Ridley Scott’s panoramic masterpiece plunges us into the world of Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix), the famous French emperor who’s uncompromising ambition pushed him to the brink of addiction, power, and love. Filled with lavish and epic battle scenes, the stunning romance with Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) acts as the heartbeat of this historical biopic. (dir. Ridley Scott, U.S, 2023, 158m)
From the New Yorker: Scott, who has filmed and fought more than his share of battles, will turn eighty-six this month, a week after the release of “Napoleon,” his twenty-eighth film. His movies have tackled other Great Men of History (Moses, Columbus), as well as aliens, androids, con men, gangsters, goblins, soldiers, serial killers, and the Gucci family. He creates visceral worlds, whether the rain-streaked, mechanized dystopia of “Blade Runner” or the dusty Roman arenas of “Gladiator,” and several of his screen images—a slime-covered creature bursting out of an astronaut’s chest in “Alien,” Thelma and Louise zooming off a cliff—are lodged firmly in the popular imagination. But he’s tough to pin down. “Is Ridley a fine artist? Is he an art-cinema director? Is he a commercial hack? Is he all of the above?,” Paul Sammon, a writer who has published three books about Scott, said. “That’s what I really enjoy about Ridley—he is unclassifiable.”
