Oneshot - Napoleon (2003)

[00:00:00] Welcome to Oneshots, we're the Lorehounds, your guides to the real history of Napoleon. I'm David. And I'm Alicia. And this is our coverage of the 2023 Ridley Scott film, Napoleon. In this podcast, we're going to share our thoughts about the movie starting off with

[00:00:30] some spoiler free hot takes. And then after a quick break, we'll get into spoilers and all the details of the movie. In this podcast, we're going to share our thoughts about the movie starting off with

[00:00:41] our spoiler free hot takes. After a quick break, we'll get into spoilers and get into the details of the movie and the history of Napoleon. A quick reminder that if you enjoy what we do, and you'd like to support us, visit us

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[00:01:36] got channels set up for all the different shows and projects that we've got going on. Links for all of those are in the show notes below. Alicia, welcome to one shots. How you doing?

[00:01:50] Good. Glad to be here talking about, yeah, we'll talk about our opinions of the movie, but Napoleon's one of my, I don't want to say favorite historical figures, but one of the most fascinating historical figures to me.

[00:02:03] So very intriguing topic for you. So hard to pass up this movie. Just a quick note about the one shots format. This is our format for anything that we're not doing regular weekly or in-depth coverage of. This is just a chance for us to jump in

[00:02:19] and casually talk about a show or a title. We haven't done a one shot on a book, but yeah, anything that's active and happening and we can find time in our busy lives and schedule across multiple time zones. And so yeah, they're just sort of our standalone

[00:02:36] little shows. So you got to see the movie the other day. I saw it last night. How was your theater going experience? Well, so the options to see the movie were either go to the big commercial theater and

[00:02:48] pay extra for 40 X or Dolby or go to the indie theater, which I can go to for quote unquote free with my unlimited pass. So I'll choose the latter. So I think you posted a link, a picture somewhere on some social and it seemed like a place

[00:03:06] where you could get beverages and maybe some food or something. Yeah. It's in the city center and it's like an, well actually they're both in the city center, but it's an old fashioned, movie going experience of the little tables with the lamps and stuff. Fun.

[00:03:20] Now, yeah, it's, but that theater, the audience is always, the theaters are smaller and the audience is always quieter because that's where like indie movies are screened. So it's a different, I'm sure it would have been a complete- People are serious about their theater.

[00:03:33] Yeah, exactly. I'm sure it would have been a completely different experience if I went to the Dolby theater and saw it, which is a much more rowdy experience. Got it. Bigger. Yeah. Got it. Was there a lot of folks seeing it? When did you see it? What night?

[00:03:47] I saw it yesterday. Okay, Monday night as well. Yeah. Okay. And it was a small theater and the theater was probably about two thirds full. So yeah. That's pretty good for a Monday. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. But it's a smaller theater in the city center. So yeah.

[00:04:05] Yeah. Fair enough. I saw it last night as well at our local theater. They had it in the big room, which is this big sort of Greek inspired space with a Zodiac painted on the ceiling

[00:04:17] and some columns and statues. But it's also serves as our town's main amphitheater auditorium stage. So there's lots of different kinds of performances and things like that. And they've just put in a new sound system to it. It seemed pretty good. So my picture quality and sound

[00:04:36] were nice. And I was surprised there were about 14 or 15 other people in the theater, mostly all couples at or around retirement age. Okay. And it's a big room, so everybody was all spread out. But for a Monday night, that seemed

[00:04:56] like a pretty fair group of people to brave the cold of Vermont to get out to see it. Yeah. Because it was also bad weather here last night too. It was freezing rain. So yeah. Okay. Fair enough.

[00:05:09] Yeah. People did brave the weather. And it was also couples in my theater, but I think more in their thirties. Okay. Interesting. Before we get into our hot takes, did you see any interesting trailers for upcoming films? Anything that was of note that you want to talk about?

[00:05:24] Oh man. So I watched so many trailers just on YouTube. I watched them as soon as they come out. But I never really remember what I see in the theater also because I tend to

[00:05:36] slide into my seat at the last possible minute because I got the timing down. So I don't know. I've seen a lot of interesting trailers, but they're all jumbled in my head because we've got the blockbuster side of things, but we're also starting to get into award season.

[00:05:52] So I'm thinking about all these more serious movies too. Okay. All right. So no notable trailers on your end. I had Dune 2 and that was the only one that they had. Oh, I did not have that for sure.

[00:06:06] Okay. I had mixed feelings. I was excited. I'm glad to see that they're starting to work on the marketing. And now that we have a March 1st date, so they pulled it up two weeks from

[00:06:19] the middle of March. And as soon as the SAG-AFTRA folks, we're assuming that they're going to ratify the deal. They're going to be out on the push to market the film and things like

[00:06:33] that. So I'm sure we're going to see a lot more stuff increasingly. I will say you and I are both big Dune fans and we're definitely going to... You and Luke are covering. You're

[00:06:43] a bunch of sort of 360 cultural coverage of the Dune and the phenomena of Dune. And I know that we talked with Meester Anthony and Steve about the Dune on their podcast as well.

[00:06:57] And I'm sure both of us are going to be there as soon as we can see it. We're going to see it. I have mixed feelings about Villeneuve's take for it. Visually, I think he's nailed

[00:07:09] it. I have some issues with some of the other things, but I am really looking forward to this movie. So... Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm also... Because it felt like the first half was kind

[00:07:20] of a tease. And I think that that's a problem that a lot of people have with it. And- Yeah, for sure. Knowing what happens in the second half of the book. I mean, they can't possibly

[00:07:30] cut out the scenes that I love like they did in the first half. You can't cut them out. So... Exactly. I did order that book. Well, we're sliding into Dune here, but we'll slide out.

