Thanks for Dr. Lorris Chevalier for joining us to discuss how the sausage was made. I'm really hoping that our True Size series can eventually help inform more historically accurate depictions of military history
Great to get him on. But he hardly covers himself in glory. No experience of the industry, no evidence of expertise in the era, I'm amazed he took the job as he was not qualified (it should not have been offered to him in fairness).
It escapes me, how Medieval Ph.D. gets You appointment on era of 18-th19th century. Why not top notch scholar like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mikaberidze or if You want to play cool for kids choose still somebody knowledgeable like th-cam.com/video/mPPYPljxQ68/w-d-xo.html Movie was miserable from historical point of view and mainly bad, because military practice of these day was really very different... The movie is a bad English propaganda, evil Napoleon, while the real motive was power struggle between England and France over Europe. Even without Napoleon those wars would happened... It's called long history long durée try to look it up even if You don't know French.
@@bobs_toys I want to see a picture of the 2 of them standing in the cold looking in a window where the guy who did Greyhound is enjoying a warm meal with his loving family lol. Like 2 unloved mutts sitting in a shed while the Shiba Inu gets to snuggle on a doggy bed inside :)
um actually that was historically accurate, he divorced Josephine due to a lack of an heir when he was 40 before aiming for younger wives so he could get children
@@collectivesartori He may have also been under contract. Just up and leaving could have opened him up to something. And everyone needs to make a living. I doubt the guy makes a fortune every other month of the year.
@@collectivesartoriwhy should he have walked off the set tho, its not like Joaquin has any principles or anything... He's friends with ridley, ridley have him one of his biggest roles ever in one of the most successful movies ever made. Joaquin knows nothing about Napoleon, he didint even know how to portray him in the first place, as far as he was concerned he didint give two flying ducks about it, easy paycheck and a chance to hang out with an old senile friend while doing kinky stuff with a woman 15yrs his junior, he probably had a blast doing it. But yeah the movie is probably the worst ridley film in yrs and that's saying alot.
I'm British, and I love history, if your going to make a biopic of a historical figure, do it right. Napoleon is without question one of the greatest military minds in history. as well as being massively influential on the development of Europe. Bloody yanks. their short history is the only thing they put any effort into
This is eerily similar to the historical advisor for Mel Gibson's The Patriot. At one point, Jason Isaacs even asked why they bothered to bring the advisor there, and the guy said that he thought so that Mel Gibson could say that they have a historical advisor for his movie.
It's so they can go on press junkets and say things like 'Oh our advisor Rick helped us on the fight scenes and he was just amazing' and then you talk to Rick and he's like 'They asked me one question and I don't think they even listened to my reply' lol.
@@texas_rubyranger9304 Agree the big fail with this movie is it wasn't fun like his other epics or Gibson's. He just made a dour movie about a guy who he paints as eternally dour (he wasn't) and there's no wit or memorable highs contrasted with lows. I would've been just fine if Josephine was a character in this that was only ever mentioned by name. So things like the Battle of the Pyramids doesn't get truncated so he can go back and have awkward coitus and make us all watch and hate it. I can't believe he wanted to call this movie 'Kitbag' at one point like it was all about the rise and fall of this lowly officer to greatness but I can see why he saw that as a bit of a tall ask.
So, in other words, Ridley Scott hired a bunch of people who wouldn't disagree with him (no offense, Dr. Chevalier-- it's part of the job), who didn't specialize in the field (though I'm sure Dr. Chevalier did an exceptional job with his research), got him to focus on the relationship rather than the character or events, and said "don't tell me when I'm doing something inaccurate." Yep, I think we can see why the film ended up the way it did.
I’m at 11:29 and that’s exactly what I heard. He said he is a mediaevalist and Napoleon wasn’t his specialty and he just understood the relationships and mindset of a person. That is wild to go with that over the events. Made Napoleon the opposite of what he was. That’s like making Joe Biden the personality of Trump lmao 🤣
@@AniTube-ds8uz remember when the credits roll for any movie it takes two songs. That’s money that was spent. They need to trim the fat because all the extra didn’t help. Hired about 20 HA and the movie ended up not even being close to historic. Just the name a land names of battles.
Hearing Lorris Chevalier's perspective both impressed me and made me sad, because he's obviously very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Napoleonic history [even though it wasn't his subject originally], but he's also, at least in my opinion a GIANT yesman. The way he talks about his personal relationship with Ridley Scott and the importance of "working your elbows" [rubbing elbows], the way he mostly refuses to criticize a film that was OBVIOUSLY, in hindsight, a disaster in terms of historicity and deflects, whenever criticism is offered, towards [shoddy] narrative framing, the way he pumps up the film and the little moments where individual actors and production designers demonstrated interest in the history despite the fact that none of that is reflected in the film itself... he acts like he's still in denial about how this film turned out. Like... the film overall was a disaster, but the color of Josephine's dog was right, and he's just so happy about that! He reminds us, at the beginning, that Ridley Scott fired tons of historical advisors before settling Chevalier, who he has stuck with ever since and... it's not hard to see why. He's a YESMAN. He was so proud to talk about how Ridley Scott wanted to give him a Christmas gift, like any of that matters, and it makes me sad because it demonstrates the kind of historian that Hollywood wants. I'm not blaming Chevalier. He's clearly a very competent historian, but he was steamrolled by Hollywood, and transformed into something a prop himself, it would seem.
Ridley Scott isn't really Hollywood, he's always done his own thing his own way he just started a "trend" so to say that others have been tyring to imitate he himself included, so don't blame Hollywood on this one Strong and competent people get rolled by Hollywood, not spineless yesmen
Historians barely get payed, they often take these jobs knowing they are purely PR so they can keep the lights on. When I was looking into university every archaeology department pretty much said that, they get so little university money they usually have to compete to get archaeology contracts for public works
How did you interpret the first 15 minutes of the interview? He, I think pretty clearly, explained how historical advisors will just lose control of the authenticity of the movie completely if they insist on fighting the director/crew on everything. Maybe he could have done a better job, but the “job”, unsurprisingly, is to gently nudge the film in the right direction, and be easy to work with. There is not a job on earth that does not require some type of “yes man” behavior. I don’t see how anyone can blame this guy.
Yeah he was working with Ridley on Last duel and was hired again, yet he's pretty well informed about Napoleon. Check the part were he gave tips Phoenix during the coronation scene. He knows stuff.
While I kind of a agree, I think my take from this interview is, that this wasn't by far the main problem of this film, and having had a "genuine" Napoleon scholar in that advisor position would likely not have managed to make it any less bad.
@@domsjuk absolutely. Lorris could've a good enough job, or a great one even. But a ship runs on the Captain's commands; If Riddley says "Give Ney a beard" you do it.
What happened is people insanely believed that the guy who made Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven was even slightly interested in telling historical biopics. He makes movies that he thinks are going to be blockbusters and he's not even right about what works half the time. This is the movie where I lost the last bit of respect I had for him as a filmmaker. Guy think's he's so smart and all of his historical changes suit his blockbuster-first mentality and this time it finally blew up in his face. And THANK GOD it did. Surely this will prevent him from telling a WW2 documentary that spends 2/3 of the runtime on Eva Braun.
@@02Machiavelli In one sense he is a genius; shot composition and execution. Guy never makes ugly or poorly made films. But the stories were never the strong suit. IMO he's a poor judge of what a compelling story is and he's just sort of rolled the dice correctly on it a few times.
Ridley is a perfect director, in the sense that he is precisely as good as his scripts. He is a clear pane of glass onto the script. Blade Runner and Napoleon are perfect expressions of the Blade Runner and Napoleon scripts. The caveat is the director can often control\accept eject the script. The inaccuracy of Napoleon is inherent in the script. Even Phoenix's acting as an uncharismatic leader, takes its cue from what's in the script. Still Ridley's fault, but his faults as a director are that limited.
Still don't know why he hired a scriptwriter with some lukewarm movies. Were they pals or something? Do you really think Napoleon would say "You think you are so great because you have boats". Just sounds like a cringey joke. Sometimes I think the movie is more of a comedy while I was watching.
I am working on a relatively serious board game about Napoleonics. i.e. I am obsessed with Napoleon and read surely 3000 pages of research to make the boardgame what I envisioned (on top of whatever else I read on Napoleonics in the first 50 years of my life). I was SURE I would go see this movie. Since its release and discovering the crazy interpretation and inaccuracies, I have refused to see it and have told my father and brother to avoid it as well. When I saw Napoleon leading a cavalry charge, skewering Allied soldiers, and heard someone yelling "Over the top!" in the Waterloo scene, I was DONE even considering whether I should see the movie. Seems to me that the 1981 Time Bandits movie representation of Napoleon was entirely more rewarding than this Ridley Scott version would be. XD
I was looking forward to seeing Napoleon in theaters but decided not to after the awful reviews. I subscribe to Apple TV+, mostly to watch the very good Masters OF The Air. Since the theatrical version of Napoleon will be available without paying extra on March 1, I will probably watch it then from the comfort of my home. Maybe I will make fun of it like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I loved his comment about if a painter wants to stick a space snip in the middle of his painting he will. I think that summarizes everything perfectly.
Mel Gibson was never good with historical accuracy. Regardless, The Patriot and Braveheart are old favorites of mine, for all their flaws. They got me interested in the time periods at least.
@CocoAsticot a huge amount of that film is focused on badly done romance and its not exactly what I'd call a good comedy film. There's like maybe fifteen minutes of action in the whole thing
My takes: + They chose an advisor only for the relationship with Josephine. + The script was fully created in advance without the advisor's input, who influenced only details during shooting and actors' prep. (You can find online an interview with the writer scarpa where he "details" how much he "documented" himself.) + The historical topics in which Scott has knowledge show that his perspective is British ethnocentrism; and as any kind of ethnocentrism, it's compatible only with immature, shallow and preconceived interpretations of history.
I think what happened is they hired the historical advisor, locked him in a cleaning closet for those 2 years, and then let him out after they wrapped filming
The "Battle for Austerlitz" part makes me wonder if the director is a "Total War" player, because IRL battles in the age with no Electrical communications, you can't command a whole army in a battlefield from a distance with just shouting.
