It's another de-constructionist, a-historical hit piece, made to discourage young men from striving for greatness. What makes it worse for me is the Barbie effect: advertising a movie based on the legendary status of the character upon which said movie is based on, only to then present the audience with a satire/parody/"post-modern take on the story everyone knows". Both Columbia Pictures and Ridley Scott know that what drives people to pay to see a movie called "Napoleon", is to watch an epic retelling of the legendary feats of one of history's greatest characters, and yet the old man still insulted the critics who, inevitably, accused him of doing a disservice to Bonaparte.
It's a kind of pseudo-Freudian, feminised pop psychology way of writing a character. From that viewpoint, men only achieve anything of note if motivated by mother issues, lust or childhood trauma - ideally all three.
There are so many example - Don Draper in Mad Men, Colin Farrell's Alexander, even recent versions of Willy Wonka. they all aim to reduce the main character to a net sum of trauma and issues with the women in their life, rather than allow for the existence of a personal daimon or a Great Man.
I’m learning more about the (((talmudists))) lately and I’m seeing their poison EVERYWHERE. (((They))) insult Us and Our history and Our culture and Our heroes ALL THE FRICKIN TIME!
what would that even look like, in the context of say Mad Men? obviously no one who devotes his life to a completely empty accomplishment--becoming the most respected Mad Ave bullshitter--is motivated by some kind of sublime grace
Doing well because one is motivated by money, the desire for a nice life, a desire to fulfil and express a talent, an enjoyment in work, the need to provide for family - all sorts of more realistic motivations than the constant trope of being motivated by trauma.
"what if every TV show was a conflict-free fairy tale about boomers being boomers?"
you can tell what this substack is really about (right wingers kind of complaining but not wanting their own complicity ever brought up) because it attracts this type of airhead culture war griping
That's a great leap from suggesting that trauma isn't the only driver of men.
I'd imagine worldview does come into it, and the motivation of trauma does fit so much better with the typical leftist psychology - one look into how the legal system excuses crime would highlight that.
Conflict in fiction can certainly exist without characters being driven by some pseud-Freudian issue. To view that as the only type of conflict or motivation worth exploring is sad and raises many questions.
no one views that as the only type of conflict, but perhaps for personal reasons you see it everywhere, which raises questions that I find particularly boring
So so so bad. Also all those flags to distinguish one side of the battle from another-more flag bearers than musket carriers. Embarassingly lazy, miscast, easiest money Joaquin ever made with his 4 lines of text...and as for Vanessa Kirby the debutante ball for menopausal women is on stage 8 love, you're on the wrong film set. The Ishtar of the 21st C.
The only good part of the movie was when they arrested that fat guy and he was yapping about his "succulent breakfast" being interrupted. That was pure kino. The rest of it was really forgettable. I also read apparently they had to rewrite the plot (unsure how it would have been absent this) to make it work with Phoenix's acting style.
At this point, I'm convinced nobody in Hollywood actually "does their homework" on historical events. It feels like scriptwriters and directors just read a historical figure's Wikipedia page and start writing. Read more books, Hollywood.
I've noticed that 99% of Brits are just utterly irredeemably atheist, full stop. It ill serves them. What they're reacting to I suppose is dogma & the institution of the Church. But why mock & reject that most of humanity see & deeply value the numinous. The complexity & beauty of the nariest splinter of Creation, a flower or blade of grass or ice crystal, leaves one with the utter conviction an Intelligence is the author of this magnificent realm. So using Scripture to lampoon or debase a larger-than-life modern figure is a storytelling cheat.
Ah, so that explains it. This has to be my least favorite method of storytelling. Unfortunately, it seems like there will always be someone who resorts to this technique.
I'd gotten an off impression of the movie just from the trailer. It came across as disjointed, unfocussed, excessive. It's as though a dysfunctional but sexually tormented 'Commodus' is reborn as a brilliant but tormented French general, minus the eminently sane gladiators.
To me it looked like Joaquin Joker playing Joaquin Gladiator playing the title character of this film, yes. I would have liked a glib, witty/serious Nap as Cillian Murphy managed with Bob
Exactly, Phoenix was just the Joker again, except without the transformation. I couldn't believe how bad Scott's Napoleon sucked. Was I an idiot for having high expectations?
I'm a historian who first started studying Napoleon when I was about five years old. He's a complicated character who was only able to rise to the top because of the times he found himself in. I thought the movie was OK--I'd give it three stars out of five.
Napoleon really was helplessly in love with Josephine, who really did cuck the shit out of him. That happened, and if you have to have a strong female character, why not use a real one?
The movie repeats the Napoleonic myth about Russian troops falling through the ice at Austerlitz, though there is no other evidence that actually happened. There was no "Sun of Austerlitz," in the movie, when the fog broke and Napoleon saw the gap in the Allied lines, which was the real turning point of the massive battle.
Perhaps most disappointing of all from a military history standpoint is Scott's failure to show that Irish infantryman sticking a bayonet through Napoleon's leg at Toulon, and Napoleon's subsequent respect for British infantry that he had completely forgotten over a decade later at Waterloo.