[00:07:41] But I did order that book that sort of documents David Lynch's, the way that he... The sort of oral history of how the first of the 1984 movie was made. Right. Oh, awesome. Oh, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to... Yeah, so I think

[00:07:59] end of... I have to look at the schedule again. End of January, early February, we'll do that 1984 episode. I can't wait to hear. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It's a hot mess, but I love it so.

[00:08:10] Okay, well, let's start talking about Ridley Scott, speaking of big directors and big films. Let's get into some spoiler-free hot takes. Off the top, what are your thoughts and feelings about Ridley Scott's latest offering?

[00:08:27] Yeah, so there's been a lot of talk about what awards this movie could be up for. And for me, I would put it up for production design, costuming, and maybe even cinematography. Because there are certainly great moments of that. But the production design and the costuming

[00:08:42] is just amazing. I would love to have prints from so many scenes in this film. And yeah, the subject, it's one of the most fascinatingly complex figures in history. There's just one man who left a mark on modern Europe as indelible as the Roman Empires. Sure, yeah.

[00:09:00] He's fertile ground for making a movie. And also, Josephine's a fascinating figure who, she's a woman who is restricted by her time trying to survive and trying to actually live, enjoy her one life. So, yeah, what was going on with the writing and directing and editing?

[00:09:20] I'm not sure. I think they tried to cover too much in too little time, even though it's, you know, two and a half hours. And I'm not sure they had a clear idea what the point of

[00:09:32] the film was. You know, they were just kind of flitting through moments, but they weren't showing how they came about or why these moments were important or what they really meant. So, it ended up being lovely images, but feeling empty to me. Yeah. And they also,

[00:09:52] I have a personal sour point that they skipped over basically all of my personal greatest hits in Napoleon's history. Okay. Which are, well, without being spoiler, what's the, was it the political stuff or the military stuff or what was the content of the skipped?

[00:10:10] Well, we'll get into it more as we talk more, but yeah. There's not a single- Just who he is, who Josephine is, a lot of the things that he was involved in. I know also like just historical events. Sure. Okay. All right.

[00:10:27] Yeah. And also, yeah. So, the question is, do you think Joaquin Phoenix was the right casting? I had this very thought pretty much the entire film from the moment that we first hear Phoenix's

[00:10:42] voice. I was like, oh, I don't know if this is right. Visually, he looked great. His physical presence, his body, his face, just all of that. Obviously, we don't have any live recordings of

[00:11:01] Napoleon, so it's hard to compare, but we have a lot of drawings and paintings. And so, there's a lot of information for them to build off of there. I think he visually fit the role.

[00:11:13] I'm not sure that he had the right essence for it. And I felt a little bit dissatisfied and disappointed with his portrayal. I don't know what I was expecting. I think I was expecting something... I was expecting this whole movie to have a lot more gravity. Right.

[00:11:38] And a lot more intensity and import. And I just felt, I think, very much similar to you in that I'm not sure... I never felt confident about what the filmmakers were trying to do. I got very

[00:11:55] confused at times. But that's now sliding into my hot takes, and I want to make sure if you have any more thoughts. So, I am, I think, a yes and a no for Joaquin Phoenix. I think he did, in some

[00:12:10] ways, a great job, and then other ways, he missed for me. Yeah. I mean, also a yes and a no for me. For the record, he actually is the perfect type to play Napoleon because Napoleon's shortness is overblown. He was like five, six or so,

[00:12:27] which was average, not even short average, just average average for that time. And so, Joaquin Phoenix is analogous in our modern era, pretty much. Right. It was basically British propaganda that was like, oh, this short man, we're going to... Yeah. Got it.

[00:12:44] Great propagandists, the Brits. And for me, and the age thing, the complaints, he's 49, and he plays Napoleon between ages 24 and 51. So, you just have to have a suspension of disbelief because he's only the right age at the end of the movie. Okay.

[00:13:01] So, I can understand why people are bothered by that. That part didn't bother me as much. The accent kind of threw me. It felt weird because we have the Brits and Austrians and Russians speaking in what you think of as British, Austrian and Russian accents to someone who's

[00:13:20] supposed to be French and sounds like American. But the way Joaquin Phoenix's accent is sort of, it's not a refined, polished accent, which is sort of analogous to the fact that Napoleon

[00:13:36] was from Corsica. And so, he was seen as not coming from a refined place and somewhat an outsider to coming up. Where is... So, Corsica is an island, right? Yeah. And it is off the coast of Italy. So, it's sort of halfway between Italy and France, near Marseilles,

[00:14:02] Nice, Genoa's directly north of it. So, how much do you know about Corsica then and now? Well, I mean, I know in terms of his life, I think it was the actual year he was born was when France

[00:14:17] took Corsica. So, he was raised by his father was like, we are Corsican and I'm going to swear, fuck the French. This is how he was raised. But then his father became a collaborator because

[00:14:35] he was going to get something out of it. And Napoleon, he was educated in France, and then he couldn't go back to Corsica. They didn't trust him anymore because his father turned collaborator. So, he was forced to side with the French. Interesting.

[00:14:49] But he still, so then it becomes, okay, so I'm siding with the French, but it's the royalists, the royals are the problem. That's the people to fight against. Interesting. And then he spent a lot, so he ends up spending a lot of time,

[00:15:03] he's from an island and then he spends a chunk of time on two other islands later in his life. He starts and ends his life on an island. Very funny. Okay.

[00:15:13] Yeah. I know, yeah, I was told that the, did you think the movie was funny by the way? No. Because that's one of, no, because a lot of people like it's a funny movie and I guess,

[00:15:23] I guess I see, I definitely see the moments they were talking about. There were a couple quiet chuckles in my theater. I might've like quietly chuckled once or twice, but.

