‘Napoleon’ Director’s Cut Doubles Down On Pretentious Themes

The release of a new Ridley Scott movie is a time of excitement and trepidation. The 86-year-old acclaimed director of “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Gladiator,” “Black Hawk Down,” “The Martian,” and “The Last Duel” remains one of the greatest directors of all time, even though he’s released more clunkers than masterpieces in the past 20 years. 

His most recent film, last year’s “Napoleon,” is no exception to this. The massive historical epic from Apple TV+ was released to theaters last fall to poor critical reception and low box office draw. Audiences were expecting a serious exploration of the life of one of history’s most controversial figures but were treated instead to a confusing, truncated story about toxic masculinity and toxic relationships masquerading as a period epic. 

But I’ve reserved my judgment on the film. I waited 10 months to form a coherent opinion on it, until the surprise release of its director’s cut on Apple TV+ last month, with the hope that an extended cut would loosen the film up and improve it. Unfortunately, “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” mostly exists to double down on the parts of the film that don’t work. 

Both the theatrical and director’s cuts of the film are monsters. At three and a half hours, the longer cut still feels packed to the gills in its ambition to document the rise and fall of the famous French emperor. Unfortunately, the film mostly succeeds at adding more scenes rather than condensing decades of history into a coherent narrative.

Thankfully, the new footage helps smooth over the film’s choppiness. The additional scenes provide added context to the histories of major characters and help illuminate the setting, such as one pivotal new scene of an assassination attempt that highlights the tumultuous realities of the French state during his early reign. We also get needed breathing room for the sequences during his invasion of Russia, his exile on St. Helena, and a brief scene depicting the Battle of Marengo. 

If anything, Scott’s extended cut leans heavily into the more uncomfortable and strange elements of the theatrical version. The film focuses heavily on the tumultuous relationship between Napoleon and his wife, Josephine, with infidelity, infertility, divorce, jealousy, and marital abuse happening in the foreground while the general’s great historical and military feats play out in the background. 

The film centers on Napoleon’s sexual anxieties, possessiveness, and jealousy, even implying that his conquest of Europe was a Freudian quest to conquer his wife. The additional 48 minutes of footage largely serve to bolster this, with new scenes of Napoleon asking his subordinates for advice in pleasuring his wife and scenes of Josephine’s time as a prostitute in Paris. 

These scenes do offer context for why an egomaniacal figure like Napoleon might feel insecure in his relationship, but they highlight the fundamental disconnect between what Scott wanted this film to be and what it could’ve been. Napoleon is already one of the most interesting men in modern history, given that he’s viewed 1,000 different ways through different perspectives. He’s a secularizer, a military genius, an enlightenment stalwart, a tyrant, a liberator, and the embodiment of France. 

Ridley Scott has his own views on Napoleon, which filtered through his Whiggish secular view of history produces a bizarre amalgamation of psychological assumptions and toxic sludge. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance only adds strange new layers to the concoction, playing the figure as a wannabe stoic who believes his hype — the kind of man who claims not to have an ego while rambling about his greatness. 

“Napoleon” is far from a trainwreck, even if it feels like it at times. Upon the second watch, the film grew on me more than I expected it to. But in the final analysis, Scott’s rendition of “Napoleon” must be viewed as an erotic romantic epic first and a historical epic second, not dissimilar from bloated late-period David Lean films like “Doctor Zhivago” and “Ryan’s Daughter.” It’s less a Napoleon movie than a movie about Napoleon’s gross psychological underbelly. 

The bloat that ruined other late-period Scott films such as “Prometheus,” “Exodus: Gods And Kings,” “House of Gucci,” and “Robin Hood” is on full display in “Napoleon,” with what works mostly surviving thanks to his ability to fill the picture with an epic scope and ambition. And with his upcoming “Gladiator II” set for release on Nov. 22, it raises unsettling fears for how that film will turn out. 

Tyler Hummel is a Nashville-based freelance journalist, a College Fix Fellow, and a member of the Music City Film Critics Association. He has contributed to The Dispatch, The New York Sun, Hollywood in Toto, The Pamphleteer, Law and Liberty, Main Street Nashville, North American Anglican, Living Church, and Geeks Under Grace.