As for Phoenix's portrayal of Napoleon's personality, he wasn't that bad. As a reviewer once said of Rod Steiger's portrayal of Napoleon in Waterloo(1970), "Steiger was over the top as Napoleon, but then again, so was Napoleon."
scott is wrong that he was a godless pervert (well he might have been when he was a freemason slave/assassin), but scott’s real problem is the same reason all english hate him:
Napoleon became Catholic and hunted down all freemasons in europe.
you are wrong that napoleon was a military genius. he attacked civilian populations and people surrendered to avoid loss of innocent life (same tactic the english and therefore the usa has always used). this did not work on the english, who not only enjoy murdering their own people but murder even more civilians than Napoleon (and did so just for fun).
waterloo was the first real battle Napoleon actually had, and he was not experienced in actual warfare enough to win. the english were simply more experienced at the civilian mass murder than napoleon was.
this is also why the us and england have lost every single war with Catholic countries, because armies built for civilian oppression are not good in an actual fair fight.
It was America, America, and the British/colonies which were not Catholic at the time. Spain, Mexico, and France were. Kind of shoots some pretty major holes in your Catholic theory doesn’t it?
I don’t think it’s the worst movie ever, but it was certainly mediocre. In college, I’d learned Napoleon was a military genius, especially in terms of his innovative use of artillery. We get a taste of that early in the movie, then it’s lost. I could have used a lot more political intrigue, as well. The movie makes no case for why or how Napoleon rose to power or fame.
Phoenix plays Napoleon worse than the Joker. He makes Napoleon a blubbering, autistic incel practically afraid of catching cooties from girls. When he’s FORCED to knock up a hot peasant girl, he slowly approaches her and has to blow out the candles. Meanwhile, what’s the “surprise” between Josephine’s legs? Like Napoleon never got laid before that?
It's another de-constructionist, a-historical hit piece, made to discourage young men from striving for greatness. What makes it worse for me is the Barbie effect: advertising a movie based on the legendary status of the character upon which said movie is based on, only to then present the audience with a satire/parody/"post-modern take on the story everyone knows". Both Columbia Pictures and Ridley Scott know that what drives people to pay to see a movie called "Napoleon", is to watch an epic retelling of the legendary feats of one of history's greatest characters, and yet the old man still insulted the critics who, inevitably, accused him of doing a disservice to Bonaparte.
It's a kind of pseudo-Freudian, feminised pop psychology way of writing a character. From that viewpoint, men only achieve anything of note if motivated by mother issues, lust or childhood trauma - ideally all three.
There are so many example - Don Draper in Mad Men, Colin Farrell's Alexander, even recent versions of Willy Wonka. they all aim to reduce the main character to a net sum of trauma and issues with the women in their life, rather than allow for the existence of a personal daimon or a Great Man.
it’s talmudic, one cannot see things outside their paradigm.
I’m learning more about the (((talmudists))) lately and I’m seeing their poison EVERYWHERE. (((They))) insult Us and Our history and Our culture and Our heroes ALL THE FRICKIN TIME!
Anything worth reading on the Talmudists? EMJ?
what would that even look like, in the context of say Mad Men? obviously no one who devotes his life to a completely empty accomplishment--becoming the most respected Mad Ave bullshitter--is motivated by some kind of sublime grace
Doing well because one is motivated by money, the desire for a nice life, a desire to fulfil and express a talent, an enjoyment in work, the need to provide for family - all sorts of more realistic motivations than the constant trope of being motivated by trauma.
"what if every TV show was a conflict-free fairy tale about boomers being boomers?"
you can tell what this substack is really about (right wingers kind of complaining but not wanting their own complicity ever brought up) because it attracts this type of airhead culture war griping
That's a great leap from suggesting that trauma isn't the only driver of men.
I'd imagine worldview does come into it, and the motivation of trauma does fit so much better with the typical leftist psychology - one look into how the legal system excuses crime would highlight that.
Conflict in fiction can certainly exist without characters being driven by some pseud-Freudian issue. To view that as the only type of conflict or motivation worth exploring is sad and raises many questions.
no one views that as the only type of conflict, but perhaps for personal reasons you see it everywhere, which raises questions that I find particularly boring
So so so bad. Also all those flags to distinguish one side of the battle from another-more flag bearers than musket carriers. Embarassingly lazy, miscast, easiest money Joaquin ever made with his 4 lines of text...and as for Vanessa Kirby the debutante ball for menopausal women is on stage 8 love, you're on the wrong film set. The Ishtar of the 21st C.
The only good part of the movie was when they arrested that fat guy and he was yapping about his "succulent breakfast" being interrupted. That was pure kino. The rest of it was really forgettable. I also read apparently they had to rewrite the plot (unsure how it would have been absent this) to make it work with Phoenix's acting style.
At this point, I'm convinced nobody in Hollywood actually "does their homework" on historical events. It feels like scriptwriters and directors just read a historical figure's Wikipedia page and start writing. Read more books, Hollywood.
there is a storytelling style called “midrash,” of which the corrupt style descends from babylon.
