Napoleon - Ridley Scott's film with Joaquin Phoenix

[Nightmare Asylum]

Scott carries an artistic license and wields it with deadly intent.

He is a Hollywood filmmaker who's mission it is to entertain, not a History Channel professor who has to educate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_WOkJcWQAAeTSg?format=jpg&name=medium
Poor excuses when others had succeeded where he is failing.

It's not a matter of "excuses" or dichotomy of success/failure at being historically accurate – it's a matter of artistic intent. Ridley Scott is clearly approaching the material that he is working with from a very different perspective than Nolan and Scorsese did with their films (which are both among my favorites of the year, mind you).

Anyways, seeing this tonight!

[SiL]

Scott carries an artistic license and wields it with deadly intent.

He is a Hollywood filmmaker who's mission it is to entertain, not a History Channel professor who has to educate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_WOkJcWQAAeTSg?format=jpg&name=medium
Poor excuses when others had succeeded where he is failing.

Two of those people wanted historical accuracy. One didn't. None of them have failed.

[KiramidHead]

The problem is less with accuracy and more that Scott is being an asshole about it.

[Immortan Jonesy]

Is this dish going to have a cameo in the movie?

[Ingwar]

[Ingwar]

Fancy a hat?

For 'Napoleon,' Finishing the Hats
Inside the creation of one emperor's famous headwear, as worn by Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott's film.

When the costume designer David Crossman, who specializes in military wear, first knew he would be working on "Napoleon" (in theaters Wednesday), Ridley Scott's epic starring Joaquin Phoenix, he had a "mini panic" about the hats. It wasn't that he would have to be recreating Napoleon Bonaparte's famous headgear, the kind for which collectors pay dearly (one just sold for $2.1 million). It was that he would be doing it with certain limitations. Phoenix is vegan and doesn't wear any animal products, which meant that Crossman couldn't use wool felt. "Immediately, I just felt it's going to be a problem of what to make the iconic hat out of because it's all going to be about the hat," Crossman said in a video call.

Luckily they found a solution: a fabric constructed from tree bark originating in Uganda, which turned out to have an ideal texture for the task at hand. "I thought, 'oh good, we're out of trouble,'" Crossman added. "I was just so worried it was going to be some polyester synthetic thing. But what it actually gave us, as well, was a lot of lovely surface texture on the hat."

Once Crossman overcame that hurdle, the work could begin. For research, Crossman sought out originals. He examined objects from a private collection as well as examples of real Napoleon hats in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. Phoenix's hats may have been built from bark cloth, but they were true to size.

Over the course of the film, Phoenix dons a series of bicorns ranging in size and opulence as he goes from upstart officer to famed emperor. There were three key versions for the character reproduced many times over, Crossman said, as well as a glorious array of hats for various generals, allies, and enemies. Here, Crossman discusses some key looks.

Officer's Hat

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/11/26/multimedia/26NAPOLEON-HATS-07-jtgb/26NAPOLEON-HATS-07-jtgb-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
In the film, just before Napoleon launches his attack on British forces at Toulon in the South of France in 1793, he turns his hat sideways. Though bicorns were traditionally worn facing forward, Napoleon popularized wearing it in this way. The change comes in a little moment just before a key victory that signifies Napoleon's evolution as well as his personal style. It was also an acting choice. "It was a Joaquin decision because he knew that it had to happen," Crossman said.

This plain hat is the one he wears as a young, untested officer from Corsica. "It keeps him out of trouble on the streets of Paris, it's got a little revolutionary tricolor cockade so you know what side he's on," Crossman said. Although some of Napoleon's rank would have worn feathers in their hats at this time, Crossman explained that he had decided to keep it simple. "He was merging into the background, watching the Revolution unfold, looking for his opportunity," Crossman said.

General and First Consul Hat

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/11/26/multimedia/26NAPOLEON-HATS-01-jtgb/26NAPOLEON-HATS-01-jtgb-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
Perhaps the most outwardly splashy hat Napoleon has is the one he wears during the period of the movie where he is a general — a time that coincides with his meeting and wooing Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby) — as well as when he's First Consul. Its gold brim detail is a look that echoes the Jacques-Louis David painting "Bonaparte Crossing the Alps," which shows him astride a rearing horse.

