For All Mankind 4.03 and Napoleon
For All Mankind 4.03:Margo's experience of the Coup is incredibly frightening, as it should be, with the fear being achieved by leaving things to the imagination both in and out of universe. (I.e. we the audience don't actually see the cop's brain splatter, we "just" see Margo's face hit by blood and gore as he gets shot right in front of her; in a hellish day, Margo's most frightening experience is probably being driven around with a bag on her head, precisely because she can't see anything and is convinced she's being driven to her death at this point, though technically nothing happens.) Mind you, I am really curious as to why Irina the KGB woman and now new head of the Soviet Space Program wants Margo to work for her, because the season opener's guy's point about any knowledge Margo has being now obsolete, a decade later. Might be because of some mind game with someone currently in the US space program? In a combination with genuine acknowledgement for Margo's ability to get things done if you let her channel it.
Anyway, given that in this universe, we skip the Yeltsin era entirely and go straight from Gorbachev deposed in a succesful coup to an imperialist hardliner, it seems, I think the show continues something already evident last season, which is the thematic resonance and echoing of past and present in Margo's storyline. Because, remember, Margo was mentored by Werner von Braun in this universe. And suitably horrified when learning exactly what he did during war, quite how those rockets were build. (I might rewatch the Margo and von Braun conversations both in 1.02 and in the later s1 episode when she has to get his assessment as to why the Apollos now explode.) And last season, the show deliberately copied the s1 scene where Margo looks up to the portrait of Werner von Braun hanging in NASA and realizes all the accusations are true in the scene when Aleida looks up to Margo's portrait hanging at NASA and realises Margo has to be the mole. Now, evidently what Margo did in s3 can't be compared to WW2 war crimes. (Not least because handing technological information over under duress and with another person's life hanging in the bargain, and that's not the same as willingly using concentration camp inmates as slave workers.) But the emotions between mentor and protegé in both cases are not dissimilar, and if Margo does work for Not!Putin's regime now, she might go from a sort a, kind a parallel to WvB in the US to a sort a, kind a parallel to WvB in his own totalitarian dictatorship. Depending on how ruthless a leader Not!Putin turns out to be.
Meanwhile on Mars: this really turns out into the season for multiple and fleshed out Russian (Soviet? They might not be Russian, but neither Svetlana nor Ilja have mentioned where in the Soviet Union they're from) characters as Ed finally comes clean to someone about his increasingly bad state of health, and it's not Danielle but the cosmonaut Svetlana. (BTW: love that Wayne is the one who sent those hemp seets to Ed after Karen's death, because of course he did.) Who with the coup going on and all the Soviet inhabitants of Happy Valley being cut off from communication with the mother country has worries of her own, but also has some flirty vibes with Ed; we'll see where it goes. (I mean, in rl Russia has ended the shared program on ISS when the UKraine war started, right? Which is decades into the show's future, but I wonder whether that hasn't influenced the writers, because in addition to all the other things brewing on Mars, all the cosmonauts will now face the prospect of returning to a very different Soviet Union than they have left, and some might not want to. (Also I still am betting on the Soviet Union starting to fall apart this season, because the fictional guy who is the new President will crack down hard to reinstall old school tolitarianism and that in turn will fuel the independence movements in the various Soviet states not Russia.)
Miles who still gets cheated out of his salary by Helios along with the other workers tries to make some additional cash by working for Quark Ilya the black marketeer, which ends up resulting in him trespassing into the North Korean sector of Happy Valley as we knew someone would sooner or later, which in turn results in him getting into contact with Lee the original Korean cosmonaut who wants to make a deal with Ilya. Now whether Lee's cliffhanger demand literally means he wants Ilya to help him smuggle his wife out of North Korea or whether he just wants to talk to her via vid call and has expressed himself with the wrong vocabulary, I have no idea, but presumably we will find out next week, and it will contribute to us getting to know Lee better.