[00:15:31] I can see where they tried to play for some humor and to play, especially with, there's a couple of scenes with Josephine and Napoleon and Napoleon as well around some of the power struggle

[00:15:44] and political stuff. But I didn't ever, I never laughed. Nobody in my theater, I mean, there's only 15 other people in there. Nobody else laughed. And I just kind of thought it was a humorless movie. And I actually thought that the humor did something weird that, it didn't work.

[00:16:03] And it made me think about the fact that it didn't work. So, yeah. So, I was, what can I say? I don't know. Did you have any other thoughts? Yeah. I mean, what is your hot take on the film?

[00:16:22] So I'll preface it this way. We're definitely going to talk about the film and I know Napoleon as a subject is something that is of interest and fascination for you. So I'm really looking

[00:16:33] forward to hearing what your deeper thoughts are on the historicity of this is. So I'm going to kind of be your foil in this podcast today, but I was frustrated by this film. I was checking my

[00:16:50] watch frequently, especially towards the end thinking about, oh my Lord, when is this thing going to end? I was confused. I was oftentimes disappointed. I never felt like I got a clear

[00:17:09] read on who Josephine was or who Napoleon was. Not on a deeper level. I got the surface stuff, right? I got the apparent surface things, the idea of greatness and the idea of seizing power and the idea of populism and his interest in being a populist leader,

[00:17:33] and at the same time being a brilliant tactician. And I got this sense of Josephine as a survivor and part of the aristocracy and navigating that. But never a deeper level. I never understood what Napoleon's tactical genius really looked like. I never really understood

[00:17:56] what Josephine's deeper motivations were or what she had to do to survive, or how did she balance the various forces that she was at an intersection of. And that left me very disappointed in what I was really hoping for, fingers crossed, was going to be a really

[00:18:19] interesting biopic. And I never felt that the movie settled in any one place, be it the political, be it the... And or the history of France at that time and Europe and all of the great powers and

[00:18:34] setting the stage for what will come in the modern era. So we have this whole different type of warfare and the continent being wracked by warfare over and over and over again,

[00:18:47] and Bonaparte being such a pivotal figure in that history. So I got a little taste of that, but then I never understood... They didn't go into the battles or in any way, or the politics.

[00:19:05] And then there's this relationship going on. And okay, that's a big driver for both of them and for him in particular, but I never understood how that wove in with it. It was like multiple movies. There's several great movies in here. And if they just picked one theme...

[00:19:23] Yes. Or make it a series, but yeah. Focus or expand. It needed a focus. The letters were important. Okay, cool. The letters are interesting and they make a big point of that towards the end, but that never really... There's nothing for us

[00:19:41] dramaturgically speaking for us to really hook ourselves into a story. I need a beginning, a middle and an end. And we got that, but not in a dramatic story way. And so I guess that was... I will agree the costuming was gorgeous, was exquisite, exceptional. The production design,

[00:20:02] the sets looked amazing. The battle scenes were staged really well. But then at the same time, I was left a little cold by the sound didn't really punch me the way that I was hoping it would. Okay.

[00:20:18] And maybe it was just my theater. I know they put in a new system, but it didn't seem surround sound or Dolby or anything like that. It was pretty... I mean, I wasn't in Dolby, so it seemed fine for me.

[00:20:29] Yeah. And then it was very blue and dark overall, the film. It was very dim and that's fine, but I don't know. Again, it was just one of those things where I don't understand what's happening here or

[00:20:42] why they're making these choices. So I was left really disappointed with the film overall. And who knows? Maybe in time this will be an important biopic sort of in a library of biopics of great

[00:20:58] men. I do think that one thing that the film did for me was made me really think about the whole great man phenomenon. I'm saying man specifically. Yep. But that's appropriate with Napoleon.

[00:21:12] Yeah, exactly. But then this whole idea, I'm like, what if that was Elon Musk? Or what if that... We're looking at Putin or we're looking at other political and historical figures in our

[00:21:25] country and around. And so it really made me question this idea, what is it within our collective humanity that we keep giving space for these guys to come up? And what was the total at

[00:21:40] the... They listed at the end there a body count at three million people suffered because of this man's ego. That's only counting relatively few specific things in Europe. That's actually... Napoleon had such a bigger impact than that.

[00:21:58] Correct. Yeah. So yeah, so it really made me think about that whole question of how we empower our leaders. I was thinking a lot too about the question that Varys poses from Game of Thrones.

[00:22:17] I forget what season that was, but who is he talking to? Tyrion. And they're talking about where does power reside? Does it reside with the guy with the money or the knife or the guy?

[00:22:29] And this idea that Napoleon crowns himself emperor by his own hand is a really interesting thought because up until then, the line of legitimacy was always from this divine right,

[00:22:47] or at least in Europe, was this divine right of kings. And so then one of the other plot drivers is an heir to his throne. And so there's such great material all around this movie. And yet

[00:23:02] if they had just posed one question or focused on one element of his life, I think it would have really crystallized all of the other things that they were trying to do. Right. Yeah. I mean, I was trying to think, that self-crowning moment, that's real. That did happen.

[00:23:19] No spoilers there. Yeah. I know it's spoilers for history. But I was thinking, why did Ridley Scott want to make this movie? Because he's famously- And why now? Yeah. Okay. Right. As part of the why question.

[00:23:34] But he's famously been going around and people who have been criticizing the historicity of the movie, he's been saying, get a life. And there's all these books you read too, you've read them all. And historians are just like gristling. They're like, we were gonna go have fun,

[00:23:49] but now you're insulting our work. Right, right. But so I'm like, okay, why did he want to make this movie then? And I think it's because he wanted to film the battle sequences. Okay.