But even with this glam headwear, Crossman wanted to signify a man at a low point. "There was this kind of mid-period where Napoleon, when he meets Joséphine [at the Survivors Ball], he was so down on his luck by then, he was just out of money, so I didn't want to put him into an embroidered uniform for that," Crossman said, "so he's got a much plainer uniform, just with gold trim." He added that he based the uniform on an etching he found. "So I suppose the most ostentatious thing about him in that is his hat, which Joaquin was determined to keep on like all the time."

Yes, you'll notice that Phoenix keeps his head covered often indoors. "Not for comic effect for some effect, he just liked keeping it on in certain situations inside," Crossman said. As Napoleon became more established, his uniform got more elaborate to match the gilded nature of his hat with embroidery.

Emperor's Hat

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/11/26/multimedia/26NAPOLEON-HATS-06-jtgb/26NAPOLEON-HATS-06-jtgb-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
By the time Napoleon is emperor, including the crucial sequence at the Battle of Austerlitz, he wears a large, but relatively unadorned bicorn. "That's the hat that he loved," Crossman said. "He'd make a couple of them per year and have them refresh it. He would always have new hats sent out to him. That's why there are so many Napoleon hats in existence today."

Based on Crossman's research at the museum, he found that following Napoleon's coronation as emperor, his hats got bigger and bigger as he grew politically stronger. "I've seen lots of very nice Napoleon iterations, 'Bill and Ted' included, but I've never seen the hat portrayed as this big," Crossman said, "so that was the first one we made."

Assorted Hats Belonging to Generals and Marshals

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/11/26/multimedia/26NAPOLEON-HATS-02-jtgb/26NAPOLEON-HATS-02-jtgb-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
While Napoleon's hat stays simple in his days as emperor, the actors playing his generals and marshals, like Ben Miles as Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt, have plumage that is either white or black depending on rank. In addition to feathers, these bicorns also have gold details.

And again, Crossman wanted to make them big. He said that normally in a production, actors and directors will request that they shrink the size of hats from their historically accurate proportions to what they think looks more appealing. But that was not the case on "Napoleon." "I was expecting more hat issues during filming," Crossman said, "because vanity comes in. But we didn't encounter any of that, which was great."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/movies/napoleon-movie-hats.html

[ralfy]

Interestingly enough, directors like Kubrick did something like the opposite: he spent a lot of time researching.

What's notable about Ash isn't the point about AI but that he and the ones he sacrificed work for the corporation.

[kwisatz]

What's notable about Ash isn't the point about AI but that he and the ones he sacrificed work for the corporation.

He basically sacrificed their atoms for other people's weekends. 

[Nightmare Asylum]

Just got back.

Tonally, landing in a space somewhere between The Last Duel and House of Gucci, Napoleon gleefully posits what would have been the absolute dream reporting job of the TMZ of 1700s/1800s as it condescendingly plays with (and hell, downright tears into) its title character and his relationship with Josephine, punctuated by some of the most viscerally brutal battle scenes put on screen in a while (all the while, evoking the imagery of at least a dozen diffrent paintings of/representing the era).

I can't wait for the four hour cut.

[Ingwar]

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm going to watch it today.

[Nightmare Asylum]

I will add – my biggest quibble with the movie is that in its theatrical state, it is a bit formless. I think the extended cut is going to do a lot to help the movie's pacing and overall structure.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Some new details from Gladiator II in this new RT interview:

[Ingwar]

[nanison]

I will add – my biggest quibble with the movie is that in its theatrical state, it is a bit formless. I think the extended cut is going to do a lot to help the movie's pacing and overall structure.

Like Kingdom of Heaven you mean?

[Nightmare Asylum]

I will add – my biggest quibble with the movie is that in its theatrical state, it is a bit formless. I think the extended cut is going to do a lot to help the movie's pacing and overall structure.

Like Kingdom of Heaven you mean?

I, admittedly, have not actually seen either cut of Kingdom of Heaven yet and I know that is something I need to remedy soon.

As it is here though, Napoleon often seems to be sort of flipping from one event to the next or one character beat to the next where it seems apparent that some breathing room to segue us there (especially in the back half of the film) and some more time spent with just Napoleon and Josephine must have been shot. And even though four hours sounds like a long time, I genuinely think it will actually help the pacing of the film rather than detract from it once we get to see that version.