@@masonclark531 Hannibal would station himself not far behind the frontline and have messengers on horses constantly going back and forth between the battlefield
Dr. Chevalier, thank you for being so upright and honest to present yourself in this forum. It’s especially courageous of you because the movie is so historical as it is. How totally and utterly unnecessary this is seems to me best represented by your anecdote of the sniper and the sniperscope at the Waterloo sequence. Director Scott seems to have insisted on this for just sensational reasons. Same goes for the bombardment of the pyramids. If you wanted to represent Napoleon’s skill as an artillerist, do so with the Siege of Toulon! 🤔
It's the Hollywood equivalent of an anime in an historical setting. They'll painstakingly draw the architecture and clothes to be period correct; but then have wacky shit happen that defies logic and/or physics to make the main characters look cool.
"If history is deprived of the truth you are left with nothing but a lie" Ridley Scott has now made millions of people remember the battle of Austrrelitz as a lie
I think the part that bothers me most is that the history was more interesting than what was fictionalized in the movie. If Scott was going to exercise artistic license, at least make the story more interesting than the real one. Which leads me to believe the movie was about painting Napoleon as an archetype for toxic masculinity, serving as a straw man rather than saying something meaningful about the character. Anyone watching this film without historical knowledge will walk away thinking, "wow, that's all Napoleon was? What was the big deal about this loser?" And that's a tragedy given he was one of the most important figures of the millennium.
This. I don't mind inaccurate movies if they're entertaining. I don't mind irreverent portrayals of so-called Great Men, but this was just character assassination. It's impossible to believe that Scott had any interest in Napoleon at all. Good movies can be made about bad people. This wasn't one of them.
@@Oxtocoatl13 Downfall painted a more sympathetic and humanized portrait of Hitler than Ridly Scott's film did of Napoleon. Think of that! When you've somehow managed to make a character less sympathetic than Adolf Hitler (when they were objectively a better person), you've really screwed the pooch. This outcome shouldn't be a surprise to anyone however when you have Scott grouping Napolean into the same league as people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in interviews prior to the film's release.
@@DovahFett That's true. This film is so laser focused on not ever portraying Napoleon in any kind of positive light that he comes across as a complete caricature. It's like Downfall where Hitler is the one from Inglorious Basterds. Everyone else behaves like they're in a serious historical epic and then there's this one dude who spends his time being cuckolded by his wife and yelling to the British in impotent rage. What baffles me most is that they also never show any of Napoleon's many crimes. The only villanous things he does in the movie is how he treats his wife.
This is why it’s so hard for Hollywood to get historical advisors, most experts in a particular field wouldn’t even entertain an offer from a guy like Scott. They know better than to get pulled into that world of cultivating relationships over telling the truth in the first place. For historians, the only way to win Hollywood’s game, is to not play.
What the advisor's job was on the set: "well I was the only historian that wasn't fired, so I shuttled a celebrity around Paris, I did some spell checking, and the rest of the time I was just sitting there being ignored". yeah, no wonder the film turned out the way it did
Merci Julien et l'equipe d'Invicta pour ce superbe format. Peu importe notre opinion sur le film, c'est toujours fascinant de découvrir ce qu'il s'est passé dans la tête des gens qui font ces films. J'espère qu'un jour ils feront appel à vous pour une production historique!
The only accurate period pieces Scott ever made were Blake Hawk Down bc the Army wouldn't supply the props and training without it respecting the actual events, and to some degree the Deulists simply bc a few props and dates are hard to ruin. It isn't 2000 anymore, people have access to information like never before and "Gladiator" won't fly anymore.
Remember in black hawk down the enemy is completly dehumanized and fails to show the immense casualties of civilians and rebels in comparison to the miniscule loss of life by the NATO troops
@@reeyees50 Black hawk Down also consistently portrays the Americans as more professional, surgical and efficient than they really were. Which, considering the film came out just as the USA was discussing whether to invade Iraq, can be seen as pure government propaganda.
@@CMP-st5wh In many respects, yes, but there also inaccuracies and omissions. For one, in the beginning of the film, when the Americans arrest a Somali financier, they make a big deal of stopping his car with a single bullet through the engine, fired by a sniper. In real life, they riddled the car with bullets, killing and wounding several people. For another example, towards the end of the film, as the Americans are hunkered down in a house surrounded by enemies, one of them heroically goes out and throws a strobe light to the enemy position, allowing for helicopters to destroy it with accuracy. In real life, the Americans lit their own positions with strobe lights and the helicopters destroyed whatever wasn't marked as a friendly position. The film also completely leaves out the Abdi House Raid, which is the reason why everyone in Mogadishu hated the UN forces, despite them being ostensibly there to help them. Not to mention the film mostly leaves out the Pakistani and Malaysian troops who, according to survivors, were critical to the extraction of American troops and also suffered casualties in the heavy fighting. All of these are fairly small inaccuracies, but they're consistent in presenting the American military as more elite and surgical, and the war in Somalia as cleaner and more morally black-and-white than it really was.
@@Oxtocoatl13 I've never walked away from that film with the thought that the conflict in Somalia was "elite and surgical". It was a complete mess in reality, and it comes off as a complete mess in the film. The changes you point out do nothing to alter that tone.
France is angry and disappointed but I can tell you Italy didn't like this film either. All the wars, politics, and history Napoleon went through in the Italian territories were entirely cut and summed up in a sentence that went like "...and then Italy surrendered" (as if the unified country of Italy existed at the time). It's a pity because Napoleon's relationship with his Italian roots would have been interesting to explore, and the Italian campaigns are when he really went from being an unknown general to an established figure and where his myth really started.
All the historical misrepresentation of the movie wasn‘t Joaquin Phoenix‘s fault. He’s great and versatile actor! It all seemed to have happened at the whim of the director and a bad script by an inexperienced, ill-informed writer 🤨
Gladiator is a story written by someone who got an A+ in creative writing class but failed history. That's his thing. I suppose we should also thank Mel Gibson for proofing the formula for industry use.
I love Gladiator and I love the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven. In both movies, I didn't mind the "artistic vision" diverting from History, sometimes a lot, because it was done for the sake of telling a good story. In Napoleon, there is no artistic vision, it's just a mess.
@@karljohan3989 At least in those movies it's about a protagonist hero. There's no heroics or great words of wisdom in this film it's just an exercise in making Napoleon look difficult and unready and subdued by everything in his path. It's almost miraculous that he wins the battles he's supposed to win in this movie. Or that they even showed his wins or his rise to power at all. Because it sure didn't look like they were interested in any of his upsides. Everything about this production tells me the film should have started in Borodino and been about nothing but his downfall and the 100 days. Especially casting Joaquin. If you want to sour the audience and make them sad about that part of history you only need to tell that part; no need to waste half the film on Josephine and an Indiana Jones conquering montage.
@@karljohan3989 Ancient History and the medieval era had limited sources so he’s got more room to have more artistic creativity and a bit more acceptable. But this, with more sources….. what’s the point of having a advisor if going the opposite direction.
I am not surprised Scott fires historical advisors when they point out issues. His movies are less historically accurate then game of thrones. Scott is someone I consider a true enemy of public history.
There needs to be a post end credit scene where Joachim Phoenix plays a patient in a mental hospital who awakens, revealing that everything the audience just witnessed was his fevered but lucid dream of himself imagining he was Napoleon. At least it would explain the historical inaccuracies, weird time jumps, and other anomalies.
Definitely. This version of Napoleon could have been a serviceable villain for a movie about someone more interesting. The fact that there were basically no other characters just put him under a spotlight and gave him far too much screen time.
When Chevalier says he would not have put Napoleon barraging the pyramids he's trying to have his cake and eat it. His name is on movie, this is the only Napoleon movie he's worked on. By not threatening to resign or literally throwing himself in front of the camera, Chevalier approved of putting it in the movie.
I mean, would you risk getting fired over a bad creative choice by your boss, who gets to make those choices anyway? This was his job and livelihood, not some high-minded matter of honor. He was the historical advisor, his role is to give advise. He is not responsible if that advice is ignored or never asked for.
That's literally what an ADVISOR does, they give ADVICE. His job was to advise the director, it's not his job to make the decisions. If he quit right there the movie would still have been made, but even less historically accurate. He would have lost his job, still had his name in the credits as an advisor, and someone else would have gotten the job of being ignored instead. The mere fact that he chose to do this interview and make his existence known is telling because he didn't have to come out and interact with the people who were ripping the historical accuracy. What he's saying is that Scott is notorious for firing advisors that get in his way, and that he did the best he could because getting fired would mean he couldn't have had any positive impact on the movie at all.
@@restitvtororbis5330 I don't know, 11% accurate vs. 8%accurate isn't a big leap, and they really could have put his salary towards a better screenwriter to clean up the dogshit script.
@@InvictaHistory Looks great. Great episode, btw. We don't often get to hear a long one on one with a historical advisor and how that flows. Two thumbs up!
Sorry but saying some scene are burlesque and absurd is plain dishonest. The majority of people which have or will see this film will believe what they saw as true and even if some might know it's not genuine this will nonetheless impact their vision of history way more than any (great) history book that are quoted in this interview that frankly no one will read. The student from La Sorbonne was right. Gizeh Pyramid destruction for local people would fell like 9-11. Voluntary destruction of culture is an element of genocide and lying - and lets be clear it's a voluntary plain lie not some creative liberty - is inflammatory and intellectually criminal. No disrespect to M. Chevalier, it's not is movie. But I would be utterly ashamed to have my name associated with this movie, especially as historical advisor. If this kind of portray had been done to Washington or Lincoln he would face so much troubles.
Youre right: despite ongoing modern Middle Eastern fundamentalism being an issue in Egypt they wont touch the history. Even in the middle ages the Caliph, a Caliph who made a hole in an attempt to destroy the Pyramids was killed by a mob! And he's still a hated figure That would be like if in Rome they celebrated killing a Pope, they take their history seriously
I've been waiting for an interview like this on the film. What did he think of the sword fight at the end between Boney and Welly? Ridley Scott at his finest!
