'Napoleon' movie too 'anti-French' for some in France

PARIS

The French have had decidedly mixed early reactions to Ridley Scott's "Napoleon,” which premiered in Paris this week, with one historian calling the movie "very anti-French.”

The first reviews have been unanimous in their praise of the huge-scale battle scenes that punctuate the film, which is released worldwide from Nov. 22.

But some French critics and experts who saw early previews were less than impressed with the depiction of their most famous historical figure, played by "Joker" star Joaquin Phoenix.

Historian Patrice Gueniffey told Le Point magazine that Scott "clearly doesn't like Napoleon.”

"We are treated to a caricature of an ambitious Corsican ogre, a sullen boor, who is also disgusting with his wife, Josephine," said Gueniffey, who also took issue with the "fanciful" statistics at the end of the film saying Napoleon was responsible for three million deaths.

Spoiler alert: The film concludes with Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, which Gueniffey took as proof of English-born Scott's "very anti-French and very pro-English" approach.

Others felt that was unfair.

"[Scott's] view of the man is not flattering, but nor does it ignore what made his greatness," wrote reviewer Jean-Philippe Gunet on X, formerly known as Twitter.

There have been grumbles about the historical accuracy of some details.

In a YouTube video, Emilie Robbe, a Bonaparte expert at France's Army Museum, argued that Napoleon never fired on the pyramids in Egypt, while British historian Dan Snow said Napoleon was not present at the execution of Marie-Antoinette, which opens the film.

Scott has responded bluntly to such fact-checking. "Get a life," he said in the pages of the New Yorker.

Some French critics were just a bit bored, however.

"Far from the expected epic biopic, 'Napoleon' proves too dull and didactic to live up to its subject," wrote Les Numeriques.

Popular TikTok reviewer Mehdi Omais said it felt "more like a Wikipedia page than something deeply explored."

[HH] Phoenix on playing small 'petulant tyrant' Napoleon

In the meantime, Phoenix said he was surprised to discover a version of Napoleon who was more like a soppy "teenager in love" than an all-conquering commander as he researched his epic new role.

Scott's "Napoleon” features massive-scale battles across Europe.

But it is also a portrait of Napoleon's complex relationship with his wife Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby, which has been preserved in the general's often tragically pleading letters.

"He was very socially awkward. I think of him as a romantic with a mathematician's brain," Phoenix told AFP in Paris.

"He wanted to be heartfelt but in his letters... he seems like a teenager in love, almost plagiarizing poetry.”

"There's something almost endearing about it -- if he wasn't also responsible for the deaths of millions of people," Phoenix added.

"I imagined that he was cold and calculated as a great military strategist. What I was surprised by was the sense of humor and how child-like he was."

Phoenix, 49, said he had waited more than 20 years to work with Scott again after their huge success with "Gladiator" in which he played another emperor, Commodus.

But the director didn't call until "he had a story about a petit, petulant tyrant, and he said, 'I've got just the guy!'" Phoenix joked.

The "Joker" star refused to be drawn into any cheap comparisons between the war-mongering emperor he plays and the conflicts currently ravaging the world.

"If I was in the midst of a conflict, the last thing I'd want is to hear from some actor sitting in the Bristol Hotel," he told AFP.

Kirby said the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine was fascinating but "exhausting.”

"I always found it amazing that this man who built an empire could write these letters," she said.

"They were so inexorably drawn to each other but to me it never seemed sane, calm, healthy - it was obsession and infatuation and power dynamics that would swing," Kirby added.

The actors' research was complicated by the vastly different accounts that have come down through the centuries.

"It's very hard to get a clear answer about many things," said Phoenix, who said his interest was in finding "inspiration more than information,” through details like how Napoleon ate and drank.

"Some of it is ridiculous - two weeks before we were shooting, someone said, 'You know Napoleon was left-handed.' And then it took a week to disprove that," Phoenix added with a laugh.

The same for Josephine.

"Every book was completely different," said Kirby. "It made me feel she was an adapter... playing different parts to survive."