The film Napoleon has brought to the screen the rise and fall of Napoléon Bonaparte (played by Joaquin Phoenix) with particular emphasis on his military career and his love life with Empress Josephine (Vanessa Kirby). Financed by Cinémathèque Français and Netflix, the film is a modern restoration of a 1927 French film classic.
His early fame as a commander prompts his brother Lucien (Matthew Needham), a member of the Directorate, to outmaneuver other members of the Directorate so that Napoléon becomes First Counsel and later Emperor. As emperor, he seeks to vanquish all other empires (Austro-Hungarian and Russian) but ultimately is defeated at Waterloo and then consigned to the British island of Helena during his final years.
Director Ridley Scott has brought many important facts and historic figures to light, with battle scenes and a count of war deaths during each battle of Napoléon’s military career, which sum to 3 million casualties. The film accepts the traditional explanation for the defeat at Waterloo, namely, that he delayed an opportunity to attack British and Prussian forces before they had established themselves logistically, though a scholar recently attributes his late command to a case of painful hemorrhoids that kept him from a normal sleep the night before.
But there is another side to Napoléon not featured. As his armies expanded to incorporate the rest of Europe as vassal states in the French Empire, he held plebiscites to gain legitimacy. Although the plebiscites only allowed voting to reject French rule, after he was defeated, he had sewed the concept of voting as a new way to select rulers, and the result was a hunger for democracy that took decades to gain fulfillment. MH