Kelly and Aleida pitch their robot on Mars project to a number of companies, in vain, until they decide to try Dev as a last resort, who returns in this episode, having spent the intervening decade brooding in his personal Xanadu, it seems, though still making profit. Now the writers have been at pains last season to say Dev isn't Elon Musk inspired but by Steve Jobs (the appropriate 1990s version of the egocentric visionary tech billionaire trope who for all his flaws does not associate right extremist nuttery), and Dev remains neatly non-moustache twirling and a more dimensional character. Not sympathetic, but the show lets him be both helpful (as when last season he had a key saving the day idea mid season) and harmful (his my-way-or-nothingness and manipulation of his employees). Which is necessary for our heroines to not look stupid as they do end up teaming up with him. That last scene with Kelly and Aleida initially beaming as Dev strolls in to take over Helios again to their faces falling when they observe him firing people left right and center in what is clearly a personal vendetta was so well done and said it all without either of them saying a word, and yet it was believable that they didn't see it coming. Before said scene, we see Aleida and Bill Strauss in what just might be this episode's emotional highlight as they catch up, hurt feelings and not so hidden trauma and everything included, and it makes so much sense that Bill is the one to whom Aleida can confide not indirectly but explicitly that what triggers her is manned space exploration and she can't do it again. (That's also the appeal of Kelly's robot program.) Meanwhile, Bill has been left in a wheelchair from the bombing and has his own massive PTSD, but they're able to help and comfort each other, while still clashing on the subject of Margo. (BTW, this scene underlines both of them still think Margo has died in the blast. I've seen people assume that the CIA might know otherwise and just conceals it from the public, but really, there's no reason why they should. (So far.) They had no reason to look for Margo in the Soviet Union or to not believe she died, she did NOT get a job there that put her in a prominent role where she might be spotted.) This show really is great with friendships.
Question: with Dev now once more in control of Helios, will conditions for the Helios workers change and thus a mutiny be avoided? Somehow, I doubt it. I rather suspect Dev will justify not changing the conditions for workers by declaring the money thus saved goes into Kelly's and Aleida's robot project, thus creating a moral conflict for our heroines. Also, Aleida will find out Margo is still alive because as of the end of the episode, Margo now does have a job where she can be spotted. And we will get the Margo and Aleida equivalent to the Margo and WvB s1 scene where he enables her to become flight director by deducing the true reason for all those technological failures mid first season and insisting that she and only she be the one to get that information, complete with the incredibly angry and yet also mixed feelings on the respective protegée's part.
Napoleon: On a scale of Ridley Scott historical movies which go from being an unholy and not entertaining mess with good visuals (Kingdom of Heaven) via massively entertaining and good visuals but also full of historical nonsense (Gladiator) to actually good, both emotionally and intellectually captivating and giving the impression of having done their research, good visuals a given (The Last Duel), this one, alas, is on the lower end of the scale. And no, not because Ridley Scott glorifies Napoleon (he doesn't). Yes, he doesn't mention the reintroduction of slavery, but given everything else, both good and bad, he leaves out, that's really not a factor in why this film doesn't work for me. I mean, the battles he picked are predictably well done, and I suspect they were a big reason why he wanted to do the movie in the first place, but that's just not enough for a story, and the human element he chose to be the emotional red thread, the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, just doesn't work the way he wants it to and only illustrates that it's anything but simple to do compelling "can't live with, can't live without'" type of co dependent relationships in a way that click (for me, it's imo as always). The classics are of course George and Martha in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but to name a less famous and still excellent example of the trope: Ellen and Saul Tigh on Battlestar Galactica. Granted, that one had several seasons to flesh them out, and this is a movie, not a series, but still, I think the Tighs are a good example of what the movie wanted to show with its versions of Napoleon and Josephine. The Tighs on BSG' are bad for each other and they bring out genuine heroics and selflessness in each other. We see them argue and revile each other, we see them comfort and be tender with each other, and (very important this) we see them have fun as well as making each other miserable. Ellen cheats on Saul on a regular basis, but she also is ready to be tortured and die for him if needs be. (This is presented to the audience in a show, not tell way.) Saul goes to pieces without her. Meanwhile, Napoleon the movie wants us to believe Napoleon and Josephine are this kind of couple, but unfortunately the movie completely avoids showing us the two of them having good times (beyond having sex). At all. So "They're obsessed with each other" is a claim made without any emotional fodder as substance. This is not Vanessa Kirby's fault, who is charismatic and compelling as Josephine, but Joaquin Phoenix is so incredibly one note dour as Napoleon (I think we see him smile or laugh only twice in the entire near three hours movie, once during his wedding with Josephine), and the script avoids any mention of pragmatic reasons for Josephine to marry him in the first place (like the fact she was in debts and he was at this point clearly an up and coming star in the military, plus for all his faults, he was a very good stepfather to her children both in the human interaction and in the providing for sense), that the relationship just does not make sense on her part. At all. And this is literally the only relationship Napoleon has in the entire movie, with anyone, which means the movie falls apart on that front.
