Babyfather: a Mission Impossible
Ridley Scott’s new epic Napoleon is all over the media. In this biopic, he’s flexing his muscles with what he does best: mass battle scenes with lots of severed limbs and dramatic views of trenches bursting with artillery, trigger-eager bayonets facing each other on the field between armies that’s about to get drenched in enemy blood. Joaquin Phoenix is standing on the shoulders of his own hubris since the emperor wasn’t very tall to begin with. The heavy crown on his head shrinks his mind to the extent that he can’t tell futile from sensible efforts. Vanessa Kirby is Josephine, a perfect rose: tender petals with sharp thorns underneath. Though initially she looks like a punk groupie with short hair and pastel goth make up. Ok, I just made that one up. That can’t be real.
The viewer is confronted with Napoleon’s pompous arrogance from the very beginning, even before the first legitimate success. His eyebrows look like dark clouds hanging over a face that’s hardly capable of any hint of a smile throughout the entire movie. So much so that it’s difficult to comprehend what attracted Josephine to him at all. Within the truly grand frame of the story, the chemistry between them is palpable mostly in the quotes from their actual correspondence. Violent sex scenes turn lust into yet another chore. Frustrated by their procreative failures, they sink into frustration. But the emotional upper hand is always hers and he knows it.
As if this weren’t enough already, there’s a third wheel in this tale of an ambitious leader whose motivation is almost unmasked as a longing for approval from his own mother as well. On the other hand, she’s got ambitions of her own and they’re primarily focused on securing the succession by looking for a more fertile alternative to provide Napoleon with the heir he needs to keep the crown in the family. Here we see the ugly side of patriarchy, or at least the one that modern feminists don’t see or acknowledge: men are under a big peer pressure too. Pushed to fit into a mould merciless to those that don’t have what it takes to assume manhood.
It means that your manhood isn’t worth much if you don’t provide a son to keep your proud achievements from seeping away like quicksand. While women are traditionally subjected to the authority of their fathers and husbands, a man who can’t rise to this occasion is downgraded to a pitiful weakling. Napoleon can’t handle the fact that he may be able to conquer Europe but can’t deliver where it matters the most. My own father has two sons. In a way, he beat someone like Napoleon himself to it. That’s actually cool, though he drove an old Golf and never set foot on a battlefield. His own Josephine didn’t need a crown and a palace to look the part.
In the 1988 live action animated movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, his jaw-droppingly attractive wife Jessica put in the simplest possible terms what it is that women want from a man when we dismantle all the bells and whistles of modern feminism: why don’t you do right?/ like some other men do/get out of here and get me some money too. Resembling the actress Veronica Lake, this one probably has a very worn out little finger from wrapping men around it. But when you’re fictional, sexy is a bit less stressful on your bones. I’d take a guess that’s all Napoleon ever wanted as well. To do right, like some other men do. Like Julius Caesar, that is.
Jessica Rabbit does admit though: “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.” The trashy Ink and Paint Club where she reigns supreme, strutting her curves on the stage is far from the French court but it’s no less true. Historical figures curated carricatures exxagerating to compensate for shortcomings. Napoleon was known for this too. If he were alive today, he’d be the emperor of social media photoshopping himself into Moscow withouth having to drag his troops through Europe to get there in person. You’d see him flexing at a gym for selfies, his sword and cape in the locker. I can imagine a giant N tattooed on a sweaty biceps. Fake facts look much better when you’re dolled up in shiny 19th century imperial regalia.
It wasn’t until he married the Austrian princess Marie Louise that his desperate effort came to fruition and a son was born. There’s a scene in the movie when Phoenix proudly shows the new prince to Josephine, which would feel like a slap in the face to any woman in such a position. She’s held hostage by the affections of a man who chose the crown over her, while trying to have his cake and eat it too. One wonders how long it must take till you snap out of it and send him to his baby mama. In itself, it’s a universal problem because it can put a strain even on the best of marriages. A giant pink elephant in the chateau and a wound unscratched.
Then there’s the other issue that’s hard to look past: color. In Scott’s vision, Moscow looks as dark and dull as Peter Jackson’s Isengard. Compared to the vivid appearance of the real thing, this is a real mood killer. Everything is muted, so when Phoenix wakes up to see the city engulfed by fire, it’s a visual relief indeed. Even better is his frustrated reaction since he didn’t get a chance to boast his military prowess and floor the Russians on their home turf. In fact, they preemptively did the damage themselves, robbing him of the opportunity for a new dopamine shot. As the campaign continues, it turns into an embarassment since it’s one of those countries that always have the most important ally on their side: the Russian winter.
The lesson of his life is that if you climb up on the wings of a revolution, you’ll crash down the same way. After fleeing the Elba in an attempt to regain his power, it was a one-way ride to the island of St Helena where he died in 1821. Now he’s revered as one of the greatest leaders the country ever produced, but kept in the exact place where they like their dictators: a coffin. Napoleon III hired baron Hausmann to the clean up the urbanistic mess of Paris, which gave birth to wide boulevards and the most famous landmarks like Arc de Triomphe. That’s why, in a certain way, the city of lights we admire today is a fruit of Napoleonic imagination and grandeur. You can’t build something of these proportions in a democracy. 13 churches were torn down to make way for Hausmann’s monumental plan.
The film never quite deals with certain loose ends: we have no idea what happened to his son, Marie Louise simply disappears and his life in exile could have got much more screen time. In the effort to tell the whole story, the narrative got too thin. If the director had focused only on one particular part, that would have allowed for much more substance which is all over the place here instead of coherent. You can’t escape the impression his private life is treated as a soap opera by the press, which is much more suitable for The Crown. A director’s cut version is announced, but who’s got time for four hours of this unless you’re paid for it? With brick-size fiction bestsellers, the only way I’ll touch that is if I’m stuck on a deserted island.
The closing credits summarize everything, but if my goal were to learn something, I’d have settled for a documentary on the History Channel. While everyone’s obsessed with inaccuracies in the movie, it’s hardly on the same level as Jada Pinkett’s travesty called Queen Cleopatra. The exiled emperor borrowed a line from Truman Capote: one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. That’s how one seized ship suddenly turned into three or four. So we shouldn’t necessarily take him at his word either. You don’t build the image of a powerful monarch on the truth. That would be boring, vulnerable and banal. When we take our clothes off, our bodies mostly look the same, which is why we need a bit of stardust on it. Believe it or not, Napoleon had nipples too.
As seemingly invincible as he was, still he couldn’t get what he wanted from the one he loved the most, which is depicted as a defeat even bigger than Waterloo. You could argue that it was, since it forced him to swallow his feelings in a touching scene where the two are signing divorce papers and Josephine can barely hold it together. When you’ve got someone this needy in your life it’s difficult to get rid of them because they always keep one foot in the door. There was also a throwback to Barry Lyndon, a candle-lit dinner party. Of course, that’s where the similarities end, making me want to revisit Kubrick’s masterpiece. Peggy Lee would end this on the same note like Jessica: why don’t you do right? Go and see Napoleon too.
