Comment on Napoleon: Ridley Scott’s director’s cut is an anti-Great Man comedy
Rolando@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Scott spent over $100 million to piss off the French, which any Englishmen would love to do if given half a chance.
Got it. This movie is only really interesting if you’re from England.
Emperor@feddit.uk 9 months ago
I watched it in England (not English though so…) and it didn’t seem any more interesting to me than any one else. It was less about playing to an English audience and more that it did annoy the French a lot.
Rolando@lemmy.world 9 months ago
From reading the reviews and social media comments, it annoyed anyone with an interest in history.
If I were paid to promote this film, I’d say something like: you can tell from the previews and the theatrical release that there’s good cinematography, set design, costumes, etc. Well in the extended version there’s MORE of it. And then tacitly suggest that people play it in the background with the sound off while listening to classical music.
entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
I have an interest in history and I liked it a lot. If you go into it knowing it’s making fun of the Great Man narrative, it’s quite funny.
Rolando@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Well I’m glad you found a movie you like. But I gotta say, “the movie is bad because it was made bad on purpose” just seems like copium.
Since you’re interested in history: Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” also makes an anti-Great Man point about Napoleon, both in Tolstoy’s depiction of the Battle of Borodino, as well as in historical thoughts that are usually collected at the end of that novel. I don’t remember if Bondarchuk’s movie adaption of War and Peace retains that theme, but you can see it on youtube. The best Napoleon movie is arguably Waterloo which is somewhat critical of Napoleon. Likewise, the Napoleon miniseries has him act like kind of a doofus at times (and has an interesting depiction of the Napoleon-Josephine relationship).
I guess I’m just kind of bitter about this film because most of us in the US don’t have a lot of knowledge about European history since our teachers are underpaid, our academics are ridiculed, and because our historical movies and TV shows are generally ahistorical cartoonish BS like this one.