Seriously: never mind the fact mistresses once he's Emperor are mentioned briefly but not shown - letting Napoleon interact a bit with Josephine's children would have done wonders in terms of making him human, which isn't the same as excusing him, btw. Not only would it have been actually with a foundation in history, you could have done it without needing much additional screen time - think of the scene with Boromir teaching Merry and Pippin how to sword fight in Fellowship of the Ring, which is also used for Aragorn and Gandalf to have expositionary dialogue. As it is, he talks a bit with Eugene at the start, but Hortense isn't named in the entire film, you just see her in the background occasionally, and then they have a conversation after Josephine is dead and he's back from Elba. Also, the only brother of Napoleon's who is mentioned by name and shown is Lucien, and when that happened I first thought, good, it's the most interesting brother after all, but then Lucien disappears after the Brumaire coup just when the relationship gets interesting and is not seen again. He's still luckier than the other brothers and all of the sisters. No Pauline, no Elisa, no Caroline. (Never mind Napoleon handing over territory for them to rule.) (Also, Pauline was his favourite and the only sibling to visit him on Elba, proving she wasn't just seeing him as the source of family riches.) Mother Letitia, Madame Mère, has two brief cameos, and that's it. And the Marshals? Junot gets given an order by name at Toulon, and I tihink Marmont is mentioned somewhere, but that's it. If you don't know who Michel Ney was, he's That Guy With the Moustache Talking To Napoleon early in the battle of Waterloo. Also entirely about military matters, no sense of what type of relationship they have. (Jo Graham won't like that movie.) And then, connectedly, there are Napoleon and the soldiers. We get a scene, very briefly, en route to Russia of him handing out some bread to some of them, and that's the first and only time he does something that could be used to explain why they would believe he cares about them.
Sidenote here: Just so we don't misunderstand each other, I don't mean that Napoleon should have been shown as someone mourning for every soldier dying in his battles. I mean, by all means, film, make the point his ambition excells any consideration for human life. But there's a reason why he was incredibly popular with the army, and why he could return from Elba with no soldiers and pick up an army en route to Paris, with the Bourbons, who start out with an army, fleeing before he arrives. The film even uses one of the rl events that showcase this, but because there has been zero preparation for it until this point, it falls emotionally flat. The sequence of events as shown: Napoleon encounters one of the army units sent to intercept him. (This happened a few times, most famously with those commanded by Ney, but since Ney doesn't get either name or characterisation in this film...) He pulls off a "take up your sword again or take up me"', to use the Shakespeare quote from Richard III by facing them unarmed, coming closer and talking to them, saying he's not going to fight them, he misses them and wants them back, if they want to shoot him, go ahead, and the soldiers who start out aiming their guns at him end up calling "Vive l' Empereur" and defecting to him in totem. This does happen in the movie, but, like I said, because there's no preparation, and because Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon as someone whom you can't believe would be at any point be actually loved by his men, it just doesn't work. Meanwhile, the decades old film Waterloo, which didn't have Napoleon's entire career to cover or to prepare this, does it perfectly. Check out Rod Steiger as Napoleon showing Scott and Phoenix how it's done:
And Waterloo doesn't present Napoleon as the hero of the tale. He's an impressive antagonist, but he is the antagonist in that movie. Which also doesn't exclude his vanity and unwillingness to accept blame.
