Napoleon - Ridley Scott's film with Joaquin Phoenix

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

New BBC interview with Ridley Scott:

Napoleon's Ridley Scott on critics and cinema 'bum ache'

Sir Ridley Scott is famously forthright.

The director of celebrated films including Gladiator, Alien, Thelma & Louise and Blade Runner certainly speaks his mind.

Does he seek out advice? Asking someone what they think is a "disaster", he tells me.

What about his lack of a best director Oscar - despite being at the helm of some of the most memorable films of the past four decades?

I don't really care."

And as for the historians who have suggested his latest movie, Napoleon, is factually inaccurate: "You really want me to answer that?... it will have a bleep in it."

We meet in a plush hotel in central London.

Scott had recently arrived from Paris, where the movie - which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French soldier turned emperor, and Vanessa Kirby as his wife (and obsession) Josephine - had its world premiere.

It's a visual spectacle that contrasts the intimacy of the couple's relationship with the actions of a man whose lust for power brought about the deaths of an estimated three million soldiers and civilians.

"He's so fascinating. Revered, hated, loved... more famous than any man or leader or politician in history. How could you not want to go there?"

The film is two hours and 38 minutes long. Scott says if a movie is longer than three hours, you get the "bum ache factor" around two hours in, which is something he constantly watches for when he's editing.

In spite of the "bum ache" issue, it's been reported that he plans a longer, final director's cut for Apple TV+ when the movie hits the streamer, but "we're not allowed to talk about that".

Napoleon has been well reviewed in many parts of the UK media. Five stars in the Guardian for "an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a movie". Four stars in The Times for this "spectacular historical epic" and in Empire for "Scott's entertaining and plausible interpretation of Napoleon".

The French critics have been less positive.

Le Figaro said the film could be renamed "Barbie and Ken under the Empire". French GQ said there was something "deeply clumsy, unnatural and unintentionally funny" in seeing French soldiers in 1793 shouting "Vive La France" with American accents.

And a biographer of Napoleon, Patrice Gueniffey in Le Point magazine, attacked the film as a "very anti-French and very pro-British" rewrite of history.

"The French don't even like themselves" Scott retorts. "The audience that I showed it to in Paris, they loved it."

In his movie, Napoleon's empire-building land grabs are distilled into six vast battle scenes.

One of the emperor's greatest victories, at Austerlitz in 1805, sees the Russian army lured onto an icy lake (shot at "an airfield just outside London") before the cannons are turned on them.

"The reverse angle in the trees was where I made Gladiator... I managed to blend them digitally so you get the scale and the scope".

As the cannonballs hurtle into the ice, bloodied soldiers and horses are sucked into the freezing waters, desperately trying to escape.

It's dramatic. It's terrifying. It is also beautiful.

"I'm blessed with a good eye, that's my strongest asset," says South Shields-born Sir Ridley, who went to art school first in Hartlepool and then London.

In the 1970s he was one of the UK's most renowned commercial directors, making, he tells me, two adverts a week in his heyday.

He always wanted to direct films but "I was too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone", and "I didn't know how to get in."

Once he did, he rose fast.

Scott's visual artistry makes him a consummate creator of worlds, whether that's outer space in Alien and The Martian, civil war Somalia in Black Hawk Down, medieval England in Robin Hood or the Roman Empire in Gladiator.

An accomplished artist, he does his own storyboarding.

"You could publish them as comic strips," he says. "A lot of people can't translate what's on paper to what it's going to be and that's my job."

His Napoleon, Joaquin Phoenix, tells me Scott also "draws pictures, as he's coming to work, of what the scene is."

He finds Scott an open and receptive director. "He's figured everything out and yet he's also able to spontaneously pivot" when new ideas are suggested, on this occasion even when there were 500 extras, a huge crew and multiple cannons.

Phoenix was "excited" to work with Scott again, 23 years after he was cast as the emperor Commodus in Gladiator.

"The studio did not want me for Gladiator. In fact, Ridley was given an ultimatum and he fought for me and it was just this extraordinary experience."

Scott has called Phoenix "probably the most special, thoughtful actor" he has ever worked with.

The leading actors had freedom to develop the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, a woman six years older than him, who he divorced because she was unable to provide him with an heir, but whose name was on his lips when he died in exile on St Helena. "France, the Army, the Head of the Army, Josephine" were the Emperor's last words.

Vanessa Kirby says of her experience being directed by Scott that "none of it was prescriptive from the start and I thought that was really freeing."

But she adds that she had to adjust to the pace at which he works.

"He moves really fast. You might have five big scenes in one day, which means you're on the fly."

They shot Napoleon in just 61 days. "If you know anything about movies, that should have been 120," Scott tells me.

In the early days, he used to operate the camera on his films as well as direct - think The Duellists, Alien, Thelma & Louise, though it wasn't allowed on Blade Runner.

He says he realised where the real power lay - with the camera operator and the first AD - and didn't want to relinquish it.

On Napoleon he worked with up to 11 cameras at the same time and directed them from an air conditioned trailer, saying: "It's 180 degrees outside and I'm sitting inside shouting 'faster!'."