I'll stand up for Lorris on one point. Having a PhD in history means you know how to resesrch history- not just the topic you did your thesis on. So it was good to hear him explain. Ridley gave him one year to research the relationship. Not anything else! Ridley didn't care about anything else. Lorris was just following the brief.
Exactly. The study of history, especially on this level, is the study of research skills, not memorization of facts. I wager that given a year of dedicated, paid time, most people with a Master's or a PhD in history could acquire the knowledge necessary for this kind of project. Of course an expert will have an easier time and get even better results, but still.
50:09 is a perfect example of why this guy is completely illegitimate as a "historical advisor" of this time period and is simply a yes man for whoever is paying him on the set. In his mind the only way you could show Napoleon was the last "fighting king" is to literally show him on the back of a horse swinging a sword at enemy troops. When he even admits it isnt remotely accurate. This is a BS excuse and there are plenty of smarter more historically accurate ways of showing he was a fighter. Not some Marvel level crap where he is charging into a battlefield melee with his cavalry.
Damn, I know he doesn’t have any effect on the movie made he can just advise but could you imagine how embarrassing it would be to admit that you worked on Napoleon lol
I love Napoleon. When Ridley dropped him dead in the end on that chair outside on St. Helena, I burst out laughing in the cinema. Fuck you Ridley Scott.
As another guy who has worked as a historical advisor for a (domestic) major production, it's quite funny to hear about the exact same things from a more global production. I spent 4 years working in the project and I can't even imagine trying to squeeze all that experience and all the stories in 2 hours of interview. "Painting a space ship" story does sound VERY familiar as an experience.... :)
People have said it in multiple ways in many comments but what I get out of this interview is that Ridley Scott doesn't want a Historical Advisor, and that Chevalier isn't really a historical advisor. He's a "historical yesman" who just gives Scott what he wants to hear and then gives pointers to people working on stuff that Ridley doesn't care about/notice. When a production wants real in-depth advise, they hire experts specific to the topic/time period and have them working with the writers ewven before they start writing the script. I hope that Scott stays far away from historical movies and that the doctor ends up working for a project whose leads actually value his expertise and willingness to work hard.
I haven't seen this movie. So I don't know what happened. But, I happened to watch the 1970 Waterloo film before the Scotts version was released. Does anyone have input on how both films differ? I can't imagine the movie was that bad. Also , I think people from the 70s were alot more patient and involved than people these days.
The 70s version used several thousand Soviet soldiers to physically reenact the battles in fields in Ukraine. And they stayed focused purely on Napoleon returning from Elba, the Coalition reacting and everyone gearing up for Waterloo. They put a lot more effort and skill into it
Well, you can glance over wrong dates and year, and the timeline of things, but when the battle of Austerlitz is all concentratet in one valley, and a single forward Attack Mode and the strategic part of that battle abscent. Then you know.. and offcourse Napolen leading a charge in the battle for Waterloo... It was a major let down, especially compared to Waterloo (1970)
It was very off putting how bizarrely focused Julien was to sticking to a time schedule, rather than the content or the person he was supposedly interviewing. I have never ever seen an an interview where the time “budget was discussed so openly and frequently, and found it quite distracting and unprofessional. At times he seemed distracted, to the point of seeming disinterested in the discussion at hand. It was as if a production assistant whose job it was to hector the talent about time, but was generally and correctly ignored, was suddenly called upon to conduct an interview when the normal hosts were sick, and then proceeded with the interview as if guided by the motto “This time, we are sticking to the schedule.” Absurd.
Unfortunately, even if the film production had involved a whole team of prominent Napoleonic scholars and researchers, it would've essentially the same outcome. A director decides whether or not to honor the atmosphere and spirit of the subject era long before filming begins. Ridley Scott wanted to create a film about his own original character who vaguely resembles Napoleon Bonaparte and stumbles through a story that is faintly similar to his life. Having accurate regimental standards or ensuring Josephine's dog is the right color would be great details if the rest of the film actually wanted to capture a remotely faithful image of Napoleon. Otherwise, it's wasted effort.
As a Napoleon buff and student of history I tried removing the bias I had towards unhistorical events but some things weren’t acceptable. 1. Napoleon divorces Josephine before Tilsit in 1807 and not after like historically. 2. The underrepresentation of the marshals 3. Borodino scène is Napoleon charging in a Republican uniform against Austrians?!?! [possibly scenes made for Marengo] 4. Napoleon dying 5. As a Belgian I was astonished they used “La muette de Portici” which was the song that mythologically inspired the Belgian revolution of 1830. The best scene of the movie imo was Toulon when you forget that napoleons horse wasn’t blown up. Vive l’Empereur!
I suppose it’s more of a structure point than historical accuracy, exactly, but I hate how poorly the movie portrays the passage of time. It makes all of the Coalition Wars feel like a single nonstop event, rather than being quite different conflicts. It’s almost fun to watch as a historical inaccuracy issue-spotter though.
About Number 3 I was also very confused when I watched the movie. Marengo is also mentioned when they list the battles and casualties in the movie. So it's very likely that Marengo will be part of the 4h long director's cut and seeing that scene in the theater version is a proof that the movie was butchered for the sake of being shown in theaters.
Also the argument that Napoleon was the last fighting king is a joke. It’s not because Napoleon as emperor was in command doesn’t need to be shown as him fighting in the thick of battle. Movie before this one never showed this, look at Waterloo 1970, Austerlitz 1960 and Napoleon 2002 these were historically accurate
@@rick7424 An elected and appointed dictator who was loved by the people and got attacked from all of Europe In 1815 he even established the liberal empire which was a constitutional monarchy so the best emperor ever
A movie originally called Napoleon and Josephine, with a plot centered around Napoleon and Josephine's failed marriage, in which historically Josephine being significantly older was a massive factor - and no one really cares that they cast not just one but two actresses who both look almost half the age of Joaquin Phoenix? That should have been the first thing in the list of things the movie got egregiously wrong. And yeah, we don't need all the Marshals. But not having Lannes and Murat in a story about Napoleon is unforgivable. Along with his divorce from Josephine, Lannes' death was another factor that coincided with, and possibly contributed to the dramatic change in Napoleon's career .
Being a historical advisor on any Hollywood production must be mildly frustrating a lot of the time. The rest of the time it must be really frustrating.
While I think this guy was a decent enough pick for historical advisor, I however think Ridley didn't switch to a more period advisor, because he already knew this guy wouldn't push back to hard about inaccuracies! I think using the obviously wrong equipment, places, characters and other inaccuracies simply for easy of filming or to push an idea is a little bit of a cop out, I have seen many productions that try to keep as much accuracy as possible and we're good films, historical pieces should have real history in them!
1:51:20 This was far from the norm for battles of the era. Most encounters where one unit tried to close with another would result in one side withdrawing before they got to bayonet range... a mosh-pit of soldiers is nearly impossible to command, as well. A formation disintegrating into a chaotic melee is a disaster for a commander.
This is amazing that you've been able to get an interview with the historical advisor of a mainstream big-budget historical blockbuster, i know we're all frustrated with this film but you've really set yourself apart from almost all other videos on the subject by being able to ask people involved with the film itself. Of course we know that someone like Ridley Scott will never interview anyone who isn't smitten by him and brown-nosing him like most online interviews are nowadays with these robotic studio-puppet interviewers ahead of a film's promotional run.
I know the feeling I was one of the historical advisors on the Mel Gibson film set in Vietnam. The production team basically ignored everything we submitted
I have a hard time understanding his pronounciation. At first I thought he was talking about lindybeige being an advisor on Troy. But I don't think that's what he meant rather that lindybeige told this story before.
The Napoleon movie aside, should really be mentioned that Chevalier's expertise really shines through on The Last Duel. The best part of that movie is that the characters' morals and beliefs feel truly rooted in a medieval mindset, which is much more important for historical representation than sets, costumes, and specific events.
Got to love how Dr Chevalier hides behind the academics excuse: 'My real expertise is Mediaeval history'. I'm sorry but an average person with a mild interest in this topic, who has read a coffee table book on Napoleon, will know how badly he is represented in this film. But then, Scott did fire 7 previous historical advisors for bothering him with 'shit' so I can see why he let so much stuff go. Especially when working on a film with a big budget... Personally I'm surprised he's publicly owning up to having any role in producing this!
*What happened was that people forgot what **_Kingdom of Heaven_** and **_Gladiator_** were: sub-par historical epics directed by a guy who has no business making historical epics.*
The difference is that those two films are entertaining to people who aren't that into history. Both are still beloved epics 20 years later. Napoleon was just a snooze-fest character assassination.
@@Oxtocoatl13 I don't doubt that _King of Heaven_ and _Gladiator_ had their entertaining moments, so long as in each case one kept their brain turned-off until the end of the movie and didn't think too hard about it afterwards.
Before I watched the movie, I had friends, who consider themselves to be history buffs, tell me after they watched it that the movie should have been called "Josephine" rather than Napoleon. After watching it, I kind of agree. Napoleon didn't feel like the main character.
The tragedy is, a really good movie could be made about Josephine, with Napoleon as the abusive husband/antagonist. But that film wouldn't be a grand historical epic with large battles, but more of an indoor costume drama. Scott wanted the big battles but had no interest in Napoleon the man.