Basically it is the use of Scripture or other Historical events or people, but retold to a modern political goal.
I've noticed that 99% of Brits are just utterly irredeemably atheist, full stop. It ill serves them. What they're reacting to I suppose is dogma & the institution of the Church. But why mock & reject that most of humanity see & deeply value the numinous. The complexity & beauty of the nariest splinter of Creation, a flower or blade of grass or ice crystal, leaves one with the utter conviction an Intelligence is the author of this magnificent realm. So using Scripture to lampoon or debase a larger-than-life modern figure is a storytelling cheat.
Ah, so that explains it. This has to be my least favorite method of storytelling. Unfortunately, it seems like there will always be someone who resorts to this technique.
Thanks for suffering for me so I spare myself.
What a wasted opportunity.
I'd gotten an off impression of the movie just from the trailer. It came across as disjointed, unfocussed, excessive. It's as though a dysfunctional but sexually tormented 'Commodus' is reborn as a brilliant but tormented French general, minus the eminently sane gladiators.
To me it looked like Joaquin Joker playing Joaquin Gladiator playing the title character of this film, yes. I would have liked a glib, witty/serious Nap as Cillian Murphy managed with Bob
Oppenheimer didn't play here in Thailand, still wanna see it.
In other words the guy who played Napoleon in Bill and Ted would have been better suited for the role.😁
I thought about writing paragraph after paragraph describing how truly awful this Ridley Scott film was but, I do not have the words.
“like a cuckoo clock made of coiled excrement”
Subscribed from that sentence
Exactly, Phoenix was just the Joker again, except without the transformation. I couldn't believe how bad Scott's Napoleon sucked. Was I an idiot for having high expectations?
I'm a historian who first started studying Napoleon when I was about five years old. He's a complicated character who was only able to rise to the top because of the times he found himself in. I thought the movie was OK--I'd give it three stars out of five.
Napoleon really was helplessly in love with Josephine, who really did cuck the shit out of him. That happened, and if you have to have a strong female character, why not use a real one?
The movie repeats the Napoleonic myth about Russian troops falling through the ice at Austerlitz, though there is no other evidence that actually happened. There was no "Sun of Austerlitz," in the movie, when the fog broke and Napoleon saw the gap in the Allied lines, which was the real turning point of the massive battle.
Perhaps most disappointing of all from a military history standpoint is Scott's failure to show that Irish infantryman sticking a bayonet through Napoleon's leg at Toulon, and Napoleon's subsequent respect for British infantry that he had completely forgotten over a decade later at Waterloo.
As for Phoenix's portrayal of Napoleon's personality, he wasn't that bad. As a reviewer once said of Rod Steiger's portrayal of Napoleon in Waterloo(1970), "Steiger was over the top as Napoleon, but then again, so was Napoleon."
Both you and scott have napoleon wrong.
scott is wrong that he was a godless pervert (well he might have been when he was a freemason slave/assassin), but scott’s real problem is the same reason all english hate him:
Napoleon became Catholic and hunted down all freemasons in europe.
you are wrong that napoleon was a military genius. he attacked civilian populations and people surrendered to avoid loss of innocent life (same tactic the english and therefore the usa has always used). this did not work on the english, who not only enjoy murdering their own people but murder even more civilians than Napoleon (and did so just for fun).
waterloo was the first real battle Napoleon actually had, and he was not experienced in actual warfare enough to win. the english were simply more experienced at the civilian mass murder than napoleon was.
this is also why the us and england have lost every single war with Catholic countries, because armies built for civilian oppression are not good in an actual fair fight.
Now you know.
Dude. 🤣🤣🤣🤦🏻♂️
Who won the Spanish American War and the Mexican American War? Who won the French and Indian War?
Not you.
It was America, America, and the British/colonies which were not Catholic at the time. Spain, Mexico, and France were. Kind of shoots some pretty major holes in your Catholic theory doesn’t it?
No one won. you attack civilians and cause a retreat to save lives, you lost every war that mattered.
How can I buy you a beer Hank Oslo?
For “It’s true the problems here are recursive, wheels inside of wheels, like a cuckoo clock made of coiled excrement,”
🤣🤣🤣
I don’t think it’s the worst movie ever, but it was certainly mediocre. In college, I’d learned Napoleon was a military genius, especially in terms of his innovative use of artillery. We get a taste of that early in the movie, then it’s lost. I could have used a lot more political intrigue, as well. The movie makes no case for why or how Napoleon rose to power or fame.
Phoenix plays Napoleon worse than the Joker. He makes Napoleon a blubbering, autistic incel practically afraid of catching cooties from girls. When he’s FORCED to knock up a hot peasant girl, he slowly approaches her and has to blow out the candles. Meanwhile, what’s the “surprise” between Josephine’s legs? Like Napoleon never got laid before that?
haha the surprise was probably granuloma...
Never watched it. But first thought when I saw it advertised was that the complex needed advertising for their current things.