Sir Ridley Scott has hit back at criticism of his highly anticipated Napoleon biopic from France, claiming ‘the French don’t even like themselves’.
French critics called the biopic “very clumsy” and “boring” when it premiered in Paris last week.
But Sir Ridley has insisted: ‘The audience I showed it to in Paris loved it.’
Despite critical acclaim in Britain and the US, the epic starring Joaquin Phoenix as the marauding French emperor angered critics on the continent.
Historian Patrice Gueniffey in Le Point called the film “an Englishman’s film … very anti-French” and criticized the director for “wokist prejudices.”
But asked by the BBC As for what he thought of historians who say his film is inaccurate, Sir Ridley said: “Do you really want me to answer that? … There will be a bleep in it.”
Sir Ridley Scott has hit back at criticism of his highly anticipated Napoleon biopic from France
Phoenix plays Napoleon in a highly anticipated biopic that focuses on his tainted and complex relationships amid a stunning rise to power against the backdrop of the French Revolution
Despite largely positive reviews in Britain and the US, Ridley Scott’s film about Napoleon is already making waves before its release. Pictured: Joaquin Phoenix in the film
A critic from GQ led with the headline: ‘Joaquin Phoenix grimaces, Ridley Scott is bored and so are we’
Patrice Gueniffey, writing for Le Point, said the film was “the film of an Englishman… very anti-French”
Le Figaro targeted the biopic as a “reductive version of history” and said the film should be renamed “Barbie and Ken under the Empire.”
Historian Patrice Gueniffey in Le Point called the film “an Englishman’s film … very anti-French” and criticized the director for “wokist prejudices.”
A reviewer from GQ said the film left them “bored”, adding that there was something “awkward” but “unintentionally funny” about seeing French soldiers shouting “Vive la France” in American accents.
Le Figaro said the film should be renamed ‘Barbie and Ken under the Empire’ and added that Napoleon is depicted as a ‘sentimental brute with a gun in his hand and quick to shed a tear’.
The Canadian French-language newspaper Le Devoir led with the headline “Not Waterloo, but not Austerlitz either,” referring to Napoleon’s futile last stand in Belgium and his tactical “masterpiece” against the Russians in what is now the Czech Republic.
The article described Phoenix’s Napoleon as a “prickly man-child who doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing.”
Criticism of the film’s direction builds on mounting claims of inaccuracies from historians, including Dan Snow, ahead of its release in theaters on November 22.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, French academic Dr Estelle Paranque acknowledged the film’s apparent inaccuracies, but insisted that ‘it is a film, not a documentary’.
But of Scott’s portrayal of Marie Antoinette’s execution, she said, “It irritated me a little bit because he made her a little bit fearless and a little bit feisty, and at the time she honestly wasn’t.”
C News said the movie character was ‘too linear to appreciate’ [Napoleon’s] scope and has never ‘touched the essence of what was made’ [him] an essential statesman’
Cnet said the film contains inaccuracies ‘[undoubtedly fueled] a certain frustration between what we expected, what we wanted and what the end result is’
Le Devoir called Phoenix’s Napoleon a “prickly man-child who doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing,” and led with “Not Waterloo, but not Austerlitz either.”
Other critics have pointed out that Napoleon was not present when Antoinette was beheaded.
Dr. Paranque added, “She tried to remain dignified in the end, but I don’t think she would have been that bold. And of course Napoleon wasn’t there.’
But director Ridley Scott has hit back at accusations of historical ‘inaccuracies’. In an interview with the New Yorker, he told a critic to “get a life” when pressed.
‘400 books have been written about him. Maybe the first one was the most accurate, the next one is already making a version of the author,” he said.
“By the time you get to book 399, guess what, there’s a lot of speculation.”
Patrice Gueniffey said for Le Point that Scott depicted the emperor as an “ambitious Corsican ogre, a gruff peasant and a scoundrel with his wife.”
CNet labeled it a “shaky movie that chooses while refusing to choose,” adding, “Maybe the movie had everything to gain by being called Joséphine because it loses too much by being called Napoleon.”
American actor Joaquin Phoenix poses during the photocall for the world premiere of the film Napoleon, in Paris on November 14, 2023
Joaquin Phoenix and director Ridley Scott attend the ‘Napoleon’ world premiere at Salle Pleyel on November 14, 2023 in Paris
The review also stated that the film “glosses over numerous elements, especially geopolitical ones, that explain the rise and fall of Napoleon’s character.”
“The images multiply the historical gaps and perhaps they are clearer to us because of our educational training, which undoubtedly fuels a certain frustration between what we expected, what we wanted and what the end result is,” the review continued.
C News said Scott was forced to take “shortcuts” that stand out as “unforgivable omissions in the historical narrative.”
Le Devoir’s review also focused on Phoenix’s performance, calling it the film’s “fundamental problem.”
In a viral TikTok video released over the summer, Dan Snow touched on some of the scenes in the film’s trailer.
The historian pointed out that Napoleon did not fight at the pyramids and never witnessed the execution of Marie Antoinette.
Snow also took issue with the film’s tagline, “He came from nothing, he conquered everything,” because Napoleon never conquered Britain.
‘I like historical epics. I love Ridley Scott. But if you watch this film, it is not a documentary,” he said.