[00:24:01] I think he wanted to put those famous battles on screen and then string together a sparse narrative around it. And he was like, okay, well, I'll make Josephine the emotional heart. So that would have been fine. Even so, I never felt like I understood,

[00:24:21] except for the very first battle where before when he's still a general artillery officer, I never understood the importance of these key battles. I never understood what went into making those battles a success because one of the things that

[00:24:41] people study about the Napoleonic age is his ability to not only to have battlefield tactics, but to understand the importance of supply lines and logistics and how you muster and motivate and

[00:24:54] how you feed and equip all of those people. That's some of his brilliance as a general military leader. We got none of that. That was our Braveheart moment, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. To inspire his... I mean, we've got a couple of scenes, but

[00:25:08] so I never felt that any of the big battle sequences that they filmed for us really explored and explained to me what was going on. And even the final battle scene, I was just left like,

[00:25:22] huh? Where by that point, I should be somewhat of a... If the film is doing something in terms of, if it shows that, right? If that shows that as the primary thematic element to follow,

[00:25:35] then by the end of the film, if you've been training me and teaching me along the way and building me up- That should be a payoff, yeah. Exactly. I should be like, wow, I understand this battle. I understand how Waterloo went down.

[00:25:47] His tactics return back around on him and yeah. Exactly, yeah. So there were little visual elements of that in certain key scenes where some troops are using some of his tactics and they show us a couple of things with the smaller

[00:26:02] mortars or using the different kinds of battle lines. But yeah, it just suffers from a lack of focus, I think, across the board. Yeah, agreed, agreed. Well, unless you've got anything else on our hot takes, let's take a quick break. And then

[00:26:20] when we come back, we can start to get into the details of the film and start to take apart the film at a more specific level. And we're back. Okay, Alicia, let's get into the movie a little

[00:26:48] bit. You've got some great notes here, as we established before. You've got a good sense of the history of Napoleon. So I think we're probably all a little bit curious to know where the film

[00:27:00] weaves in and out of its history. And hopefully Ridley Scott won't give you a hard time for busting him on some of this, since I know he was giving the fingers to- Yeah. To- Well, he tells me to get a life fair play, but this is my life,

[00:27:17] caring about details like this. Exactly. Cool. All right. Well, what's up first? Yeah, well, I mean, I just want to set the stage about why Napoleon is such a fascinating figure. I talked about this unparalleled historical impact. And he was just such a complex man for good and

[00:27:37] ill. He did a lot of great and a lot of terrible things. On the good side, he established the Bank of France, so he had a lot of influence in monetary policy. He laid a lot of groundwork for equality

[00:27:54] for white men specifically, while meantime stepping back the rights gained by women and minorities. Interesting. But he also, he believed in promotion based on merit, not nepotism. He subsidized education to level the advantages of the classes more in that regard. In Amsterdam, the city where I live,

[00:28:20] he and his brother who were the King of Holland, they're responsible for the fact that people have last names, which is funny because people- That's very funny. People pick, a lot of people pick their own last names and they thought that they were playing a

[00:28:33] joke in the French who didn't speak Dutch. But now there's people stuck with terrible last names today. Like ham and cheese and even pubic hair or things like that. But others had lovely things

[00:28:46] like bird song or just normal things, you know, of the dyke. But yeah, and he also is responsible for the fact that there's street numbers here, that sex workers get regularly tested. That goes

[00:28:58] back to Napoleonic law. He really created these great systems, but yeah, it depends who they benefit is another question. And his brother, they didn't even include him in the film, but his brother Louis, who changed his name to Lodewijk was handed the kingship of Holland.

[00:29:20] And this is actually the brother who stood up to Napoleon. He was so dedicated to being the king of Holland. He actually made the effort to learn the language, only the story goes that the

[00:29:31] first time he stood in front of the palace and he wanted to declare, I am your king, which is in Dutch, ik ben jou koning. Only he said, ik ben jou konijn, which means I'm your rabbit. But he-

[00:29:46] It makes jelly. It's a nice historical precedent for I am a jelly donut. So- Right, exactly. Which is what Kennedy reportedly said in his speech. I'm Berliner. Yeah. But he loved Holland more than his brother in the end, it seems,

[00:30:06] or at least this was a source of his feeling good. So, he stood up to Napoleon and they actually battled over it and Napoleon won, of course. Right. And Joseph was banished, but came back later in his life. And the people called his brother

[00:30:23] the good. And Napoleon said to his brother reportedly, brother, when they say of some king or other that he is good, it means that he has failed in his role. Ooh, interesting. Interesting. It's like a version of it's better to be feared than loved.

[00:30:40] Right, right. And I guess that goes to the question of having to make hard choices at times that you can't, not everybody's going to be happy about every decision that you make. And I guess in a liberal representative, liberal small L, representative style democracies,

[00:31:03] you're seeking compromise and you're trying to upset the least amount of people. Whereas if you're an autocrat or a dictator or an emperor, a king emperor, you make the decisions and it's how you see the world and nothing else. So, you're going to end

[00:31:21] up probably upsetting more people at the end of the day at large. And where are you holding your power base? With the aristocracy or with the people? I think it was interesting even to see

[00:31:37] the end of the French revolution and the cycle of violence that was happening there with Robespierre and the directorate. I think it was a really important part of the film to set that stuff up too, right? Okay. I disagree though, because I think

[00:31:54] that we already, that they wasted time on that when that's not really that important. Napoleon wasn't there. I mean, it is important to set the context that it's... And I guess maybe the idea of including that was to show what Josephine came very close to experiencing.

[00:32:10] Sure. Now, is it historically accurate that she was in jail and then was free in that way? Yes. Yes. And it was apparently a very traumatic experience for her in jail. What she said about that they were encouraged to get pregnant in order to save themselves from

[00:32:29] worse. We don't know the exact details, but it may have something to do with the fact that she conceived later, whatever happened to her in jail. But she had a couple of children already, right?