Using all those cameras shooting from different angles "frees the actor to come off-piste and improvise" because you don't need to repeat endless takes (which is "disastrous").

Immortalising Napoleon on film was something Scott's hero Stanley Kubrick tried and failed to do. "He couldn't get it going, surprisingly, because I thought he could get anything going." That was down to money, says Scott.

His Napoleon watches Marie Antoinette die at the guillotine and fires a cannonball at the Sphinx. The artistic licence in this impressionistic film has put up the backs of some historians.

Scott says 10,400 books have been written about Napoleon, "that's one every week since he died."

His question, he tells me, to the critics who say the film isn't historically accurate is: "Were you there? Oh you weren't there. Then how do you know?"

Scott announced he was making Napoleon on the day he wrapped his previous film, The Last Duel, which starred Jodie Comer.

She was originally cast as his Josephine, but had to pull out after the dates were pushed back by the pandemic.

With Napoleon heading into cinemas, Scott is about to restart filming Gladiator 2, with Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, a shoot interrupted by the actors' strike.

So why go back to Gladiator? "Why not, are you kidding?"

He also has another movie in the pipeline which is already written and cast, but what it is, "I'm not going to tell you."

And he will celebrate his 86th birthday later this month.

Many might be happy to slow down, but not Scott. He will make films for the rest of his days, he tells me.

"I go from here to Malta, I shoot in Malta, finish there and I've already recce'd what I'm doing next."

So would he have any advice for his younger self?

"No advice. I did pretty good. I got there," comes his characteristically direct reply.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67419876

[ace3g]

[Mr.Turok]

Ridley's F*ck You Tour(TM) continues...

New interview with The Times, but the bloody thing is bloody paywalled! 

https://twitter.com/JonathanDean_/status/1723640740989882617

"when I have issues with historians, I ask "Excuse me, mate, where you there? No? Well, shut the f**k up then."

WE HAVE RECORDS YOU STUPID CENILE f**k! PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE AND WROTE SHIT DOWN OF WHAT THEY SAW YOU f**k!

But then uses cannons to blow up the pyramids because he has no idea if Napoleon actually did that or not?! HOW ABOUT ASK THE FOLKS WHO WERE CONSULTING YOU. Google the temples and tell me if it has holes in em!!!!

He gives me new reasons to hate on everything he currently makes. It's shit like this where I have no faith in the next Alien film and series. I just know its going to be shit if he keeps this up.

[Never say no to Panda!]

He is 85. Most people don't even get that old - at this age, my brain would be mush...but he's even still working.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

"when I have issues with historians, I ask "Excuse me, mate, where you there? No? Well, shut the f**k up then."

WE HAVE RECORDS YOU STUPID CENILE f**k! PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE AND WROTE SHIT DOWN OF WHAT THEY SAW YOU f**k!

But then uses cannons to blow up the pyramids because he has no idea if Napoleon actually did that or not?! HOW ABOUT ASK THE FOLKS WHO WERE CONSULTING YOU. Google the temples and tell me if it has holes in em!!!!

He gives me new reasons to hate on everything he currently makes. It's shit like this where I have no faith in the next Alien film and series. I just know its going to be shit if he keeps this up.

He's just using an existing historical setting and story to make his own version of it.

Just like Jacques-Louis David's "Corronation of Napoleon" painting (that was commissioned and praised by Napoleon) is full of historical inaccuracies, including people who wasn't even at the ceremony. Or David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" which was just a propaganda piece with little resemblance to actual history.

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.

Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven are as historically accurate as Star Wars, but that doesn't stop them from being great films.

[PullthePlug]

Just like Jacques-Louis David's "Corronation of Napoleon" painting (that was commissioned and praised by Napoleon) is full of historical inaccuracies, including people who wasn't even at the ceremony. Or David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" which was just a propaganda piece with little resemblance to actual history.

Exactly, descriptions of Napoleon vary from historian to historian. He was a master at exaggerating his own myth and would probably love that Ridley shows him hitting the pyramids with cannons.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

New interview with Ridley Scott conducted by ABC News:

[Immortan Jonesy]

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1726610071545610465

He is 85. Most people don't even get that old - at this age, my brain would be mush...but he's even still working.

Man, at 37 years old I already feel like a walking dead lol if I get to be that old, I don't think I'll have that same physical and mental energy at all.

[ace3g]

https://twitter.com/SixoTF/status/1726525094376472703

[Nightmare Asylum]

https://twitter.com/SiddhantAdlakha/status/1726638976956789008

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

The Guardian reviews Ridley's 2023 F*ck You Tour:

Sweary, angry, honest: is Ridley Scott Hollywood's greatest interviewee?

The director's press tour for his new epic Napoleon has been a treasure trove of quotes attacking historians, France and his peers.

At this point, it doesn't matter how Napoleon does. Critics might love it or critics might hate it. It might crater at the box office, or it might single-handedly resuscitate the theatrical viewing experience. It really doesn't matter a jot. Because what does matter is that Napoleon is a Ridley Scott film, and this means that Ridley Scott has to talk in public again, and this by far the most important thing. Because Ridley Scott talking about anything in public is wonderful.

