{"id":10792,"date":"2023-12-10T10:57:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T10:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=10792"},"modified":"2024-01-28T10:01:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T10:01:53","slug":"media-napoleon-ridley-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=10792","title":{"rendered":"MEDiA: Napoleon, Ridley Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I just booked tickets for this new Ridley Scott Movie. Anyone who knows me at all well will know I\u2019m a bit of a Napoleonic history nutter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ridley Scott\u2019s first film feature movie was the wonderful The Duellists<\/em>*, released in 1977. This is far and away my favourite Scott movie, so far. Yes, Alien<\/em> and Gladiator<\/em> are brilliant entertainment. But The Duellists <\/em>is a work of art and love that the directors\u2019 more commercial movies fail to match. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Based on a Joseph Conrad short story, which in turn was based on a real life story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Scott directs Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, on set, in The Duellists<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So\u2026 Scott is returning, it would appear, to a true personal passion. Will this translate into a movie that might equal or outdo his earlier foray into this most exciting and colourful era? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He now has, thanks to modern digital technology, the ability to recreate epic scenes that he didn\u2019t<\/em> have, back when he started out. Will this enhance the end product? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by J. L. David.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One imagines that it must inevitably do so. But modern cinema as a whole illustrates perfectly, to me at any rate, that grand spectacle alone can very often and very easily be utterly empty and meaningless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Napoleon, as David portrayed him, circa 1811.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The casting is obviously massively important. Will Joaquin Phoenix cut it? I guess we\u2019ll find out fairly soon. How will they deal with the transition from the lean and hungry youth, to corpulent and balding \u2018little corporal\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The younger Boney, en \u00c9gypte<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the numerous stills I\u2019ve scene, and the simple one word title, one assumes this movie will attempt to tell most of all of the subject\u2019s story. That\u2019s a mammoth undertaking! One that has defeated everyone from Thomas Hardy (with his massive \u2018unstageable\u2019 play, The Dynasts<\/em>), in the 19th C., to Abel Gance and Stanley Kubrick, in the 20th. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Albert Dieudonn\u00e9 as the young Boney, in Gance\u2019s 1927 film.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gance famously blew his entire budget – intending a complete six-part telling of Napoleon\u2019s life – only getting as far as the first instalment (youth and the conquest of Italy), and making a film almost as hard show or to watch as it was to make. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kubrick, meanwhile, assembled an incredible preparatory archive – subsequently published in book form by Taschen, something that surely Ridley Scott will have drawn upon? – yet failed to make the film itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Taschen\u2019s book on Kubrick\u2019s unfinished work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Checking in on the latter reveals that Spielberg and HBO might be planning to complete this. Read more about that tantalising possibility here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to confess, I\u2019m equal parts excited and trepidatious about the prospect of actually seeing this film, which I\u2019ve been aware of for about a year or so now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll post again when we actually go see it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just booked tickets for this new Ridley Scott Movie. Anyone who knows me at all well will know I\u2019m a bit of a Napoleonic history nutter. Ridley Scott\u2019s first film feature movie was the wonderful The Duellists*, released in 1977. This is far and away my favourite Scott movie, so far. Yes, Alien and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MEDiA: Napoleon, Ridley Scott”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-2O4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10792"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10792"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10950,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10792\/revisions\/10950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}