[00:32:41] Yes. She had children from her first marriage. Her husband was beheaded, as they said in the film. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And they did spend a lot of time with the Marie Antoinette sub story there. Yeah. And her children were very important. Her daughter ended up marrying Louis,

[00:32:58] that I just said, the King of Holland. And their son actually was adopted by Napoleon himself and became Napoleon III. So the last of the Napoleon line. And yeah, they just kind of, everyone except for Napoleon, Josephine and arguably the three leaders of the three other countries, everyone

[00:33:19] else was just kind of introduced and then brushed off until I wasn't even knowing the history. I wasn't really sure who was who on screen. And another flaw of the film was that they did

[00:33:32] employ little title cards and onscreen texts to explain situations or tell us locations or tell us who people were. Did you feel that it was inconsistent? Because there were times where I was

[00:33:47] waiting for the card to tell me, oh, this is this person or this is that person and nothing. And I'm like, who is this? And why do I care about them? Well, so for me, there was an extra layer that

[00:34:00] you know, I was watching it in the Netherlands. So the movie has Dutch subtitles. So when these cards come up, the Dutch version translation comes up above them. And for me, it was just

[00:34:09] like overstimulation and my brain didn't know which to read. And they seem very fast, they would come up and be gone. And just by the time that I was registering that there was something

[00:34:21] on screen, it was already, you know, and then there's characters like Ian McNiece played some king, maybe he was the French king. Towards the end, he's the guy with the dog when they come in

[00:34:36] and they say, you know, Napoleon's come back or I believe it was the Austrian ambassador, if you will, who was playing cards a couple of times. They never told us who he was. We just had to infer

[00:34:50] things. So I felt that that was a weakness of the film was the inconsistency there. If you're going to do it, do it, you know, and educate me. I'm fine. This is a historical film. Educate me. I'm

[00:35:02] here. Yeah. Okay. Hot take, but I had a similar problem with Oppenheimer. Okay. I still, which on a film I still have not seen. It was a crazy summer. We did get to see

[00:35:13] Barbie, but three hours in a theater with no break, I felt was a little excessive. Same with Killers of the Flower Moon. I'm waiting for both of those to come on streaming before I do. Yeah. I'm waiting for streaming for Killers. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately.

[00:35:26] And I'm waiting for, I was going to go, there's a new Steve McQueen documentary about the occupation of Amsterdam during World War II. And I saw it's out here before it comes out in the US,

[00:35:36] which makes sense. It's about here. And I was like, oh, I'm going to go. And then I looked and like four and a half hours. Come on. Good Lord. Come on. Break it up. Give me a break. Give me two days. Yeah. Do something different. I think that's

[00:35:47] something that's frustrating too with the theater going experiences. It's a mono experience. It's like, well, if you're going to get me out of the house, break it up. Give me something. I know for

[00:35:58] our theater, I don't think food and beverage would be an option because that needs a whole lot of extra infrastructure that I don't think they just get the volume for. But that's one

[00:36:07] thing I do when I'm in a bigger city, being able to have food and drink while I'm watching movie. I think that's a fun element to it. So anyway, we digress. Well, but yeah. So what's interesting about Napoleon is that he became what he hated,

[00:36:24] what he fought against. He was fighting against this idea of kingship, of being royal. And then as soon as it was offered to him, he was like his father in that. Like, oh, okay, well, there go my

[00:36:35] morals. My new morals are that this is what shall protect France. And I think that's one of the ideas that they did get over better. The way he framed things probably mostly to himself, whatever he wanted for himself was for the best of France.

[00:36:51] Right. I am the state kind of that idea. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. I know what is best. I know. Yeah. And for somebody who literally clawed their way up the society, the social ranks and pierced into

[00:37:08] the aristocracy, there is some legit credibility there in the sense of, hey, I was a kid of a minor family or what. I'm not sure what their status was. Yeah. They were like big fish in a small

[00:37:23] pond on Corsica. But so you're close. You're close to life there. You're not removed as in Marie Antoinette was in Versailles. So he understands that and he understands war and what soldiers go through. So he's in touch with reality. Right. Well, yeah. And he sees reality.

[00:37:39] His first experience in life and he might not remember it, but this would have haunted his entire childhood was the French violently taking over their island. Right. Right. So, yeah, it's interesting though that he did become what he fought against. And

[00:37:55] I think there's some moral and historical lessons there. So again, trying to take something out of the movie outside of that, which is, oh yeah, there are oftentimes we fall back into the historical patterns or the patterns that were laid down in our family or in our culture.

[00:38:17] And if we don't examine those, then we more often than not, we'll probably tend to follow those right as a person, as we adopt ideas and values that we don't even understand that we've adopted,

[00:38:31] right? They just sort of get implanted in us. So that was the pattern was to be an Emperor, right? Well, yeah. I mean, just to illustrate though how his ideas, moral ideas tended to just be what

[00:38:45] served him politically best. He was the man who both campaigned to reintroduce slavery to the French colonies and then also to abolish it as the wind blows. But he made France the only country where slavery was abolished because of the Haitian revolt, which was led by this General

[00:39:05] Toussaint, the character that Baby T'Challa is named after. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So yeah, we should have Jean here for this conversation. But yeah, so and then they agreed, okay, no more slavery. And then he was like, no, actually it's really better for us economically

[00:39:21] if we just don't pay you. And yeah, went back in and fought another war over it. Okay, goodness. Yeah. And being- And then abolished it again later. Right. And I think that's some of the danger of populism too, right? And this whole question

[00:39:37] of how do you rule? And so if you're trying to follow the winds, that doesn't always work out versus having some way to intermediate, some sort of intermediary step through what we currently have in a lot of the Western countries is representative democracy, right? So that there's a