This is hearsay, so maybe it wasn't related exactly as it happened, but it was telling when Scott said he wanted to depict "the first sniper in history" in that scene. I don't have an issue with the scene as an homage to Waterloo or as a way of showing that the coalition was at war not with France but with an individual. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but if Scott's motivation was also to depict "the first sniper in history," it shows the completely different conception of history that a powerful director with an unrestrained vision has compared to a historian or lover of history. For many of us, "the first sniper in history" would be a specific historical figure, whether we actually know who he is or not. History is the actual record of human events, and this is part of it. We might be interested in finding out who that was, and when and where, and what technological developments made it possible, etc. And if we said, "you know, I would like to make a film, or even a little scene in a film about the first sniper in history," we would probably mean that in the sense of depicting, honoring, making note of that person in his context and with those interesting historical contingencies that surrounded it. Or we might compromise as Chevalier wanted to with the Plunkett, who was arguably a first sniper in history, say. And we would be interested in the details of that--the recumbant stance, the skill involved, whatever. But for Ridley Scott, "the first sniper in history" is the guy he inserts into his "historical" film to be the first sniper in history. "History" means people wearing costumes; Scott's not particularly interested in what actually happened before he was born. What the sniper looks like and uses and does reflects Scott's steampunk fantasy of what that ought to look like, and the purpose is "because I want to because that would be cool and funny." And even though to us getting it right would be cool, and actual historical coincidences can be funny, for him what makes it cool is that he did it and what makes it funny is that he thought "wouldn't it be funny if..." So the sense in which he can depict "the first sniper in history" is ultimately hollow, because tomorrow Steven Spielberg can make a movie about Alexander and staple a rifle scope to a Tyrian archer's bow and depict the new "first sniper in history" at the siege of Tyre. When Ridley Scott makes a "historical" film, his self-recognized accomplishments as a relator of history are the same as when a dictator creates a new medal to award himself for service to the revolution. He can have the first sniper and be the first to show Napoleon bombarding the pyramids and be the first to show how Napoleon was an incel, to tell the true story, and he can sit in his chair with his chest covered in medals and people can clap for him as long as they're forced to until they aren't anymore and then we can laugh at him like we laugh at some tinpot dictator's ridiculous uniform studded with bottle caps and plastic stars.
in short Ridley doesnt care, other than get his vision on the screen.. Well, we all knew this after his previous movies, but this time it was so obvious shortcuts and just for the picture moments.. that it became ridicilous.
Ridley sounds more and more like a self obsessed ignorant tyrant every time I hear about him. If you going to make a historical movie, make it historical, it's as simple as that. It's offensive and disrespectful to the real people these stories are told about to change their appearances or actions. We want historical accuracy.
Okay i just can't. Good lord, nothing against this guy personally but, as a Phd in history myself, how in the WORLD did he get hired on this movie? From his own description he is a MEDIEVAL historian who spent 7 years writing in what sounds like the now largely defunct field of psych-history from the 1990's. So he focused his whole doctoral program trying to understand the mind and worldview of 12th century knights. And then gets hired to advise on a 200 million dollar movie about 18th and 19th century france. I specialize in late nineteenth and early twentieth century america, i now cannot wait to be hired as an advisor on Hannibal movie coming out in a few years. Lord almighty, they must have just grabbed the nearest french historian at random for the sole reason of having "historical advisor" in the credits to give the impression they cared at all about history. And if this dude advised on the "mentality" of napoleonic soldiers and the man himself, then he did it wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, there are thousands of experts in the exact field of revolutionary and napoleonic france, they didn't bother to find one for this movie. What do you think they thought about the importance of history in a historical movie by that fact alone.
Who is this guy? Where’s the British guy who narrates everything? Also i know it’s not the consultants fault the film was a joke of history and Napoleon himself but man, must have been a hard check to cash…
Just watch “Waterloo”. There will never be anything better on this subject matter. As for Napoleon, it would literally take several seasons of mini series to even begin to cover everything he accomplished. Trying to cover all that in a single film was, and is, insane.
I think the bottom line we can all agree on is that this movie wasted over half of its screen time with pointless scenes not a single soul on earth asked for or even had the beginning of an inkling of wanting to see, they completely misjudged the audience this film would draw in for no reason, oh, you love Napoleonic warfare and shit blowing up and learning about the marshals and the intricate nature of battles or even just conversations about the genius of logistics and the geopolitical landscape following each battle? Well heres 2 hours of Josephine and Napoleon being a cuckold... Sound good? I mean, they summarized the entire Egyptian campaign with a cannon ball hitting the pyramids.... really???? no Italian campaign, Scraps for the Russian campaign at best, though honestly this movie was so forgettable i dont even remember if they showed any of it or not. We wanted war, we got a boring drama. 3/10 because the few combat scenes they do show are actually pretty well done effects wise at least though its probably 15% of a movie about one of the greatest generals in history...
In 1812 during a peaceful summer vacation to Russia, Napoleon and his army sipped tea and played games with the Russian army. After the French army defeated the Russian army 18 - 12 in a game of soccer the Russian King lost a sports bet and had to pay Napoleon the whole of Russia as payment. Not wanting to appear mean Napoleon gave the Russian King the Island of Elba to rule as his new tiny kingdom. Napoleon then went home to Paris. But during this time the English played prank on Napoleon by fielding an army in Waterloo. Napoleon then walled to Waterloo by himself and challenged the British commander to a game of Hacky Sack. The British leader, unwilling to remove his boots could not win against the barefoot Napoleon and Napoleon kept the Hacky Sack in play for 3 minutes and 20 seconds where as the English leader only kept it in play for 1 minute 32 seconds. And that's how Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo for which he was awarded a 2 week all expenses paid dream vacation to the tropical island paradise of St. Helena. Napoleon arrived and loved it so much that he stayed on the island for the next 25 years, happy and healthy basking in the tropical sun, sipping coconut shelled drinks in a straw hat, and going scuba diving off the coral reefs.
The movie was painful to watch but in any case, this historical advisor has a family name "Chevalier" (Knight) and has a phD in medieval history, it is an incredible conjunction. I wonder if he was influenced by this when he chose his major.
haven't seen Napoleon but remembering too late that in Robin Hood, Ridley Scott "artistically" envisioned the French invasion as some kind of WWII landing operation I probably could've saved 2hrs of this interview :-/
Respect to the historical advisor. But on the other hand, maybe don't do movies with a guy who basically bends historicity of one of the most important figures in human history over the table, just because he listens to you on tiny insignificant details and offers you Christmas gifts.
Thanks for Dr. Lorris Chevalier for joining us to discuss how the sausage was made. I'm really hoping that our True Size series can eventually help inform more historically accurate depictions of military history
Great to get him on. But he hardly covers himself in glory. No experience of the industry, no evidence of expertise in the era, I'm amazed he took the job as he was not qualified (it should not have been offered to him in fairness).
He sold integrity for money, not the first nor the last.
If you ever feel unappreciated, remember that this film had a historic advisor.
Listen to him, and you will find out why that didn't mean much.
@@KaiHonsou That's exactly his point
It escapes me, how Medieval Ph.D. gets You appointment on era of 18-th19th century. Why not top notch scholar like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mikaberidze or if You want to play cool for kids choose still somebody knowledgeable like th-cam.com/video/mPPYPljxQ68/w-d-xo.html Movie was miserable from historical point of view and mainly bad, because military practice of these day was really very different... The movie is a bad English propaganda, evil Napoleon, while the real motive was power struggle between England and France over Europe. Even without Napoleon those wars would happened... It's called long history long durée try to look it up even if You don't know French.
If the Braveheart one is still around, I'd love to see them comparing notes.
Over bottles of vodka (the true drink for depressed people)
@@bobs_toys I want to see a picture of the 2 of them standing in the cold looking in a window where the guy who did Greyhound is enjoying a warm meal with his loving family lol. Like 2 unloved mutts sitting in a shed while the Shiba Inu gets to snuggle on a doggy bed inside :)
-"Napoleon was 27 in Toulon, and Josephine was 6 years older than him"
-"Got ya, 47 and his wife was like half his age. Couldn't it without you man."
🤣🤣🤣👍
um actually that was historically accurate, he divorced Josephine due to a lack of an heir when he was 40 before aiming for younger wives so he could get children
@Warriornoob615 I guess reading comprehension isnt your strong suit huh
@@Warriornoob615 bruh
@@Warriornoob615 Come again?
was moved when Lorris said "I'm involved in Egyptology, and Napoleon created Egyptology. To shoot the Pyramids was painful".
Should’ve been the point he walked off the set for good. Presumably really needed the money.
@@collectivesartori honestly, I wouldn't blame him for staying. It's Ridley after all.
@@YiannissB. some people say “everyone has their price”. I’m not completely convinced.
@@collectivesartori He may have also been under contract. Just up and leaving could have opened him up to something. And everyone needs to make a living. I doubt the guy makes a fortune every other month of the year.
@@collectivesartoriwhy should he have walked off the set tho, its not like Joaquin has any principles or anything...
He's friends with ridley, ridley have him one of his biggest roles ever in one of the most successful movies ever made.
Joaquin knows nothing about Napoleon, he didint even know how to portray him in the first place, as far as he was concerned he didint give two flying ducks about it, easy paycheck and a chance to hang out with an old senile friend while doing kinky stuff with a woman 15yrs his junior, he probably had a blast doing it.
But yeah the movie is probably the worst ridley film in yrs and that's saying alot.
The film is widely ridiculed here in France as wildly anti-historical and Anglo-centric.
Not surprised, Hollywood should be embarrassed
I'm British, and I love history, if your going to make a biopic of a historical figure, do it right. Napoleon is without question one of the greatest military minds in history. as well as being massively influential on the development of Europe. Bloody yanks. their short history is the only thing they put any effort into
As it is everywhere...
@PershingOfficial no Ridley Scott should be
It’s not great even for us, completely ignoring Trafalgar, the entire Peninsular war and somehow making Waterloo boring.
This is eerily similar to the historical advisor for Mel Gibson's The Patriot. At one point, Jason Isaacs even asked why they bothered to bring the advisor there, and the guy said that he thought so that Mel Gibson could say that they have a historical advisor for his movie.
It's similiar case here, for sure...
It's so they can go on press junkets and say things like 'Oh our advisor Rick helped us on the fight scenes and he was just amazing' and then you talk to Rick and he's like 'They asked me one question and I don't think they even listened to my reply' lol.
Except The Patriot was actually a good movie despite its inaccuracies. Ridley Scott literally didn't even try to make a cohesive story.
@@texas_rubyranger9304 Agree the big fail with this movie is it wasn't fun like his other epics or Gibson's. He just made a dour movie about a guy who he paints as eternally dour (he wasn't) and there's no wit or memorable highs contrasted with lows.
I would've been just fine if Josephine was a character in this that was only ever mentioned by name. So things like the Battle of the Pyramids doesn't get truncated so he can go back and have awkward coitus and make us all watch and hate it.
