Top Director, A Giant of History, Unbelievable choice of scope, Big Budget – what could possibly go wrong?
Cinema backers expect a financial return – its a money business. They do not actively back failure. So empty auditoriums are not in the plan.
This summer by most measures Oppenheimer was a surprise hit with live audiences. And Barbie packed the cinemas as well – I think most people would have said beforehand “that will not fly”.
I enjoyed both films and was entertained.
I enjoyed Asteroid City, Mission Impossible was an easy watch, while Indiana Jones was what I expected – tired out series ending – mind you the battle scenes at the end were unexpectedly impressive, if seemingly out of context, to my mind, with the two leads comedy show. Then again up to that point the film had no obvious series ending climax.
I went to see Napoleon with foreboding – history films generally fail me – as opposed to war films which sometimes succeed. The critical reception had already put me on edge. Would I be looking for failure?
No – I hoped I would at the least be entertained.
The film failed me on most counts.
I then started to think of everything I could say about Napoleon – a film, I even started to write lots sentences and paragraphs and then I stopped. I felt I needed to explain why a film subject right up my street left me tempted to give up and walk out.
Napoleon was poor entertainment for me so it failed the basic cinema test.
- I did not feel entertained – and neither emotionally moved
- It had no purpose for me – presumably this was deliberate
- It was miserably coloured – presumably this was intended
- Many scenes made no sense or did little to build a useful storyline or made no sense in the context of other scenes – the cannon balls, dying soldiers and the icy waters – simply reminded me of the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan.
On the plus side the film seemed well made to me (well funded?), special effects blended with real life material showed technical quality (VFX Team was sizeable – yes I stayed for the credits!). Historical accuracy is always an issue – overall the uniforms and dress seemed ok and individual actions felt plausible. The real problems were the ideas/settings/battles/focus – I will leave it to others to point out all the glaring errors.
Except – the production team will have “deliberately chosen all of these” which is far more fascinating – why? One example will suffice.
Why fire a cannon ball at a pyramid?
Maybe the whole film is an abstract?
For more on abstraction
https://wordpress.com/post/thewargamingerratic.home.blog/6256
https://wordpress.com/post/thewargamingerratic.home.blog/1237
Henry Ford was apparently quoted – “All history is bunkum”. And history is deliberately not archeaology – one is subjective the other tries for objectivity.
I don’t tend to go to the cinema in pursuit of History – I find it far better in a book.
As for the Napoleonic theme you could try Horseman on the Roof or Time Bandits or even the Scarlet Pimpernel (in Black and White!) or give up on the silver screen and watch an episode of Sharp or Hornblower.
Great war history on the silver screen remains more often than not illusive.
Napoleon – a film – best forgotten
The Wargaming Erratic 