Another thing: Joaquin Phoenix is now the right age for Napoleon at Waterloo, but not for most of the movie, and especially not for young Bonaparte, who was in his 20s during final years of the French Revolution. This means not only Josephine but Barras (!!!!) look younger than Napoleon instead of older when he initially meets them. So, for that matter, does Marie Antoinette, because the movie in its introduction scene employs the very Anglophone shorthand for "French Revolution bad" by opening with Marie Antoinette's execution and Robespierre ranting in the convent before getting toppled in the next scene he shows up in. (About that execution: we actually have a sketch by David showing us MA on the way to the Guillontine, so we know exactly show she looked. In this film, she's wearing a blue dress and has long curly flowing hair, worn open, which, wtf? You don't need to be a historical expert to know why women (and long haired men, which was most of them in that time) had their hair tied back before a beheading. For God's sake.) Robespierre, btw, is aged up and looks like he's in his fifties instead of in his early 30s when he dies, but I guess that means he at least does not look younger than "young" Captain Bonaparte. The actor who plays Tallyrand (and has the distinction of getting three actual scenes being clever and negotiating) looks about the same age as Phoenix, the actor playing Fouché, who is in one single scene where he doesn't do anything but is named so we know he's around, looks like he's in his late 60s. In the time of the Directorate. In conclusion: given Phoenix was good as Commodus back in the Gladiator day, I understand why Ridley Scott wanted to work with him again, butr really: he shouldn't have. I'm not sure any actor on his lonesome could have made Napoleon interesting and human, given the script doesn't bother with any relationship but Josephine and fails to make that one believable, but maybe a younger actor and/or one with more facial flexibility could have saved something.
(I suppose Rupert Everett as Wellington near the end is having fun and it shows, but he's the only one in the movie. Which, to give credit where due, does emphasize there would not have been a victory for the Brits without the Prussians arriving in the nick of time, something not often emphasized in something created by an Englishman.)
In conclusion: for a truly interesting historical Ridley Scott movie dealing with French history, watch the Last Duel. Not this one. For a film with an interesting Napoleon which gets across both the charme and the inhumanity, without battles needed for the later, you could do worse than Napoleon and Me. For sheer battle spectacle, Waterloo, by all means, shot without GCI in ye olde days.
Anyway, given that in this universe, we skip the Yeltsin era entirely and go straight from Gorbachev deposed in a succesful coup to an imperialist hardliner, it seems, I think the show continues something already evident last season, which is the thematic resonance and echoing of past and present in Margo's storyline. Because, remember, Margo was mentored by Werner von Braun in this universe. And suitably horrified when learning exactly what he did during war, quite how those rockets were build. (I might rewatch the Margo and von Braun conversations both in 1.02 and in the later s1 episode when she has to get his assessment as to why the Apollos now explode.) And last season, the show deliberately copied the s1 scene where Margo looks up to the portrait of Werner von Braun hanging in NASA and realizes all the accusations are true in the scene when Aleida looks up to Margo's portrait hanging at NASA and realises Margo has to be the mole. Now, evidently what Margo did in s3 can't be compared to WW2 war crimes. (Not least because handing technological information over under duress and with another person's life hanging in the bargain, and that's not the same as willingly using concentration camp inmates as slave workers.) But the emotions between mentor and protegé in both cases are not dissimilar, and if Margo does work for Not!Putin's regime now, she might go from a sort a, kind a parallel to WvB in the US to a sort a, kind a parallel to WvB in his own totalitarian dictatorship. Depending on how ruthless a leader Not!Putin turns out to be.