[00:40:00] blunting of general popular sentiment through a representation process. So yeah, interesting. Okay. You've got some notes here about historical inaccuracies. Just in general, like I have adaptations in general, whether it's from fiction or history,

[00:40:22] I don't mind adaptations, you know, the changes that you have to make. I don't mind fudging the timelines a bit. I don't mind that Josephine didn't have rotting teeth. Like I can understand

[00:40:32] why they didn't go that direction. But I have to give Vanessa Kirby a compliment because I've heard her in interviews talk about this. And she did a lot of her own research. And you can tell in the

[00:40:42] way that she smiles like Marie Antoinette always smiled with her lips closed because of her bad teeth. And she was famous for her low melodic voice. And so Vanessa Kirby definitely put that

[00:40:54] into effect here. So I think, you know, she did a lot with what she was given and her performance was one of the standouts of the film for me. I thought that it was interesting too,

[00:41:03] that they showed her going, coming out of prison and then going with her hair, marking time by the growth of her hair. So she had that sort of rough chopped, cut hair all the way out to

[00:41:18] ultimately having an in hair being one of the scenes that they deal with when she's saying that I've just gotten my hair done the way that you like it and now you're going to mess it up.

[00:41:33] Did you get an understanding of why her hair was cut so short when Napoleon first met her? Uh, I just assumed the, I had to kind of piece it together later as I saw it growing. I was like,

[00:41:44] oh, because she, I'm assuming that she was in prison and it had something to do with being in prison, whether a disguise or whether, you know, because of the, the, the sanitary

[00:41:54] conditions in prison. Close, but, um, so it was something, it was a haircut that at the time was worn by, she was, she was a leader of, of a new type of, of, um, aristocrats after this time who

[00:42:10] remembered being imprisoned. And, but also they simplify their dress. They wore these more diaphanous gowns and they had this haircut that they call the coiffeur a la victime. Okay. And so it was because the women, you know, that when they showed Marie Antoinette with her hair

[00:42:25] being pulled aside for the guillotine, that was inaccurate. Her hair would have been chopped off like this. Oh wow. So when they're chopping off the hair like this, this is making a statement about, you know, I was in line for the guillotine.

[00:42:38] Interesting. Interesting. Uh, and they definitely lingered on that scene of, uh, Marie Antoinette's hair being moved. So, you know, but, but then again, you know, whether accurate or, you know, I can understand from a filming standpoint, why do you kind of, you know, maybe

[00:42:55] want to do that. So that's interesting. I didn't know that at all, but I knew very little about Josephine and my knowledge of his, of Napoleon is just the rough outlines, you know, that,

[00:43:07] you know, if he's, if one has studied any sort of Western history, then, you know, knowing that he, who he, the rough outlines of his life, but about any more of these particular details. And I guess

[00:43:20] maybe that was something I was wanting from the film. It was like, okay, cool. Take me on the inside and explain to me the relationship and how this worked. Yeah. I mean, I think the film,

[00:43:30] like we talked about before the film had some covered the moments of impact. Like he brought up the crowning himself. Uh, they, we also saw him winning the soldiers back after his exile

[00:43:39] on Elba. That's a real story. Um, the battles were, you know, accurate ish. Okay. Uh, there's a lot of things that were done for dramatic effects. Like the people falling through the

[00:43:54] lake, they found a lot of horses in that lake when they went back afterwards, but only two bodies. So, you know, so obviously, okay, that's fine. Ramp it up for drama. I don't care. And they were trying to explain his tactical genius.

[00:44:07] But that's the thing is they didn't, they didn't do that enough. Like they showed really lovely in the battle of Waterloo. They show the English using that square formation that they

[00:44:17] used a lot, and that was great to see them come into effect, but they didn't show the battle of the pyramids where of course he did not shoot at the pyramid. That battle of the pyramids took

[00:44:25] a place miles away. Um, but they didn't show that he used that square effect, uh, to win the battle. He used it almost, it's a defensive maneuver, but he used it almost in an attacking way.

[00:44:39] And then we have at the Waterloo being turned back around on him and that would have made that have more impact. Yes, yeah. Mirror that back. Yeah. That would have, as the world learns how Bonaparte works, we can use those same tactics against him and to defeat him.

[00:44:54] Yeah. I mean, that's, and it's just one of the most famous things from that first, I don't know why they had him shoot at the pyramid. There was an apocryphal story about him shooting and the nose off the Sphinx, but I don't know. Anyway.

[00:45:07] Right. And then I think it was just a random soldier. I don't know that it was Napoleon himself who shot this. Right. Okay. So they, and they, they did give us the scene of him looking at the Sphinx. Right.

[00:45:18] Fair enough. And yeah, and the whole Egypt campaign is just absent. I mean, we've got him there for one second and then he goes back and it was again, just like, oh, well, why don't we have more here? This was an important aspect of his military career.

[00:45:37] Yeah. They don't really explain why he's there. And also some other interesting things there. Like I was, I can understand why they would cut this, but I was kind of hoping there was an

[00:45:47] explanation where he kind of distracted. He was a brilliant marketer, like the way he wore his hat and also the Egypt campaign. He set up archaeology Institute there and he would distract people back in France. You know, he is one of the people who fan the flames

[00:46:03] of Egyptology made it so popular in Europe for centuries. And he brought back a bunch of artifacts, which you still see in Paris today. Right. Well, yeah. And most famously his expedition is the reason that the Rosetta

[00:46:16] stone was found, which anyone who doesn't know the Rosetta stone is what helped people translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to start to be able to read them. So it's very important. Kind of a dictionary. Yeah.

