and movies. In this sense, these cinematographic works might be viewed as helpful tools to complement the education of the general public.