“Napoleonic battles are so beautiful. Like vast, lethal ballets… they all have an aesthetic brilliance that doesn’t require a military mind to appreciate.” So said Stanley Kubrick, who had long cherished the ambition of directing a film exploring the life of the Corsican-born artillery officer who rose to become the emperor of France. And Kubrick came close to doing so in the late 1960s, before being forced to abandon the project. This appreciation of the savage artistry of the great general’s battle strategies is a sentiment that you suspect was shared by Ridley Scott in his approach to Napoleon, a sturdy but uneven historical epic that traces the rise and fall of Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix), starting with the French Revolution and a not quite historically accurate depiction of the execution of Marie Antoinette, and ending with Napoleon’s death in exile, on the island of Saint Helena. It’s a film that, for all its attempts to show us the man behind the military genius, only fully comes alive on the battlefield.
There’s no question that the combat sequences are impressive. Using numerous cameras, thunderous, enveloping sound and intricate action choreography, Scott manages to convey both the overwhelming tumult of being in the thick of battle and the meticulous efficiency of Napoleon’s strategic planning. It is, not surprisingly, a rather battle-heavy movie, but within this, two sequences in particular stand out.