Meanwhile on Mars: this really turns out into the season for multiple and fleshed out Russian (Soviet? They might not be Russian, but neither Svetlana nor Ilja have mentioned where in the Soviet Union they're from) characters as Ed finally comes clean to someone about his increasingly bad state of health, and it's not Danielle but the cosmonaut Svetlana. (BTW: love that Wayne is the one who sent those hemp seets to Ed after Karen's death, because of course he did.) Who with the coup going on and all the Soviet inhabitants of Happy Valley being cut off from communication with the mother country has worries of her own, but also has some flirty vibes with Ed; we'll see where it goes. (I mean, in rl Russia has ended the shared program on ISS when the UKraine war started, right? Which is decades into the show's future, but I wonder whether that hasn't influenced the writers, because in addition to all the other things brewing on Mars, all the cosmonauts will now face the prospect of returning to a very different Soviet Union than they have left, and some might not want to. (Also I still am betting on the Soviet Union starting to fall apart this season, because the fictional guy who is the new President will crack down hard to reinstall old school tolitarianism and that in turn will fuel the independence movements in the various Soviet states not Russia.)
Miles who still gets cheated out of his salary by Helios along with the other workers tries to make some additional cash by working for Quark Ilya the black marketeer, which ends up resulting in him trespassing into the North Korean sector of Happy Valley as we knew someone would sooner or later, which in turn results in him getting into contact with Lee the original Korean cosmonaut who wants to make a deal with Ilya. Now whether Lee's cliffhanger demand literally means he wants Ilya to help him smuggle his wife out of North Korea or whether he just wants to talk to her via vid call and has expressed himself with the wrong vocabulary, I have no idea, but presumably we will find out next week, and it will contribute to us getting to know Lee better.
Kelly and Aleida pitch their robot on Mars project to a number of companies, in vain, until they decide to try Dev as a last resort, who returns in this episode, having spent the intervening decade brooding in his personal Xanadu, it seems, though still making profit. Now the writers have been at pains last season to say Dev isn't Elon Musk inspired but by Steve Jobs (the appropriate 1990s version of the egocentric visionary tech billionaire trope who for all his flaws does not associate right extremist nuttery), and Dev remains neatly non-moustache twirling and a more dimensional character. Not sympathetic, but the show lets him be both helpful (as when last season he had a key saving the day idea mid season) and harmful (his my-way-or-nothingness and manipulation of his employees). Which is necessary for our heroines to not look stupid as they do end up teaming up with him. That last scene with Kelly and Aleida initially beaming as Dev strolls in to take over Helios again to their faces falling when they observe him firing people left right and center in what is clearly a personal vendetta was so well done and said it all without either of them saying a word, and yet it was believable that they didn't see it coming. Before said scene, we see Aleida and Bill Strauss in what just might be this episode's emotional highlight as they catch up, hurt feelings and not so hidden trauma and everything included, and it makes so much sense that Bill is the one to whom Aleida can confide not indirectly but explicitly that what triggers her is manned space exploration and she can't do it again. (That's also the appeal of Kelly's robot program.) Meanwhile, Bill has been left in a wheelchair from the bombing and has his own massive PTSD, but they're able to help and comfort each other, while still clashing on the subject of Margo. (BTW, this scene underlines both of them still think Margo has died in the blast. I've seen people assume that the CIA might know otherwise and just conceals it from the public, but really, there's no reason why they should. (So far.) They had no reason to look for Margo in the Soviet Union or to not believe she died, she did NOT get a job there that put her in a prominent role where she might be spotted.) This show really is great with friendships.
Question: with Dev now once more in control of Helios, will conditions for the Helios workers change and thus a mutiny be avoided? Somehow, I doubt it. I rather suspect Dev will justify not changing the conditions for workers by declaring the money thus saved goes into Kelly's and Aleida's robot project, thus creating a moral conflict for our heroines. Also, Aleida will find out Margo is still alive because as of the end of the episode, Margo now does have a job where she can be spotted. And we will get the Margo and Aleida equivalent to the Margo and WvB s1 scene where he enables her to become flight director by deducing the true reason for all those technological failures mid first season and insisting that she and only she be the one to get that information, complete with the incredibly angry and yet also mixed feelings on the respective protegée's part.
