Act of love

British film director Ridley Scott launched “Napoleon” last week at a world premier in the grand Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris. The large screen film went on cinema release in the US and UK on Wednesday this week. “Napoleon” is the culmination of Scott’s love affair with France and with Bonaparte which he made manifest in his first feature film, “The Dualists.”

This tells of two French cavalry officers who, after a minor spat, conducted duals with foils and pistols over 15 years during the era of the Napoleonic wars. Scott’s portrayal of the period was acclaimed and the film won an award for the Best Debut Film at the Cannes Film Festival.

Scott, now a crusty, vigorous 85, was 40-at the time and admits having been a “late starter.” Having previously worked in set design and advertising, Scott was deter- mined to break into feature films.

Since the success of his first, Scott has made another 27 films, including “Napoleon,” has completed half of the shooting of a sequel to “Gladiator,” his 29th, and has de- signed his 30th on which he plans to begin work in March next year.

During a lengthy interview with Mike Flemming of Deadline, Scott said, “The Dualists” was “about Napoleon, even though he wasn’t in it.” He told the BBC, He’s so fascinating. Revered, hated, loved...  more famous than any man or leader or politician in history. How could you not want to go there?” The uncut version is four hours long, but the film shown in cinemas has been cut to two hour and 38 minutes, so viewers do not become restive and leave.

By going ahead with his “Napoleon” Scott joined 180 obscure and famous directors who began with Bonaparte biopics in 1897, at film- making’s infancy.

Napoleon.org reports, “In France, he appears as a standard school textbook hero or as a cheap ... folk woodcut, rather simplistic, an image that reflects above all the warmongering, imperialist and vengeful... spirit of the French governments of the period.”

Scott records Napoleon’s bloody legacy in half a dozen battle scenes and credits him with shooting a cannon ball at the Sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a man, the body of a lion and wings of an eagle. This tall tale is proudly reiterated by Egyptian tour guides today when visitors to the nearby pyramids comment on the monument’s broken nose.

Scott chose Joaquin Phoenix to play Napoleon because he resembles him physically but the actor had to be persuaded to accept the part. Once he did the two men spent days discussing Napoleon, his career, and his relationship with Josephine who is the other main character in the film.

She is played by Vanessa Kirby who is 14 years younger than Phoenix although Josphine was six years older than Napoleon and became his empress, mentor, and adviser. He divorced her because she could not bear him a son and heir.

The film follows Napoleon’s rise from, a “Corsican ruffian unfit for high office” to army captain to brigadier to general who, between 1798-1801 commanded an expedition to Egypt. He ousted the country’s Mamluke rulers installed by the Ottoman sultan but Bonaparte was driven from Egypt after the French navy was defeated by the British in the Battle of the Nile. Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804 and by 1809 he ruled France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, coastal Italy and parts of Germany.

Napoleon exceeded his capacities in 1812 when he marched his Grande Armee into Russia where Cossacks, patriotic Muscovites and peasantry, and the harsh winter forced him to withdraw with a fraction of surviving troops. In 1815, he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to the remote island of St. Helena where he died.

As usual with most makers of films on historic heroes, villains or events, Scott has taken liberties which have been criticised by French historians. Scott defends himself by saying that each generation of historians is distanced from events they describe and pointed out that Parisians who attended the premier loved the film. Scott’s films may be the most historically varied in terms of period as they cover the Roman Empire, the Crusades, Medieval England, Britain ahead of World War II, contemporary Somalia, and the future. While working in Hollywood, he said he refuses to capitulate to studio demands or allow starring actors to dictate how a film should progress. By increasing deployment of cameras, he has reduced shooting time from 110 to 60 days. He used 11 for “Napoleon.”

Scott was born in November 1937 in South Shields, County Durham, and grew up during the war when his father was an officer in the Royal Engineers. Scott obtained a diploma in design at a provincial college of art and shifted to the Royal College of Art in Lon- don, where he helped to found a film department.

He was employed as a set designer for the BBC and in 1968, he and his younger brother Tony, established Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), a highly successful commercial film production company which became the foundation of his long career. He aspired to direct feature films but, he told the BBC, “I was too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone,” and “I didn’t know how to get in.” He did with “The Dualists,” and the rest is cinema history.

Scott is ready to admit he has been inspired by the work of others. For example, George Lucas’ 1977 iconic “Star Wars” propelled Scott to make “Alien,” a 1979 science-fiction horror film which secured international success and led to “Blade Runner,” a 1982 sci-fi film starring Harrison Ford. “The Martian,” about an astronaut stuck on Mars, released in 2015, is Scott’s latest in this genre.
Asked by multiple interviewers if he intends to retire, he has asked, “Why should I?” When, as a teenager Scott proved to be a late bloomer whose talents were in woodworking and art, his father told him whatever you decide, choose what you love. Ridley Scott took this advice and continues to act on it.