94 Comments

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.

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it’s talmudic, one cannot see things outside their paradigm.

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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!

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I just found out recently that all the Christmas songs that have nothing about Jesus are all written by them.

Santa. He’s red. Take the N out and put it at the end. Yes they did that right in front of us. It took me over 50 years to see that and only because someone pointed it out.

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jew talmudic?

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Anything worth reading on the Talmudists? EMJ?

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Mad Men was fantastic.

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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

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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.

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"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

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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.

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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

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Maybe because it is everywhere. Notice how it was you that made this political - projecting much?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The debutante ball for menopausal women is on stage 8? What on earth is that supposed to mean?

Vanessa Kirby was 33 during filming of Napoleon, by the way.

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Life expectancy 1680–1779 56.6 so yes 33 (also Josephine's age) was middle aged...I love Vanessa Kirby btw she was wasted in this

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That is a myth; life expectancy is an average, and modern gains have been largely driven by reductions in infant and child mortality. If you lived to adulthood in the 18th century your life expectancy wasn't far behind ours.

But that's moot, because you said "menopausal". 33 is not menopausal.

And you haven't explained what the comment even means, anyway. Is the criticism that she is too old? Or that she's trying to look beautiful? Again, I just have no idea what 'the debutante ball for menopausal women is on stage 8 love' is supposed to mean, even setting aside that Vanessa Kirby is decades from menopause so it's wildly misdirected. It just sounds like you're trying to be generically bitchy about her for some reason.

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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."

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Oh Christ, sorry, it was a terrible performance, terrible! He couldn't be bothered to even try to do the role justice. It's like they woke him up from his trailer 5 minutes before each scene.

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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.

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“like a cuckoo clock made of coiled excrement”

Subscribed from that sentence

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Thanks for suffering for me so I spare myself.

What a wasted opportunity.

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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?

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haha the surprise was probably granuloma...

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I thought about writing paragraph after paragraph describing how truly awful this Ridley Scott film was but, I do not have the words.

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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.

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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

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Oppenheimer didn't play here in Thailand, still wanna see it.

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Not that great either but not as deplorable as Napoleon

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In other words the guy who played Napoleon in Bill and Ted would have been better suited for the role.😁

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It is the attempt to weaken and destroy us by a thousand cuts. Film/media/art is just one leg on the transhuman octopus. John Ford may have been an agent of the CIA deep state, but he made movies that had character and called men to greatness, but that was 70-80 years ago- this is not a movie to reform and refocus us, it is neo-Marxist revolutionary poison so they can eliminate us and start over. These people hate us.

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You think Ridley Scott is trying to "eliminate you" with "neo-Marxist revolutionary poison"? Go outside.

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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?

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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,”

🤣🤣🤣

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I didn’t bother to see this film because I knew it would be ahistorical garbage. Filmmakers in this era can’t keep Hollyweird ideology out of their films. They are not allowed to make honest or historically accurate films.

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