Napoleon: On a scale of Ridley Scott historical movies which go from being an unholy and not entertaining mess with good visuals (Kingdom of Heaven) via massively entertaining and good visuals but also full of historical nonsense (Gladiator) to actually good, both emotionally and intellectually captivating and giving the impression of having done their research, good visuals a given (The Last Duel), this one, alas, is on the lower end of the scale. And no, not because Ridley Scott glorifies Napoleon (he doesn't). Yes, he doesn't mention the reintroduction of slavery, but given everything else, both good and bad, he leaves out, that's really not a factor in why this film doesn't work for me. I mean, the battles he picked are predictably well done, and I suspect they were a big reason why he wanted to do the movie in the first place, but that's just not enough for a story, and the human element he chose to be the emotional red thread, the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, just doesn't work the way he wants it to and only illustrates that it's anything but simple to do compelling "can't live with, can't live without'" type of co dependent relationships in a way that click (for me, it's imo as always). The classics are of course George and Martha in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but to name a less famous and still excellent example of the trope: Ellen and Saul Tigh on Battlestar Galactica. Granted, that one had several seasons to flesh them out, and this is a movie, not a series, but still, I think the Tighs are a good example of what the movie wanted to show with its versions of Napoleon and Josephine. The Tighs on BSG' are bad for each other and they bring out genuine heroics and selflessness in each other. We see them argue and revile each other, we see them comfort and be tender with each other, and (very important this) we see them have fun as well as making each other miserable. Ellen cheats on Saul on a regular basis, but she also is ready to be tortured and die for him if needs be. (This is presented to the audience in a show, not tell way.) Saul goes to pieces without her. Meanwhile, Napoleon the movie wants us to believe Napoleon and Josephine are this kind of couple, but unfortunately the movie completely avoids showing us the two of them having good times (beyond having sex). At all. So "They're obsessed with each other" is a claim made without any emotional fodder as substance. This is not Vanessa Kirby's fault, who is charismatic and compelling as Josephine, but Joaquin Phoenix is so incredibly one note dour as Napoleon (I think we see him smile or laugh only twice in the entire near three hours movie, once during his wedding with Josephine), and the script avoids any mention of pragmatic reasons for Josephine to marry him in the first place (like the fact she was in debts and he was at this point clearly an up and coming star in the military, plus for all his faults, he was a very good stepfather to her children both in the human interaction and in the providing for sense), that the relationship just does not make sense on her part. At all. And this is literally the only relationship Napoleon has in the entire movie, with anyone, which means the movie falls apart on that front.
Seriously: never mind the fact mistresses once he's Emperor are mentioned briefly but not shown - letting Napoleon interact a bit with Josephine's children would have done wonders in terms of making him human, which isn't the same as excusing him, btw. Not only would it have been actually with a foundation in history, you could have done it without needing much additional screen time - think of the scene with Boromir teaching Merry and Pippin how to sword fight in Fellowship of the Ring, which is also used for Aragorn and Gandalf to have expositionary dialogue. As it is, he talks a bit with Eugene at the start, but Hortense isn't named in the entire film, you just see her in the background occasionally, and then they have a conversation after Josephine is dead and he's back from Elba. Also, the only brother of Napoleon's who is mentioned by name and shown is Lucien, and when that happened I first thought, good, it's the most interesting brother after all, but then Lucien disappears after the Brumaire coup just when the relationship gets interesting and is not seen again. He's still luckier than the other brothers and all of the sisters. No Pauline, no Elisa, no Caroline. (Never mind Napoleon handing over territory for them to rule.) (Also, Pauline was his favourite and the only sibling to visit him on Elba, proving she wasn't just seeing him as the source of family riches.) Mother Letitia, Madame Mère, has two brief cameos, and that's it. And the Marshals? Junot gets given an order by name at Toulon, and I tihink Marmont is mentioned somewhere, but that's it. If you don't know who Michel Ney was, he's That Guy With the Moustache Talking To Napoleon early in the battle of Waterloo. Also entirely about military matters, no sense of what type of relationship they have. (Jo Graham won't like that movie.) And then, connectedly, there are Napoleon and the soldiers. We get a scene, very briefly, en route to Russia of him handing out some bread to some of them, and that's the first and only time he does something that could be used to explain why they would believe he cares about them.
