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Many can say what they want, but one thing is not up for debate – Ridley Scott knows how to shoot a fighting scene. Within the first minutes – the horse and the cannonball – tell you you’re up for some visual masterpieces. I instantly remembered The Duel and how I thought at that moment that this must be one of the best sword fights in cinema. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
Ridley is a machine – extremely prolific during the pandemic; I think he’s my favourite at the moment.
Napoleon. A controversial historical figure – one of the few who shaped history and what we are today. I wasn’t really expecting to see its entire story in less than three hours – but I wasn’t expecting this either. I suppose we have this impression that historical events have happened under certain special circumstances and that these characters were somehow different. From my experience, no, things are as primal as they can be. There are no special circumstances and the ones that ended up in history or leaders came to be by a mix of luck, environment, grit and again, primal instinct – whereas the weak (often the one with more education or knowledge) failed to take action. Hence why some of the discrepancies between the rich and the poor and some of the hate many have for one or the other. Confused yet?
This is what I’ve taken from this Napoleon. I supposed he did the same thing in Robin Hood. Highlighted the human side (read small character) leaders have. It reminded me of HBO’s Rome when Caesar wasn’t voted back into the republic because someone attacked one of Mark Anthony’s bodyguards. Unrelated, fictional, but potentially true.
But what surprised me the most was the similarity between the old Romanian historical movies (the ones I grew up with) and this one – I’m specifically referring to the battlefield scenes.
I was also expecting a different dynamic between him and Joséphine.