I can't believe he wanted to call this movie 'Kitbag' at one point like it was all about the rise and fall of this lowly officer to greatness but I can see why he saw that as a bit of a tall ask.
Only the Patriot is a good movie, Napoleon is absolute garbage
Damn. The film ignored this poor dude more than my wife ignores me when her boyfriend comes over
Lol. I'm single so can't relate
bruh
Oof, should have become religious and gotten a religious marriage.
@@crashtestdummy2337 like this is not happening to even religious people.
Damm
So, in other words, Ridley Scott hired a bunch of people who wouldn't disagree with him (no offense, Dr. Chevalier-- it's part of the job), who didn't specialize in the field (though I'm sure Dr. Chevalier did an exceptional job with his research), got him to focus on the relationship rather than the character or events, and said "don't tell me when I'm doing something inaccurate." Yep, I think we can see why the film ended up the way it did.
I’m at 11:29 and that’s exactly what I heard. He said he is a mediaevalist and Napoleon wasn’t his specialty and he just understood the relationships and mindset of a person. That is wild to go with that over the events. Made Napoleon the opposite of what he was. That’s like making Joe Biden the personality of Trump lmao 🤣
Ridley Scott sounds like an asshole
the fact that Ridley Scott has fired a number of Historical Advisors for correcting him and "slowing" down the movie making process is WILD
@@AniTube-ds8uz remember when the credits roll for any movie it takes two songs. That’s money that was spent. They need to trim the fat because all the extra didn’t help. Hired about 20 HA and the movie ended up not even being close to historic. Just the name a land names of battles.
"(no offense, Dr. Chevalier-- it's part of the job)"
It really fucking isn't.
Hearing Lorris Chevalier's perspective both impressed me and made me sad, because he's obviously very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about Napoleonic history [even though it wasn't his subject originally], but he's also, at least in my opinion a GIANT yesman.
The way he talks about his personal relationship with Ridley Scott and the importance of "working your elbows" [rubbing elbows], the way he mostly refuses to criticize a film that was OBVIOUSLY, in hindsight, a disaster in terms of historicity and deflects, whenever criticism is offered, towards [shoddy] narrative framing, the way he pumps up the film and the little moments where individual actors and production designers demonstrated interest in the history despite the fact that none of that is reflected in the film itself... he acts like he's still in denial about how this film turned out.
Like... the film overall was a disaster, but the color of Josephine's dog was right, and he's just so happy about that! He reminds us, at the beginning, that Ridley Scott fired tons of historical advisors before settling Chevalier, who he has stuck with ever since and... it's not hard to see why. He's a YESMAN. He was so proud to talk about how Ridley Scott wanted to give him a Christmas gift, like any of that matters, and it makes me sad because it demonstrates the kind of historian that Hollywood wants.
I'm not blaming Chevalier. He's clearly a very competent historian, but he was steamrolled by Hollywood, and transformed into something a prop himself, it would seem.
Ridley Scott isn't really Hollywood, he's always done his own thing his own way he just started a "trend" so to say that others have been tyring to imitate he himself included, so don't blame Hollywood on this one
Strong and competent people get rolled by Hollywood, not spineless yesmen
But what could he do? Nothing. This is the real role of historical advisor in Hollywood, unfortunately.
Historians barely get payed, they often take these jobs knowing they are purely PR so they can keep the lights on. When I was looking into university every archaeology department pretty much said that, they get so little university money they usually have to compete to get archaeology contracts for public works
How did you interpret the first 15 minutes of the interview? He, I think pretty clearly, explained how historical advisors will just lose control of the authenticity of the movie completely if they insist on fighting the director/crew on everything.
Maybe he could have done a better job, but the “job”, unsurprisingly, is to gently nudge the film in the right direction, and be easy to work with. There is not a job on earth that does not require some type of “yes man” behavior. I don’t see how anyone can blame this guy.
Ya his defense of stuff in the movie is incorrect and bullshit. He’s a yes man trying to get hired for another gig
I don’t envy the position this guy was put in.
He got paid for basically doing nothing, though
@@derrickstorm6976 for taking the fall and being ignored aggressively by the director, that is still deserving of pity
So as I. Historical accuracy vs Directors Vision, where vision wins.
I do. He got paid
He put himself in it.
The fact that they hired someone focusing on Medieval history instead of Napoleon points to how much they cared about historical accuracy.
Agreed. Well said.
Yeah he was working with Ridley on Last duel and was hired again, yet he's pretty well informed about Napoleon. Check the part were he gave tips Phoenix during the coronation scene. He knows stuff.
While I kind of a agree, I think my take from this interview is, that this wasn't by far the main problem of this film, and having had a "genuine" Napoleon scholar in that advisor position would likely not have managed to make it any less bad.
@@domsjuk absolutely. Lorris could've a good enough job, or a great one even. But a ship runs on the Captain's commands; If Riddley says "Give Ney a beard" you do it.
He basically hired him because he knew the guy from the last movie.
What happened is people insanely believed that the guy who made Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven was even slightly interested in telling historical biopics. He makes movies that he thinks are going to be blockbusters and he's not even right about what works half the time. This is the movie where I lost the last bit of respect I had for him as a filmmaker. Guy think's he's so smart and all of his historical changes suit his blockbuster-first mentality and this time it finally blew up in his face. And THANK GOD it did. Surely this will prevent him from telling a WW2 documentary that spends 2/3 of the runtime on Eva Braun.
Yea he thinks he is a genius director
@@02Machiavelli In one sense he is a genius; shot composition and execution. Guy never makes ugly or poorly made films. But the stories were never the strong suit. IMO he's a poor judge of what a compelling story is and he's just sort of rolled the dice correctly on it a few times.
Better delete this before he sees it 😭
Ridley is a perfect director, in the sense that he is precisely as good as his scripts. He is a clear pane of glass onto the script. Blade Runner and Napoleon are perfect expressions of the Blade Runner and Napoleon scripts. The caveat is the director can often control\accept
eject the script. The inaccuracy of Napoleon is inherent in the script. Even Phoenix's acting as an uncharismatic leader, takes its cue from what's in the script. Still Ridley's fault, but his faults as a director are that limited.
Still don't know why he hired a scriptwriter with some lukewarm movies. Were they pals or something? Do you really think Napoleon would say "You think you are so great because you have boats". Just sounds like a cringey joke. Sometimes I think the movie is more of a comedy while I was watching.
I am working on a relatively serious board game about Napoleonics. i.e. I am obsessed with Napoleon and read surely 3000 pages of research to make the boardgame what I envisioned (on top of whatever else I read on Napoleonics in the first 50 years of my life). I was SURE I would go see this movie. Since its release and discovering the crazy interpretation and inaccuracies, I have refused to see it and have told my father and brother to avoid it as well. When I saw Napoleon leading a cavalry charge, skewering Allied soldiers, and heard someone yelling "Over the top!" in the Waterloo scene, I was DONE even considering whether I should see the movie. Seems to me that the 1981 Time Bandits movie representation of Napoleon was entirely more rewarding than this Ridley Scott version would be. XD
Had an interest in Napoleon since I was a kid. I will never watch this stupid movie. Every success with the board game, my friend.
What board game?
I was looking forward to seeing Napoleon in theaters but decided not to after the awful reviews. I subscribe to Apple TV+, mostly to watch the very good Masters OF The Air. Since the theatrical version of Napoleon will be available without paying extra on March 1, I will probably watch it then from the comfort of my home. Maybe I will make fun of it like an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Tell the name of the board game :) ?
As a big fan of Napoleon I’d recommend reading it cause I audibly gasped and laughed out loud at some of the dialogue
I loved his comment about if a painter wants to stick a space snip in the middle of his painting he will. I think that summarizes everything perfectly.
This movie was S H I T E, and about as factually accurate as Braveheart
And yet Braveheart was at least fun to watch [edit] as an action comedy film
Mel Gibson was never good with historical accuracy. Regardless,
The Patriot and Braveheart are old favorites of mine, for all their flaws.
They got me interested in the time periods at least.
@CocoAsticot a huge amount of that film is focused on badly done romance and its not exactly what I'd call a good comedy film. There's like maybe fifteen minutes of action in the whole thing
@@hugovandyk9918 Gibson actually did some great historic films. We were soldiers is almost perfect
At least Braveheart didn't feel like it was mocking its subject matter. Fiction yes. Mockery, no. Napoleon was several times worse than Braveheart
My takes:
+ They chose an advisor only for the relationship with Josephine.
+ The script was fully created in advance without the advisor's input, who influenced only details during shooting and actors' prep. (You can find online an interview with the writer scarpa where he "details" how much he "documented" himself.)
+ The historical topics in which Scott has knowledge show that his perspective is British ethnocentrism; and as any kind of ethnocentrism, it's compatible only with immature, shallow and preconceived interpretations of history.
I think what happened is they hired the historical advisor, locked him in a cleaning closet for those 2 years, and then let him out after they wrapped filming
The "Battle for Austerlitz" part makes me wonder if the director is a "Total War" player, because IRL battles in the age with no Electrical communications, you can't command a whole army in a battlefield from a distance with just shouting.
It looked like an anime fight
No he’s just (at this point) an idiot with too much power and too much money.
Depending on the time and place in history the were many systems such as flags or musical instruments
@@masonclark531 Hannibal would station himself not far behind the frontline and have messengers on horses constantly going back and forth between the battlefield
12:54 "Don't bother me with shit." The ego of that man...
Dr. Chevalier, thank you for being so upright and honest to present yourself in this forum. It’s especially courageous of you because the movie is so historical as it is. How totally and utterly unnecessary this is seems to me best represented by your anecdote of the sniper and the sniperscope at the Waterloo sequence. Director Scott seems to have insisted on this for just sensational reasons. Same goes for the bombardment of the pyramids. If you wanted to represent Napoleon’s skill as an artillerist, do so with the Siege of Toulon! 🤔
It's the Hollywood equivalent of an anime in an historical setting. They'll painstakingly draw the architecture and clothes to be period correct; but then have wacky shit happen that defies logic and/or physics to make the main characters look cool.