Sidenote here: Just so we don't misunderstand each other, I don't mean that Napoleon should have been shown as someone mourning for every soldier dying in his battles. I mean, by all means, film, make the point his ambition excells any consideration for human life. But there's a reason why he was incredibly popular with the army, and why he could return from Elba with no soldiers and pick up an army en route to Paris, with the Bourbons, who start out with an army, fleeing before he arrives. The film even uses one of the rl events that showcase this, but because there has been zero preparation for it until this point, it falls emotionally flat. The sequence of events as shown: Napoleon encounters one of the army units sent to intercept him. (This happened a few times, most famously with those commanded by Ney, but since Ney doesn't get either name or characterisation in this film...) He pulls off a "take up your sword again or take up me"', to use the Shakespeare quote from Richard III by facing them unarmed, coming closer and talking to them, saying he's not going to fight them, he misses them and wants them back, if they want to shoot him, go ahead, and the soldiers who start out aiming their guns at him end up calling "Vive l' Empereur" and defecting to him in totem. This does happen in the movie, but, like I said, because there's no preparation, and because Joaquin Phoenix plays Napoleon as someone whom you can't believe would be at any point be actually loved by his men, it just doesn't work. Meanwhile, the decades old film Waterloo, which didn't have Napoleon's entire career to cover or to prepare this, does it perfectly. Check out Rod Steiger as Napoleon showing Scott and Phoenix how it's done:
Click to viewAnd Waterloo doesn't present Napoleon as the hero of the tale. He's an impressive antagonist, but he is the antagonist in that movie. Which also doesn't exclude his vanity and unwillingness to accept blame.
Another thing: Joaquin Phoenix is now the right age for Napoleon at Waterloo, but not for most of the movie, and especially not for young Bonaparte, who was in his 20s during final years of the French Revolution. This means not only Josephine but Barras (!!!!) look younger than Napoleon instead of older when he initially meets them. So, for that matter, does Marie Antoinette, because the movie in its introduction scene employs the very Anglophone shorthand for "French Revolution bad" by opening with Marie Antoinette's execution and Robespierre ranting in the convent before getting toppled in the next scene he shows up in. (About that execution: we actually have a sketch by David showing us MA on the way to the Guillontine, so we know exactly show she looked. In this film, she's wearing a blue dress and has long curly flowing hair, worn open, which, wtf? You don't need to be a historical expert to know why women (and long haired men, which was most of them in that time) had their hair tied back before a beheading. For God's sake.) Robespierre, btw, is aged up and looks like he's in his fifties instead of in his early 30s when he dies, but I guess that means he at least does not look younger than "young" Captain Bonaparte. The actor who plays Tallyrand (and has the distinction of getting three actual scenes being clever and negotiating) looks about the same age as Phoenix, the actor playing Fouché, who is in one single scene where he doesn't do anything but is named so we know he's around, looks like he's in his late 60s. In the time of the Directorate. In conclusion: given Phoenix was good as Commodus back in the Gladiator day, I understand why Ridley Scott wanted to work with him again, butr really: he shouldn't have. I'm not sure any actor on his lonesome could have made Napoleon interesting and human, given the script doesn't bother with any relationship but Josephine and fails to make that one believable, but maybe a younger actor and/or one with more facial flexibility could have saved something.
(I suppose Rupert Everett as Wellington near the end is having fun and it shows, but he's the only one in the movie. Which, to give credit where due, does emphasize there would not have been a victory for the Brits without the Prussians arriving in the nick of time, something not often emphasized in something created by an Englishman.)
In conclusion: for a truly interesting historical Ridley Scott movie dealing with French history, watch the Last Duel. Not this one. For a film with an interesting Napoleon which gets across both the charme and the inhumanity, without battles needed for the later, you could do worse than Napoleon and Me. For sheer battle spectacle, Waterloo, by all means, shot without GCI in ye olde days.