I wasn’t sure what to expect when I booked a ticket to see Napoleon. The marketing surrounding Ridley Scott’s biopic of the emperor Napoléon Bonaparte has been confusing. Its US tagline, “He came from nothing/He conquered everything”, is not only inexact (Bonaparte was born into minor nobility)—it also struck me as a strangely girlboss-y description of a man who rose to immense power by war-waging and political maneuvering—and whose ascent ended France’s first attempt at a republic.
In my native France, Paris metro users walked past side-by-side photos of Bonaparte, portrayed in the film by Joaquin Phoenix, with various captions. A frequent combination included a photo of Phoenix’s Bonaparte as a war leader, next to one of him embracing his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, each image respectively adorned with the words “the conqueror” and “the lover”.