"If history is deprived of the truth you are left with nothing but a lie"
Ridley Scott has now made millions of people remember the battle of Austrrelitz as a lie
Ive never seen such a well prepared and structured Interview on YT! Well done.
I think the part that bothers me most is that the history was more interesting than what was fictionalized in the movie. If Scott was going to exercise artistic license, at least make the story more interesting than the real one. Which leads me to believe the movie was about painting Napoleon as an archetype for toxic masculinity, serving as a straw man rather than saying something meaningful about the character. Anyone watching this film without historical knowledge will walk away thinking, "wow, that's all Napoleon was? What was the big deal about this loser?" And that's a tragedy given he was one of the most important figures of the millennium.
This. I don't mind inaccurate movies if they're entertaining. I don't mind irreverent portrayals of so-called Great Men, but this was just character assassination. It's impossible to believe that Scott had any interest in Napoleon at all. Good movies can be made about bad people. This wasn't one of them.
@@Oxtocoatl13 Downfall painted a more sympathetic and humanized portrait of Hitler than Ridly Scott's film did of Napoleon. Think of that!
When you've somehow managed to make a character less sympathetic than Adolf Hitler (when they were objectively a better person), you've really screwed the pooch. This outcome shouldn't be a surprise to anyone however when you have Scott grouping Napolean into the same league as people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in interviews prior to the film's release.
@@DovahFett That's true. This film is so laser focused on not ever portraying Napoleon in any kind of positive light that he comes across as a complete caricature. It's like Downfall where Hitler is the one from Inglorious Basterds. Everyone else behaves like they're in a serious historical epic and then there's this one dude who spends his time being cuckolded by his wife and yelling to the British in impotent rage. What baffles me most is that they also never show any of Napoleon's many crimes. The only villanous things he does in the movie is how he treats his wife.
This is why it’s so hard for Hollywood to get historical advisors, most experts in a particular field wouldn’t even entertain an offer from a guy like Scott. They know better than to get pulled into that world of cultivating relationships over telling the truth in the first place. For historians, the only way to win Hollywood’s game, is to not play.
He essentially says ‘the first thing I had into do was sell out, and once I did that for Mr Ridley, everything went fine’.
Well, if the film is going be a trash fire, you might as well get paid for standing next to it.
What the advisor's job was on the set: "well I was the only historian that wasn't fired, so I shuttled a celebrity around Paris, I did some spell checking, and the rest of the time I was just sitting there being ignored". yeah, no wonder the film turned out the way it did
And (probably) drinking a lot of coffee and enjoying the sun.
Like Kubrick once said, "There's never been a great movie about Napoleon" - sadly 50 years later, we are stuck with this Ridley's version of the film
We have Waterloo
not a great movie, entertaining, but it only covers his exile and waterloo@@hermanoguimaraes6343
The movie Waterloo is amazing
Also Napoleon (1927)
Ridley Scott happened. There, saved you 2 hours😂
Hey now. You weren't at Waterloo. Ridley Scott was.
OH YEAH
@@Zhohan- Hey Kool-Aid!
Merci Julien et l'equipe d'Invicta pour ce superbe format. Peu importe notre opinion sur le film, c'est toujours fascinant de découvrir ce qu'il s'est passé dans la tête des gens qui font ces films. J'espère qu'un jour ils feront appel à vous pour une production historique!
The only accurate period pieces Scott ever made were Blake Hawk Down bc the Army wouldn't supply the props and training without it respecting the actual events, and to some degree the Deulists simply bc a few props and dates are hard to ruin. It isn't 2000 anymore, people have access to information like never before and "Gladiator" won't fly anymore.
Remember in black hawk down the enemy is completly dehumanized and fails to show the immense casualties of civilians and rebels in comparison to the miniscule loss of life by the NATO troops
@@reeyees50 Black hawk Down also consistently portrays the Americans as more professional, surgical and efficient than they really were. Which, considering the film came out just as the USA was discussing whether to invade Iraq, can be seen as pure government propaganda.
@Oxtocoatl13 no its pretty spot on.
@@CMP-st5wh In many respects, yes, but there also inaccuracies and omissions. For one, in the beginning of the film, when the Americans arrest a Somali financier, they make a big deal of stopping his car with a single bullet through the engine, fired by a sniper. In real life, they riddled the car with bullets, killing and wounding several people.
For another example, towards the end of the film, as the Americans are hunkered down in a house surrounded by enemies, one of them heroically goes out and throws a strobe light to the enemy position, allowing for helicopters to destroy it with accuracy. In real life, the Americans lit their own positions with strobe lights and the helicopters destroyed whatever wasn't marked as a friendly position.
The film also completely leaves out the Abdi House Raid, which is the reason why everyone in Mogadishu hated the UN forces, despite them being ostensibly there to help them. Not to mention the film mostly leaves out the Pakistani and Malaysian troops who, according to survivors, were critical to the extraction of American troops and also suffered casualties in the heavy fighting.
All of these are fairly small inaccuracies, but they're consistent in presenting the American military as more elite and surgical, and the war in Somalia as cleaner and more morally black-and-white than it really was.
@@Oxtocoatl13 I've never walked away from that film with the thought that the conflict in Somalia was "elite and surgical". It was a complete mess in reality, and it comes off as a complete mess in the film. The changes you point out do nothing to alter that tone.
France is angry and disappointed but I can tell you Italy didn't like this film either. All the wars, politics, and history Napoleon went through in the Italian territories were entirely cut and summed up in a sentence that went like "...and then Italy surrendered" (as if the unified country of Italy existed at the time). It's a pity because Napoleon's relationship with his Italian roots would have been interesting to explore, and the Italian campaigns are when he really went from being an unknown general to an established figure and where his myth really started.
I can't imagine having to explain to someone that I was the historical advisor on Napoleon. Ouch.
That being said, excellent video!
This is what happens when The Joker becomes Emperor of France
When did Heath Ledger become Napoleon?
And I'm tired of pretending like it's not.
All the historical misrepresentation of the movie wasn‘t Joaquin Phoenix‘s fault. He’s great and versatile actor! It all seemed to have happened at the whim of the director and a bad script by an inexperienced, ill-informed writer 🤨
@@marcusmohr9827 No argument there he's an excellent actor even if he's in a few movies I don't like. Signs, before you ask. I hate Signs lol.
@@marcusmohr9827 don't forget ridley Scott drinks a lot
Ridley Scott is known for going off the historical rails with his own opinions and 'artistic vision', Kingdom of heaven had similar problems.
He also doesn't like French people
Gladiator is a story written by someone who got an A+ in creative writing class but failed history. That's his thing.
I suppose we should also thank Mel Gibson for proofing the formula for industry use.
I love Gladiator and I love the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven. In both movies, I didn't mind the "artistic vision" diverting from History, sometimes a lot, because it was done for the sake of telling a good story. In Napoleon, there is no artistic vision, it's just a mess.
@@karljohan3989 At least in those movies it's about a protagonist hero.
There's no heroics or great words of wisdom in this film it's just an exercise in making Napoleon look difficult and unready and subdued by everything in his path.
It's almost miraculous that he wins the battles he's supposed to win in this movie. Or that they even showed his wins or his rise to power at all. Because it sure didn't look like they were interested in any of his upsides.
Everything about this production tells me the film should have started in Borodino and been about nothing but his downfall and the 100 days. Especially casting Joaquin. If you want to sour the audience and make them sad about that part of history you only need to tell that part; no need to waste half the film on Josephine and an Indiana Jones conquering montage.
@@karljohan3989 Ancient History and the medieval era had limited sources so he’s got more room to have more artistic creativity and a bit more acceptable. But this, with more sources….. what’s the point of having a advisor if going the opposite direction.
Thank you for the great interview, it explained a lot.
I am not surprised Scott fires historical advisors when they point out issues. His movies are less historically accurate then game of thrones. Scott is someone I consider a true enemy of public history.
Final quote of the Dr.Chevalier was "The more you know about Napoleon the less you love the movie" (c) - Great Job mr. Spilberg!
There needs to be a post end credit scene where Joachim Phoenix plays a patient in a mental hospital who awakens, revealing that everything the audience just witnessed was his fevered but lucid dream of himself imagining he was Napoleon. At least it would explain the historical inaccuracies, weird time jumps, and other anomalies.
Great prequel to the Joker.
I am quite struck that the advisor thinks he was depicted as the Great Man. Most people saw it as a hit piece and this being Tolstoys Napoleon.
Definitely. This version of Napoleon could have been a serviceable villain for a movie about someone more interesting. The fact that there were basically no other characters just put him under a spotlight and gave him far too much screen time.
It was like Napoleon had debilitating autism
When Chevalier says he would not have put Napoleon barraging the pyramids he's trying to have his cake and eat it. His name is on movie, this is the only Napoleon movie he's worked on. By not threatening to resign or literally throwing himself in front of the camera, Chevalier approved of putting it in the movie.
I mean, would you risk getting fired over a bad creative choice by your boss, who gets to make those choices anyway? This was his job and livelihood, not some high-minded matter of honor. He was the historical advisor, his role is to give advise. He is not responsible if that advice is ignored or never asked for.
That's literally what an ADVISOR does, they give ADVICE. His job was to advise the director, it's not his job to make the decisions. If he quit right there the movie would still have been made, but even less historically accurate. He would have lost his job, still had his name in the credits as an advisor, and someone else would have gotten the job of being ignored instead. The mere fact that he chose to do this interview and make his existence known is telling because he didn't have to come out and interact with the people who were ripping the historical accuracy. What he's saying is that Scott is notorious for firing advisors that get in his way, and that he did the best he could because getting fired would mean he couldn't have had any positive impact on the movie at all.
@@restitvtororbis5330 I don't know, 11% accurate vs. 8%accurate isn't a big leap, and they really could have put his salary towards a better screenwriter to clean up the dogshit script.
What software are you using to lay up that outline?
It's a really helpful software called Miro
@@InvictaHistory Visual project Management component?
@@InvictaHistory Looks great. Great episode, btw. We don't often get to hear a long one on one with a historical advisor and how that flows. Two thumbs up!
