Please sign in to post.

A good Napoleon movie!? Yes, "Napoleon: In the Name of Art"

Pour moi, the Ridley Scott biopic on Napoleon with Joaquin "Joker" Phoenix was the last straw when it comes to Anglocentric perspectives on European history. All the swords and togas movies where the cast has British accents (Received Pronunciation for the nobility, cockney for the slaves) are annoying enough, but when Scott portrays the polymath charismatic liberator of Europe as a clownish, rutting striver, it finally breaks this camel's back.

But don't lose all hope! There is a recent documentary film that focuses on Napoleon's coronation as the King of Italy in 1805 in Milan, and his interest in rescuing the great art of Italy from the crumbling nobility to make it available to everyone in the newly opened Louvre. The film is narrated by Jeremy Irons, but that's a trick to distract English speakers swimming in their complaisant ocean of British worldviews from the Italian production crew and researchers behind the scenes.

The director is Giovanni Piscaglia, whose previous film subjects include Van Gogh and Perugino, and it appeared first in 2021 with an English narration version coming a couple years later. The writer Matteo Moneta has worked on Paul Gauguin as well.

You can find it on Tubi and AppleTV and YouTube, probably other places, too. Just turn on the subtitles. (Jeremy's pronunciation is sometimes tricky to understand :-P )

https://letterboxd.com/film/napoleon-in-the-name-of-art/releases/

We are so steeped in Anglophilia that some of this film's revelations may not be digestible on first tasting.

For instance, the famous painting by David of Napoleon crowning himself was intended, according to discussions that the general and the artist had together, to convey the universal/catholic nature of the new France, that it was taking the mantle of universalism away from the Papal States / Vatican, and moving it to Paris where it would become truly universal and available to all. Napoleon wanted the 'arrogance' part of crowning himself to be downplayed in favor of the universalism.

The version we English-speakers are usually exposed to is that this Corsican ruffian imagined himself Caesar and Pope and Holy Roman Emperor all rolled up in one and no one else was going to make him the ruler but himself. Perhaps it was more a gesture of elevating merit above bloodline.

In any case, give the movie a watch, and also let me know if there are other Napoleon movies or books that aren't made with a strong English bias. (Or German bias, either, in case any of the Franks are reading this thread)


Other tidbits in the film that I didn't know until now: the Corsican dialect sounds close to Genoese; Il Duce Mussolini called Napoleon 'the Italian at the top of France'

Posted by
821 posts

Many thanks for this. I’ve put the Van Gogh and Napoleon films on my list for watching when I’m back home. He also did a film on The Hermitage which looks wonderful and viewable. I haven’t been able to find a way to view the Perugino film he did however.

I have often thought the British do seem very taken with Napoleon, considering they ultimately vanquished him. So many books, so many arguments about him and everything he meant….

Posted by
1332 posts

As an (the?) OG fascist, it isn't a surprise that Mussolini would praise the Caesarism of dictator Napoleon!

I'm always intrigued when any American praises Boney, given they have a rather better example of a military leader in their own creation story. Washington was a traitor, of course, but he didn't use his treason to become a military dictator of a newish country and snuff out the limited democracy it had gained.

Whilst Washington owning slaves is a bit icky, he didn't decide to reinstate slavery, unlike Napoleon when First Consul. And Washington didn't launch continental invasions which resulted in 6 million deaths.

Posted by
8504 posts

I guess that the movie Napoleon Dynamite wouldn’t be in the running…

Posted by
3014 posts

Cyn, you have less willpower than me. But how about on television, and go Napoleon Solo?

Posted by
3164 posts

@Nick, yes, it's an important part of American Founding Fathers mythology that Washington wanted a non-imperial title like president, and that he didn't want to rule for life or pass on the office to progeny or favored associates. Napoleon would probably have thought him naive/idealistic.

I'd prefer to avoid moving towards a 'one man's liberator is another man's tyrant' since there are so many variables at play in human interactions at all scales. The choices available instead of absorption by Napoleon with his millions of casualties were not lions cavorting with lambs and everyone in a big circle singing Kumbaya -- in Napoleon's absence don't you think the number of victims of political/noble predations would have been even worse? The choice was not between compulsory gallicization and self-determination; it was between becoming a citizen on French terms or becoming a peon to other less enlightened rulers on even worse terms. After all, why did France overshadow Germany until well into the industrial age? It wasn't just because they are better cooks.