[00:46:30] So I can understand why they didn't focus, you know, they didn't mention that in a film, but there's a lot of little things like that. You know, like the fact that he was on the French side of the Louisiana purchase. Someone on Twitter was saying,

[00:46:42] I thought that they would get a laugh out of that, but Nope, not mentioned. Broader campaigns. But anyway, yeah, he founded this archaeology Institute to distract from the fact that the campaigns in Egypt weren't necessarily going

[00:46:56] that well. He didn't rush back because of Josephine. He actually, he knew about Josephine's infidelity by that time. And so he had a revenge girlfriend who was called Napoleon's Cleopatra took, stole her from one of his junior officers and just sent the husband back home and they got

[00:47:15] a divorce. And then when he was done, he was just like, okay, well, here's some money and a new husband have a good life. And she became a novelist. So she did have a good life. And Josephine does question him saying, did you have a lovers or mistresses?

[00:47:32] That was a nod to that. Yeah, exactly. You know, two things I just was thinking of when we were talking about Egypt is that one, every time the dates came up, I had to remind myself about what

[00:47:48] was going on in the rest of history around the world, both here in the United States where I'm from and in Europe in general. And I didn't even, I didn't think wider picture around the world that

[00:48:03] would have probably broken my brain a little bit to try to fit it all together. But the idea that what was happening in Russia, what was happening in the United States and what was happening in

[00:48:16] France were all affecting each other. That none of these things were happening in isolation with the Russian revolution, with the American revolution and the French revolution. There's a lot of tight integration there in terms of, and people are watching each other, you know, and

[00:48:31] these rulers and countries are examining what's going on and either trying to bulwark themselves against having similar things happen to them or going and grabbing those things and saying, hey, let's go, let's run with it. So. Right. Yeah. Because the, you know, the French helped the

[00:48:52] Americans in the American revolution. Yeah. There's a lot of connectivity. That gets a lot of blame for the French revolution happening after that, you know, that inspired them. So this is the real reason why all these countries around France are,

[00:49:07] you know, trying to reinstall the king in France and trying to stop Napoleon because they're like, this idea of liberty is going to spread and it's going to infect all of Europe.

[00:49:17] It's, and it's a direct challenge to the, yeah, it did. And it's a direct challenge to the aristocracy in the, in the divine right of Kings to rule by lineage as opposed to having a more

[00:49:28] liberal sense of we can construct ourselves. We say who we are, which is really interesting because when he does crown himself, that is such a radical departure from all of what happens before in terms of how power is passed down from, you know, family to family and

[00:49:48] individuals within those families. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's basically declaring himself a God in a way by doing that. Yes. A man, God. By the way. So Wellington, the head of the British was played by Rupert Everett.

[00:50:03] That's I used to have such a crush on him back in like the late nineties and early noughties when he was in my best friend's wedding and the importance of being earnest and all these films.

[00:50:13] I've not seen him on film for so long and he looks so different. He was unrecognizable to me. And then I realized it's been 25 years since he came out. I was actually hoping Ben Miles would have been him.

[00:50:26] He played Colin Court and he was in Andor. He was Mon Motha's old school chum. Okay. Right. And he, what was he in? He was just in something else that I watched and blanking the name of that.

[00:50:41] Anyway, I thought he would have made a great Wellington, but anyway, I'm not in charge of casting. Cool. What else we want to talk about here? You've got some more notes. So. Right. So yeah, I just think that the movie should have been grounded in Napoleon's roots.

[00:51:01] Okay. It should have been shown as ambition and frequent callousness that this was a product of his upbringing. It just kind of blows everything by that. And you know, when you, a lot of people are comparing it to gladiator

[00:51:12] and yes, it's true. Gladiator is also inaccurate, but it had more cohesion and heart. It made you care and want to learn the real history and it, you know, it told the emotional story. And that's

[00:51:25] where I was, what I was missing here. Because like Josephine, she seems meant to be the heart of the film. Right. And I don't mind blurring the lines or modernizing the way they speak,

[00:51:36] or, you know, but I feel like she was misrepresented here because this is a story about a woman who was trapped by, you know, the laws of her time. And not only that, but then married and then divorced

[00:51:50] by the man who made the laws of her time worse. You know, he turned back the clock on what women gained in rights through the revolution. He was like, not undo that. You are subjugated to your

[00:52:02] husbands. He even passed a law in 1810, which may have been inspired by someone he knew that a man cannot be punished for murdering his adulterous wife if she is caught in the act at home. Like

[00:52:14] that's where his head was at. Okay. Right. So at the same time, modernizing at the same time, traditionalizing norms and values and laws. So yeah, real complex figure there. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, she was basically passed to Napoleon by her previous lover who

[00:52:33] was his superior and like his, he was ready to move on and he was like, Hey, okay, meet this junior officer. I obviously having no idea what Napoleon would become. And Napoleon,

[00:52:44] he just kind of wanted to take, he had been rejected by women a lot. He was an outsider and. Right. Rough Corsican, probably not classically attractive. He was studying battles rather than hanging out with people in school and yeah, exactly.

[00:53:02] Playing D and D instead of being in football. I wish, but. She was playing risk. Maybe risk or stratego or something. But yeah, so this, she was like kind of handed to him and this was after she had her experience in

[00:53:19] jail. You know, she'd already lost her husband and her security, her family. She didn't have access to her family money. She grew up in Martinique. And in the film, she's like desperate, please don't leave me. And we don't understand why. Yeah.

[00:53:32] But now I understand why. Because she didn't want to leave privilege or life. And for him, he was infatuated with her at first. And I do think he loved her more than

[00:53:42] any of the other women in his life, but it was all about control for him. He even codified it when he could. And for example, her real name is Marie Joseph Rose is her like first three names.

[00:53:54] And then, you know, she has her last names. Um, and so she went by Rose by to everyone until she met Napoleon. And he was like, I don't like that name. I'm going to, you know, one of your names is

[00:54:06] Joseph, which is his brother's name. A favorite older brother is Joseph, by the way. He was like, you will be Josephine. And so he just renamed her and she had to go along with that.