Thank you Julien and Dr. Chevalier for doing this concise and substantive overview of the movie and its historicity!
Sorry but saying some scene are burlesque and absurd is plain dishonest. The majority of people which have or will see this film will believe what they saw as true and even if some might know it's not genuine this will nonetheless impact their vision of history way more than any (great) history book that are quoted in this interview that frankly no one will read.
The student from La Sorbonne was right. Gizeh Pyramid destruction for local people would fell like 9-11. Voluntary destruction of culture is an element of genocide and lying - and lets be clear it's a voluntary plain lie not some creative liberty - is inflammatory and intellectually criminal.
No disrespect to M. Chevalier, it's not is movie. But I would be utterly ashamed to have my name associated with this movie, especially as historical advisor. If this kind of portray had been done to Washington or Lincoln he would face so much troubles.
Youre right: despite ongoing modern Middle Eastern fundamentalism being an issue in Egypt they wont touch the history. Even in the middle ages the Caliph, a Caliph who made a hole in an attempt to destroy the Pyramids was killed by a mob! And he's still a hated figure
That would be like if in Rome they celebrated killing a Pope, they take their history seriously
Thank you for understand the outrage we felt on the French side about this movie, and Scott' insulting remarks in interviews only added up to that.
Exactly. Well put.
How much would you have to be paid to watch the longer version?
$200+
I mean, if you're seriously offering, I can give a number...
If it's just hypothetical, then no amount
I've been waiting for an interview like this on the film. What did he think of the sword fight at the end between Boney and Welly? Ridley Scott at his finest!
Your restraint shown here, Mr Invicta, is beyond impressive. The movie is pure travesty. But it looks nice.
I'll stand up for Lorris on one point. Having a PhD in history means you know how to resesrch history- not just the topic you did your thesis on. So it was good to hear him explain. Ridley gave him one year to research the relationship. Not anything else! Ridley didn't care about anything else. Lorris was just following the brief.
Exactly. The study of history, especially on this level, is the study of research skills, not memorization of facts. I wager that given a year of dedicated, paid time, most people with a Master's or a PhD in history could acquire the knowledge necessary for this kind of project. Of course an expert will have an easier time and get even better results, but still.
That you for doing this I was really interested in hearing this
Great interview, these two hours felt two short.
50:09 is a perfect example of why this guy is completely illegitimate as a "historical advisor" of this time period and is simply a yes man for whoever is paying him on the set.
In his mind the only way you could show Napoleon was the last "fighting king" is to literally show him on the back of a horse swinging a sword at enemy troops. When he even admits it isnt remotely accurate. This is a BS excuse and there are plenty of smarter more historically accurate ways of showing he was a fighter. Not some Marvel level crap where he is charging into a battlefield melee with his cavalry.
Damn, I know he doesn’t have any effect on the movie made he can just advise but could you imagine how embarrassing it would be to admit that you worked on Napoleon lol
Yeah.....what the fuck happened, I almost walked out at the Waterloo scene
I did walk out
Before he ever charged lol
i allegedly piated it
I love Napoleon. When Ridley dropped him dead in the end on that chair outside on St. Helena, I burst out laughing in the cinema. Fuck you Ridley Scott.
I felt a pang of sadness as I left the theatre. The history was being defiled and twisted before my eyes.
As another guy who has worked as a historical advisor for a (domestic) major production, it's quite funny to hear about the exact same things from a more global production.
I spent 4 years working in the project and I can't even imagine trying to squeeze all that experience and all the stories in 2 hours of interview.
"Painting a space ship" story does sound VERY familiar as an experience.... :)
Seems to me that the 1981 Time Bandits movie representation of Napoleon was entirely more rewarding than this Ridley Scott version would be. XD
sounds like this movie directly competes with Napoleon from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
People have said it in multiple ways in many comments but what I get out of this interview is that Ridley Scott doesn't want a Historical Advisor, and that Chevalier isn't really a historical advisor. He's a "historical yesman" who just gives Scott what he wants to hear and then gives pointers to people working on stuff that Ridley doesn't care about/notice.
When a production wants real in-depth advise, they hire experts specific to the topic/time period and have them working with the writers ewven before they start writing the script.
I hope that Scott stays far away from historical movies and that the doctor ends up working for a project whose leads actually value his expertise and willingness to work hard.
Really well prepared presentation. Kudos.
I haven't seen this movie. So I don't know what happened. But, I happened to watch the 1970 Waterloo film before the Scotts version was released. Does anyone have input on how both films differ? I can't imagine the movie was that bad. Also , I think people from the 70s were alot more patient and involved than people these days.
Just watch yourself the Scotts version and compare them lol
The 70s version used several thousand Soviet soldiers to physically reenact the battles in fields in Ukraine. And they stayed focused purely on Napoleon returning from Elba, the Coalition reacting and everyone gearing up for Waterloo. They put a lot more effort and skill into it
@@Radovid_V_the_Stern And pay to go see a bad movie? Are you nuts?😜
@@themobileprepper5730 Well, you can wait and watch extended version, when it will be released in internet)
Well, you can glance over wrong dates and year, and the timeline of things, but when the battle of Austerlitz is all concentratet in one valley, and a single forward Attack Mode and the strategic part of that battle abscent. Then you know.. and offcourse Napolen leading a charge in the battle for Waterloo... It was a major let down, especially compared to Waterloo (1970)
It was very off putting how bizarrely focused Julien was to sticking to a time schedule, rather than the content or the person he was supposedly interviewing. I have never ever seen an an interview where the time “budget was discussed so openly and frequently, and found it quite distracting and unprofessional. At times he seemed distracted, to the point of seeming disinterested in the discussion at hand. It was as if a production assistant whose job it was to hector the talent about time, but was generally and correctly ignored, was suddenly called upon to conduct an interview when the normal hosts were sick, and then proceeded with the interview as if guided by the motto “This time, we are sticking to the schedule.” Absurd.
Unfortunately, even if the film production had involved a whole team of prominent Napoleonic scholars and researchers, it would've essentially the same outcome. A director decides whether or not to honor the atmosphere and spirit of the subject era long before filming begins. Ridley Scott wanted to create a film about his own original character who vaguely resembles Napoleon Bonaparte and stumbles through a story that is faintly similar to his life. Having accurate regimental standards or ensuring Josephine's dog is the right color would be great details if the rest of the film actually wanted to capture a remotely faithful image of Napoleon. Otherwise, it's wasted effort.
This guy is actually French, and this is the Napoleon we got? Incredibly hard to believe.
Imagine the despair of armor historical advisor when he saw the half helmets in The Duel.
Great interview!
As a Napoleon buff and student of history I tried removing the bias I had towards unhistorical events but some things weren’t acceptable.
1. Napoleon divorces Josephine before Tilsit in 1807 and not after like historically.
2. The underrepresentation of the marshals
3. Borodino scène is Napoleon charging in a Republican uniform against Austrians?!?! [possibly scenes made for Marengo]
4. Napoleon dying
5. As a Belgian I was astonished they used “La muette de Portici” which was the song that mythologically inspired the Belgian revolution of 1830.
The best scene of the movie imo was Toulon when you forget that napoleons horse wasn’t blown up.
Vive l’Empereur!
I suppose it’s more of a structure point than historical accuracy, exactly, but I hate how poorly the movie portrays the passage of time. It makes all of the Coalition Wars feel like a single nonstop event, rather than being quite different conflicts.
It’s almost fun to watch as a historical inaccuracy issue-spotter though.
About Number 3 I was also very confused when I watched the movie. Marengo is also mentioned when they list the battles and casualties in the movie. So it's very likely that Marengo will be part of the 4h long director's cut and seeing that scene in the theater version is a proof that the movie was butchered for the sake of being shown in theaters.
I will not praise a dictator.
Also the argument that Napoleon was the last fighting king is a joke. It’s not because Napoleon as emperor was in command doesn’t need to be shown as him fighting in the thick of battle.
Movie before this one never showed this, look at Waterloo 1970, Austerlitz 1960 and Napoleon 2002 these were historically accurate
@@rick7424 An elected and appointed dictator who was loved by the people and got attacked from all of Europe
In 1815 he even established the liberal empire which was a constitutional monarchy so the best emperor ever
A movie originally called Napoleon and Josephine, with a plot centered around Napoleon and Josephine's failed marriage, in which historically Josephine being significantly older was a massive factor - and no one really cares that they cast not just one but two actresses who both look almost half the age of Joaquin Phoenix? That should have been the first thing in the list of things the movie got egregiously wrong.
And yeah, we don't need all the Marshals. But not having Lannes and Murat in a story about Napoleon is unforgivable. Along with his divorce from Josephine, Lannes' death was another factor that coincided with, and possibly contributed to the dramatic change in Napoleon's career .
I think if Josephine was the main character it’d be more interesting
Being a historical advisor on any Hollywood production must be mildly frustrating a lot of the time. The rest of the time it must be really frustrating.
While I think this guy was a decent enough pick for historical advisor, I however think Ridley didn't switch to a more period advisor, because he already knew this guy wouldn't push back to hard about inaccuracies! I think using the obviously wrong equipment, places, characters and other inaccuracies simply for easy of filming or to push an idea is a little bit of a cop out, I have seen many productions that try to keep as much accuracy as possible and we're good films, historical pieces should have real history in them!
1:51:20 This was far from the norm for battles of the era. Most encounters where one unit tried to close with another would result in one side withdrawing before they got to bayonet range... a mosh-pit of soldiers is nearly impossible to command, as well. A formation disintegrating into a chaotic melee is a disaster for a commander.
24:47 “You think you’re better because you have boats!” was actually exactly what Napoleon said back then.
Boaty McBoatface was the flagship!
This is amazing that you've been able to get an interview with the historical advisor of a mainstream big-budget historical blockbuster, i know we're all frustrated with this film but you've really set yourself apart from almost all other videos on the subject by being able to ask people involved with the film itself. Of course we know that someone like Ridley Scott will never interview anyone who isn't smitten by him and brown-nosing him like most online interviews are nowadays with these robotic studio-puppet interviewers ahead of a film's promotional run.
excellent interview, well done
guy is clearly smart as hell but he is a massive yes man so no wonder the movie came out the way it did
Waterloo was the better movie.
