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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3134 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 24, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I watched ‘Napoleon’. Dissident right Twitter is upset with it because it portrays Napoleon as a cuckold and they’ve decided they like him recently. There is some minor diversity like some of the senior officers and ladies maids improbably being black, but I didn’t think it was really a ‘woke’ picture.

Instead, the surprise seems to be that it’s mostly a comedy, except with some more traditional ‘action movie’ battle sequences (which I found enjoyable except for the Battle of Waterloo, which drags somewhat). It’s got a certain kind of English vaguely-panto vibe, crossed with a classic stage comedy, but not really the laugh out loud type. Napoleon is depicted as an extreme autist and is arguably the butt of the joke, but is also a competent general and a great strategist on a number of occasions. That said, the movie does end by explicitly characterizing him as a villain who was responsible for millions of deaths for (implicitly) no real reason. Some will say it also implies there was a direct causal relationship between his need for military victory and his cuckoldry, but I don’t think it’s that explicit. It is, on balance, an anti-French movie that takes the traditionally dim English view of the revolution and its consequences.

An entertaining movie, and rare to watch something where the big CGI fight scenes are actually very good and keep the viewer awake. Some very cringe dialogue not on purpose, some on purpose. Napoleon’s actor is too old. 3/5.

Ridley Scott said there's an "extended" version of the movie, a four-plus-hour cut, that will be released on AppleTV+ soon. For those thinking about seeing the movie in theaters: Don't waste your time.

My attention span is extremely poor, so I like movies in theaters because I’m pressured into switching off my phone and concentrating wholly on the film. When I watch movies at home I’m usually easily distracted.

Still, in this case I agree that I’m interested to see how the director’s cut changes things.

I’m not sure I agree that it was a comedy - a couple of laugh lines, yeah, but I wouldn’t say I laughed more than twice. I’m not gonna bother commenting on the improbable diversity - that’s just what Hollywood is now, and there’s no point blaming anybody involved directly with the film.

I agree that the battle scenes were the most exciting part of the film, and frankly I wish they’d focused more on those, especially given that the film is about one of the greatest generals in history. Very few people are fascinated by Napoleon because of his marriage(s).

I don’t agree with the popular take that the film gave too much time and importance to Josephine; she genuinely does seem to have been a centrally-important part of his life. (I also don’t agree with the take that Vanessa Kirby is unattractive. I think she’s got beautiful eyes.) However, attempting to make a film that focuses extensively on that marriage while also making a film that gives adequate attention to his military achievements was a massively overambitious undertaking. Overambitious especially because Ridley Scott doesn’t really seem to understand Napoleon on any psychological level. Scott doesn’t offer a “take” on what made Napoleon tick. I guess that’s probably better than a total hatchet job that makes Napoleon an irredeemable villain (I disagree with your take that the ending paints him explicitly as a villain - I think it’s fair to point out how many men died in the wars, even if there were obviously more subtle ways Scott could have gone about this) but I think the lack of a coherent interpretation is one of the reasons the film feels so bloated and directionless at times.

This should have been at least two different movies, and if they’d cast an actor of appropriate age and charisma they could have achieved this and probably had success. Ultimately I feel like this was a waste.

Do they know that he actually was a cuckold?

I agree that it was occasionally hilarious though. The line about the English having boats had the whole cinema laughing.

Dissident right Twitter is upset with it because it portrays Napoleon as a cuckold and they’ve decided they like him recently.

Is there some reason we shouldn't like Napoleon?

Conservatives/rightists loving Bonaparte is the centuries long version of the left wing Twitter gag about how MSNBC rehabilitated Dubya and made Liz Cheney a hero for opposing Trump, that inevitably in 2036 they'll rehab Trump and say we should vote for Don Jr to keep Matt Gaetz out of office.

The great conservatives of the time were all opposed to Bonaparte, the great liberals all favored him at least a little. So the question does become, is trad unchanging, or does anything become trad with sufficient time? A lot of Napoleonic borders either created nationalisms, or became future flashpoints for competing nationalisms.

I've no intention of seeing the movie, but I don't understand how you try to make a movie called Napoleon? Napoleon and Josephine, great movie idea. Napoleon in Egypt, great movie idea. The rise of Napoleon, great movie idea. The grande armee, great movie idea. Waterloo, great movie idea. You can even sneak in a thoughtful slow paced Elba movie! And bitches love franchises, you find the right actors you can do a Napoleon movie a year for five or six years! Which gives you an opportunity to introduce "our guys;" fictional side characters whose arc is contained within each film, with maybe a later callback.

Trying to fit his entire career, an entire era, into one film? You might as well make a movie called America and try to cram the civil war, the world wars, and the sixties into fifteen minutes each.

Yeah, after watching it, my overwhelming impression was “this needed to be at least two movies.”

He killed what was left of the HRE and accelerated Germany's slide into Prussian hegemony, so he's in my bad book.

Amazing General, though. The anti-meritocrats tell me that it's entirely down to luck, but given the long string of battles that he should've lost by the numbers but somehow turned into victories, I strongly suspect that skill has something to do with it.

Enlightenment guy who fought reactionary forces. Kind to jews. Although he seeded nationalism and Nietzsche liked him, so I guess it’s a wash for the DR.

Surely the default is simply having no particular opinion of him? They don’t venerate most great historical generals, typically.

Generals who manage to conquer most of Europe are usually more well known and also have a fan base on the fringes of the political spectrum.

You cannot stop me; I spend 30,000 lives a month.

There is some minor diversity like some of the senior officers and ladies maids improbably being black, but I didn’t think it was really a ‘woke’ picture.

I don't think that was particularly unlikely at all, France had a number of black mixed race people in it, including in the upper class. For example the famous author Alexandre Dumas' father was mixed race and a French general.

Personally I didn't like the movie, it really did feel like it made a buffoon out of Napoleon, who got cuckolded and is very insecure about his success. I would've preferred that it either double down on being a period piece romcom, or to have been properly about Napoleon's battles and conquests, instead of being a weird romance interspersed with battle scenes.

Thomas-Alexandre was briefly shown in the film as I remember, but I think the actor was full blooded African rather than biracial, which would have been more accurate.

Josephine's maid was also afro-Caribbean, which is plausible since she grew up on Martinique.

But yeah, there were a few other Africans that were thrown in awkwardly. My suspicion is that Scott did the absolute bare minimum to keep the diversity-mongers happy, which is all we can expect from him I guess.

Incidentally, Oppenheimer has a similar 'bare minimum' moment where the camera lingers on the face of an African woman inexplicably attending a 1930s physics class in the Netherlands before never showing her again.

I agree, in this case though Napoleon teaches a handful of young British naval officers while a captive after Waterloo, one of whom is a black man, which seems somewhat less likely.

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