This week’s major film release is unquestionably Ridley Scott’s near three-hour historical epic, Napoleon. All sex, swords and Joaquin Phoenix scenery-chewing, it’s exactly the kind of fare that fans of Scott hoped for. The film has also had a press tour for the ages, thanks to Scott coming out with all sorts of barnstormers in interviews. He told those who nitpick at the film’s historical inaccuracies to “get a life”, but perhaps my personal favourite quote is on a scene where Napoleon fires a cannon at the pyramids: “I don’t know if he did that,” Scott says, “but it was a fast way of saying he took Egypt.”
At 85, Napoleon may well be Scott’s last rodeo. Martin Scorsese, 81, who also has a film out – the somehow much, much longer Killers of the Flower Moon – has said he’s probably got one more in him.