Is a Masterpiec
I know the feeling I was one of the historical advisors on the Mel Gibson film set in Vietnam. The production team basically ignored everything we submitted
This guy seems quintessentially french.
doesn't sound like one though. he puts an effort
Doesn't act like one either... The movie got roasted in France for its obvious pro-British propaganda biais.
If so why did he betray French history?
13:15 I love lindybeige’s vidoes to death but this story seems very believable, he is what’s you would call a very unique character
I have a hard time understanding his pronounciation. At first I thought he was talking about lindybeige being an advisor on Troy. But I don't think that's what he meant rather that lindybeige told this story before.
Know how this is going to go before I even watch.
Soo I told them all this stuff and they then ignored me and done there own thing instead 🤦🏻♂️
I do feel like your choice of video title contradicts the constraints you introduce in the beginning of the video.
The Napoleon movie aside, should really be mentioned that Chevalier's expertise really shines through on The Last Duel. The best part of that movie is that the characters' morals and beliefs feel truly rooted in a medieval mindset, which is much more important for historical representation than sets, costumes, and specific events.
Got to love how Dr Chevalier hides behind the academics excuse: 'My real expertise is Mediaeval history'. I'm sorry but an average person with a mild interest in this topic, who has read a coffee table book on Napoleon, will know how badly he is represented in this film. But then, Scott did fire 7 previous historical advisors for bothering him with 'shit' so I can see why he let so much stuff go. Especially when working on a film with a big budget... Personally I'm surprised he's publicly owning up to having any role in producing this!
*What happened was that people forgot what **_Kingdom of Heaven_** and **_Gladiator_** were: sub-par historical epics directed by a guy who has no business making historical epics.*
The difference is that those two films are entertaining to people who aren't that into history. Both are still beloved epics 20 years later. Napoleon was just a snooze-fest character assassination.
@@Oxtocoatl13 I don't doubt that _King of Heaven_ and _Gladiator_ had their entertaining moments, so long as in each case one kept their brain turned-off until the end of the movie and didn't think too hard about it afterwards.
Before I watched the movie, I had friends, who consider themselves to be history buffs, tell me after they watched it that the movie should have been called "Josephine" rather than Napoleon. After watching it, I kind of agree. Napoleon didn't feel like the main character.
The tragedy is, a really good movie could be made about Josephine, with Napoleon as the abusive husband/antagonist. But that film wouldn't be a grand historical epic with large battles, but more of an indoor costume drama. Scott wanted the big battles but had no interest in Napoleon the man.
Seriously Napoleons own brother in law, Murat, didn't even get screen time.
This is hearsay, so maybe it wasn't related exactly as it happened, but it was telling when Scott said he wanted to depict "the first sniper in history" in that scene. I don't have an issue with the scene as an homage to Waterloo or as a way of showing that the coalition was at war not with France but with an individual. And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but if Scott's motivation was also to depict "the first sniper in history," it shows the completely different conception of history that a powerful director with an unrestrained vision has compared to a historian or lover of history.
For many of us, "the first sniper in history" would be a specific historical figure, whether we actually know who he is or not. History is the actual record of human events, and this is part of it. We might be interested in finding out who that was, and when and where, and what technological developments made it possible, etc. And if we said, "you know, I would like to make a film, or even a little scene in a film about the first sniper in history," we would probably mean that in the sense of depicting, honoring, making note of that person in his context and with those interesting historical contingencies that surrounded it. Or we might compromise as Chevalier wanted to with the Plunkett, who was arguably a first sniper in history, say. And we would be interested in the details of that--the recumbant stance, the skill involved, whatever.
But for Ridley Scott, "the first sniper in history" is the guy he inserts into his "historical" film to be the first sniper in history. "History" means people wearing costumes; Scott's not particularly interested in what actually happened before he was born. What the sniper looks like and uses and does reflects Scott's steampunk fantasy of what that ought to look like, and the purpose is "because I want to because that would be cool and funny." And even though to us getting it right would be cool, and actual historical coincidences can be funny, for him what makes it cool is that he did it and what makes it funny is that he thought "wouldn't it be funny if..." So the sense in which he can depict "the first sniper in history" is ultimately hollow, because tomorrow Steven Spielberg can make a movie about Alexander and staple a rifle scope to a Tyrian archer's bow and depict the new "first sniper in history" at the siege of Tyre.
When Ridley Scott makes a "historical" film, his self-recognized accomplishments as a relator of history are the same as when a dictator creates a new medal to award himself for service to the revolution. He can have the first sniper and be the first to show Napoleon bombarding the pyramids and be the first to show how Napoleon was an incel, to tell the true story, and he can sit in his chair with his chest covered in medals and people can clap for him as long as they're forced to until they aren't anymore and then we can laugh at him like we laugh at some tinpot dictator's ridiculous uniform studded with bottle caps and plastic stars.
1:54:33 - Invicta going to Hollywood being foreshadowed.
Thumbs up, this is the most important part of the 2 hour video.
in short Ridley doesnt care, other than get his vision on the screen.. Well, we all knew this after his previous movies, but this time it was so obvious shortcuts and just for the picture moments.. that it became ridicilous.
Ridley sounds more and more like a self obsessed ignorant tyrant every time I hear about him. If you going to make a historical movie, make it historical, it's as simple as that. It's offensive and disrespectful to the real people these stories are told about to change their appearances or actions. We want historical accuracy.
Okay i just can't. Good lord, nothing against this guy personally but, as a Phd in history myself, how in the WORLD did he get hired on this movie?
From his own description he is a MEDIEVAL historian who spent 7 years writing in what sounds like the now largely defunct field of psych-history from the 1990's. So he focused his whole doctoral program trying to understand the mind and worldview of 12th century knights. And then gets hired to advise on a 200 million dollar movie about 18th and 19th century france.
I specialize in late nineteenth and early twentieth century america, i now cannot wait to be hired as an advisor on Hannibal movie coming out in a few years.
Lord almighty, they must have just grabbed the nearest french historian at random for the sole reason of having "historical advisor" in the credits to give the impression they cared at all about history. And if this dude advised on the "mentality" of napoleonic soldiers and the man himself, then he did it wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are thousands of experts in the exact field of revolutionary and napoleonic france, they didn't bother to find one for this movie. What do you think they thought about the importance of history in a historical movie by that fact alone.
You just think your tough because you have boats!
“Go along to get along”
Amazing interview
My question is why was the movie so lame Napoleon is one of the greatest men in history
Who is this guy? Where’s the British guy who narrates everything? Also i know it’s not the consultants fault the film was a joke of history and Napoleon himself but man, must have been a hard check to cash…
12:37 the directors mentality summarized into one encounter.
Same Bs as Ubisoft though. Why not make a new ip or fictional series rather than pump out the same Hollywood erotica that try’s to use real people.
Just watch “Waterloo”. There will never be anything better on this subject matter. As for Napoleon, it would literally take several seasons of mini series to even begin to cover everything he accomplished. Trying to cover all that in a single film was, and is, insane.
I think the bottom line we can all agree on is that this movie wasted over half of its screen time with pointless scenes not a single soul on earth asked for or even had the beginning of an inkling of wanting to see, they completely misjudged the audience this film would draw in for no reason, oh, you love Napoleonic warfare and shit blowing up and learning about the marshals and the intricate nature of battles or even just conversations about the genius of logistics and the geopolitical landscape following each battle? Well heres 2 hours of Josephine and Napoleon being a cuckold... Sound good? I mean, they summarized the entire Egyptian campaign with a cannon ball hitting the pyramids.... really???? no Italian campaign, Scraps for the Russian campaign at best, though honestly this movie was so forgettable i dont even remember if they showed any of it or not. We wanted war, we got a boring drama. 3/10 because the few combat scenes they do show are actually pretty well done effects wise at least though its probably 15% of a movie about one of the greatest generals in history...
Please no spoilers I've just started reading a book about the Napoleonic wars and I don't want to know what happens 👍
Shut up
Napoleon wins at the end, Josephine has a sex change, they move to Timbuktu and live happily ever after. You're welcome 👍🏻
@@ivareskesner2019lol yeah
Really loved the filler training arc to beat General Winter. Highly recommend
In 1812 during a peaceful summer vacation to Russia, Napoleon and his army sipped tea and played games with the Russian army. After the French army defeated the Russian army 18 - 12 in a game of soccer the Russian King lost a sports bet and had to pay Napoleon the whole of Russia as payment. Not wanting to appear mean Napoleon gave the Russian King the Island of Elba to rule as his new tiny kingdom. Napoleon then went home to Paris. But during this time the English played prank on Napoleon by fielding an army in Waterloo. Napoleon then walled to Waterloo by himself and challenged the British commander to a game of Hacky Sack. The British leader, unwilling to remove his boots could not win against the barefoot Napoleon and Napoleon kept the Hacky Sack in play for 3 minutes and 20 seconds where as the English leader only kept it in play for 1 minute 32 seconds. And that's how Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo for which he was awarded a 2 week all expenses paid dream vacation to the tropical island paradise of St. Helena. Napoleon arrived and loved it so much that he stayed on the island for the next 25 years, happy and healthy basking in the tropical sun, sipping coconut shelled drinks in a straw hat, and going scuba diving off the coral reefs.
I love History!
The movie was painful to watch but in any case, this historical advisor has a family name "Chevalier" (Knight) and has a phD in medieval history, it is an incredible conjunction. I wonder if he was influenced by this when he chose his major.
haven't seen Napoleon but remembering too late that in Robin Hood, Ridley Scott "artistically" envisioned the French invasion as some kind of WWII landing operation I probably could've saved 2hrs of this interview :-/
Respect to the historical advisor. But on the other hand, maybe don't do movies with a guy who basically bends historicity of one of the most important figures in human history over the table, just because he listens to you on tiny insignificant details and offers you Christmas gifts.
Thank you for the inside, and for the content. But it was an horrible job of bringing such historic character to life. Cheers