Even better, it seems as though Ridley Scott has got wind that, while most people seem to love Napoleon, some people don't. As such, he has become a little defensive. This is the best possible news for all of us.

The headline from Ridley Scott's Napoleon charm offensive came during an interview with the BBC this weekend. Scott was informed of some less than stellar French reviews of his film – French GQ called it "deeply clumsy" and "unintentionally funny" – to which Scott replied with the following solid gold banger: "The French don't even like themselves."

But don't think that insulting an entire country is enough for Scott. Speaking to the Sunday Times's Jonathan Dean last weekend, he also reserved some ire for historians, some of whom have suggested that Napoleon might not be the most rigorously accurate film ever made. Scott responded by addressing the entire historian community. "Excuse me, mate, were you there?" he raged. "No? Well, shut the f**k up then."

Then there's Sunday's interview with the Evening Standard, which strayed far enough from the brief to include his thoughts on whether or not Earth has been visited by aliens ("How did the Egyptians build the pyramids? Rolling 20-tonne stones on logs? f**k off!"). Thematically, this is of a piece with his recent interview with Deadline, in which he started to warn about the dangers of AI, only to end up boasting about his readiness for the apocalypse ("We are all completely f**ked. We're back to candles and matches. Do you have candles and matches at home? I live in France, so I do.

Even the long and ponderous New Yorker profile of Scott from earlier this month came to life when he was given free rein to just riff about whatever happened to be ambiently passing through his mind, which at that point in time was baboons. "Can you hang from that roof for two hours by your left leg?" he asked his interviewer. "No! A baboon can."

What I hope is clear from this is that Ridley Scott is the world's greatest interviewee. A blistering mix of northern club comic, taxi driver and literal vehicular juggernaut, you never so much interview Scott as cling on for dear life while he just says whatever he wants. I spoke to him during the pandemic, about a TV show whose pilot he had directed. Ostensibly a three-way phoner with the show's creator, it very quickly became The Ridley Scott Show. He was variously exasperated with his adult children, incredibly angry at the prospect that anyone might be sceptical about the existence of aliens ("The idea that we are it in this galaxy is f**king nonsense") and describing a work ethic that would kill a man half his age. At one point he called me "dude". I've never been so happy at work in my entire life.

And the good news is that there will be more interviews with Ridley Scott. Once Napoleon is out in the world, he'll continue filming Gladiator 2. Then, five months from now, he'll start shooting a western. He's also slated to make an action film about an assassin on the lam, plus a handful of TV pilots. Every one of these projects will require publicity, providing Ridley Scott ample opportunities to bark bluntly about whatever he likes to dozens of outlets. Every interview will be insane, and obviously wonderful.

Martin Scorsese is 81, and all his most recent print profiles have been haunted by the spectre of death. Ridley Scott, meanwhile, is five years older than Scorsese, and all his profiles are full of either great walloping insults about French people or weird facts about baboons. The difference in attitude speaks volumes about Scott's reputation as a workhorse. Indeed, when questioned about Scorsese's existential angst by the Times, true to form, he barked "Well, since he started Killers of the Flower Moon I've made four films." Scott isn't remotely nostalgic, cares little for legacy. What matters to Ridley Scott is the next thing on his list, and the thing after that. Sometimes that might be a historical blockbuster, other times it might be another hilariously bullish chat with an interviewer who can't believe their luck. Fortunately for all of us, death seems to be right at the bottom of his list. And long may it continue.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/20/ridley-scott-napoleon-interviewee

[Ingwar]

New interview with Ridley Scott conducted by ABC News:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlkBuEdXBRc

Scott when asked question if he did ever forgive Hollywood choosing Cameron to direct Aliens: "dude, I got fired twice on Blade Runner"    


Assassin movie and handful of TV pilots. Blade Runner and Alien?

[Mr.Turok]

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.

Poor excuses when others had succeeded where he is failing.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

Goodness gracious man, he's not failing. He didn't want to create a Napoleon documentary. He wanted to create his own tale, his own spin on Napoleon. Is a man not allowed to do that?

That meme is laughable by the way, because Napoleon actually DID make "his enemies fall through ice". Just not on the massive scale as previously thought.

Here's a History lesson for you, professor Turok, from the highly acclaimed Napoleon biography by Andrew Roberts.

Napoleon then left the Pratzen heights at speed for the tower of the Chapel of St Anthony which overlooked the whole lake region, in order to command the last stage of the battle. Buxhöwden's Russian force was split in two and fled east of the frozen lakes and across them, whereupon Napoleon had his gunners open fire on the ice. This incident led to the myth that thousands of Russians drowned as the ice cracked, though recent excavations of the reclaimed land at Lake Satschan turned up only a dozen corpses and a couple of guns. 118 Overall, however, the Allied forces suffered terribly as they fled the field closely pursued by French cavalry and fired upon by artillery that had been brought up to the heights. (Austrian cavalrymen wore no backs to their breastplates, which made them lighter to carry in attack but left them highly vulnerable to sword and lance thrusts and to canister shot in retreat.)

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

New Europa Press interview with Ridley Scott about Napoleon in which he mostly talks about AI, Mars and Musk: