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/380/ Josephine's Body Count
🕑 Added 2023-12-12 07:00:05 +0000 UTCOn Ridley Scott's Napoleon.
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We couldn't avoid discussing the new biopic about the "world soul" himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. The film isn't great, but what can we learn from it? And how does it sit in a context in which most biopics today are about musicians, business leaders and scientists?
We discuss:
- Why did Scott choose to focus on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine?
- What is Scott trying to say, if anything, about Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars?
- Where are the depictions of youth, revolution and modernity?
- Are there any redeeming aspects to the film?
- What do we make of Phoenix's portrayal?
- Are we seeing the return of films about Great Men of History?
Comments
GS- Vlogs and Games
When you guys say body count does that mean her kill count or?
Steve Bowbrick
I reviewed the 1927 Abel Gance Napoleon over on my (free) substack - he finds much more of the MODERN, republican Napoléon but is still absolutely obsessed with Josephine, who is rendered as a kind of time-shift flapper sex-pot. The five-and-a-half hour film only gets up to the Italian Campaign so we don't get Imperial Bonaparte at all, though… Plenty of material from his early, republican/revolutionary phase and some brilliant revolutionaries - Robespierre is a kind of supervillian figure who wears terrifying dark glasses… https://bowbrick.substack.com/p/gross-part-15-napoleon-final-version