[00:54:17] We get no sense of that. And the only sense we have is this sort of, um, psychological sexual tension and they throw in the mother angle with it. And when they have them first meet,

[00:54:37] what they're communicating to me is star-crossed lover thing, but then it never goes there. And then it gets kind of weird. And then at times cringey, I cringed a couple of times during,

[00:54:48] I was like, do we need these sex scenes? Do we really need this sort of, uh, uh, you know, I don't know. None of, none of that served the purpose for me of this storytelling

[00:55:00] or maybe once was fine and we, I didn't need a lot more. And, and this idea, and then they, when they have that big fight, when he comes back from Egypt and then there's the whole mommy stuff,

[00:55:12] I'm like, what is going on here? This is, is this real? Is this not real? I had no basis on which to validate what Ridley Scott is telling me about their relationship. Cause I'm not that, you know, I haven't read her letter, you know,

[00:55:27] But I think it was misrepresented. The letters are real. Those. Yeah. A hundred percent. Right. Yeah. But you can tell the letters are mostly from him and she did keep them, but where are her

[00:55:36] letters to him? We don't know. We know letters she wrote to other people were not necessarily so flattering. Um, but I think they are much more interesting as a political couple than they are

[00:55:48] as a romantic couple, because, you know, on his side, she he's on her access to the noble connections, the courtly manners. Um, and she, she played dumb for him because he wanted that.

[00:56:01] But when they schemed together was when he had his many of his greatest successes. And I think that's what they're trying to say when she's like, you're nothing without me, but then they didn't show why. They didn't show it.

[00:56:11] Yeah. They didn't show any of that, you know, showing him like, okay, so you're going to be in the meeting with this guy and that guy, and then you got to say this to this person over here.

[00:56:18] And then that's going to push. Like we got none of the palace intrigue or having her whispering in his ear about how to, how to manage that stuff, which would have been great.

[00:56:28] And another aspect of the dynamic, which with, with the casting isn't shown is that she was six years older than him. And this was something that they felt they had to hide at first. They lied

[00:56:38] about both their ages on the marriage record. Um, the first one they had a civil marriage and then, but he used to use it to shame her later when, you know, she couldn't have another child. Right.

[00:56:48] He was like, well, it's because you're an old slut. He really did call her a slut. Right. Um, and yeah. And the interesting thing is also that as his affections waned because of her infidelities and not returning it and her jealousy grew and she would spy on him.

[00:57:06] So it was driving them. And she was also, she would act out by shopping, by buying all these outrageous things. Right. Trying to exercise whatever agency she had in the relationship. Exactly. And I would have loved to have seen the exploration of, you know,

[00:57:19] because that was the means that was left to her spending this money. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's confusing. It's, it's unfortunate. And, um, yeah, it was some of the hardest stuff to watch. The battle scenes were easier to watch in many cases rather than

[00:57:37] it was watching their relationship because then I didn't know where this relationship was going to go. Story-wise, if you're going to take a stand in the story then, and we're going to weave in and out that this is a couple that to the outside world,

[00:57:53] they lean on each other and their best friends, which is an often used line in it. And, um, but yet it's at its heart is still a dysfunctional relationship. That's a story that we've seen

[00:58:03] before told in different ways and they could love each other, but it doesn't work out that, you know, that whole vibe would have worked. But instead we just got a lot of then the historical gender attitudes from him. And again, it didn't ever take a clear stand,

[00:58:23] make things make sense for me. I was constantly confused about the relationship. Yeah. And I, I think it would have benefited from exploring more as relationships with, with other people because it helps paint her and contrast because she was the most

[00:58:35] significant woman in his life. He was, when he met her, he was engaged to a woman called Desiree Clare who was, was the younger sister of his brother's wife. And, but he left her for Josephine.

[00:58:49] He was definitely infatuated and it was funny. Desiree went on to become the queen of Sweden and then her son married Josephine's granddaughter. And through her, Josephine is, is, you know, the ancestor of many Royal families in Europe. Okay. So yeah.

[00:59:09] Right. And this, this goes into the, that's another place you could have grounded the film in is, is on these intricacies because between all of these Royal families, what are they trying to do? They're trying to hegemize, hegemonize, is that the right way to,

[00:59:24] I don't know if that's the right way to explain it. Anyway, they're trying to control their power base. Right. And we do that through bloodlines and through intermarriages, but it's also politically expedient to marry the daughters and relatives of other powerful leaders. Absolutely.

[00:59:40] Just like he, he I did there, there's these lines, I'm sorry, I'm segwaying off into the humor aspect really quickly. Oh, it's nice to meet another emperor. Like I get the line,

[00:59:51] I get what he was trying, but it didn't work. But anyway, when he's talking to the, the Tsar of Russia and he's saying, well, let me marry your daughter or let me- Younger sister. Yeah.

[01:00:02] Younger sister. Sorry. Apologies. Or what about the other one? And then suddenly we switch to he's marrying one of the Austrian. Right. Which is true that it did happen. But yeah, it was very, all these cuts were so sudden,

[01:00:18] all these cuts were so sudden and it is, it should be an interesting payoff because he's been fighting Austria this entire movie and then finally he's marrying Austria. And so this arch duchess, Marie Louise, who he marries at the end, she's coming back to the last Austrian who

[01:00:36] was sent to marry a French emperor was Marie Antoinette. So- So there you go. Right? Her great aunt. Yeah. Right. And this, this is all stuff that would, is more interestingly explained in a multi-part series. Or just focus on one part, you know? Right.

[01:00:55] Because also, yeah, his, his Napoleon Cleopatra, you know, the Cleopatra in his life is definitely Josephine because Cleopatra was a savvy, smart woman, not just a side piece. And, but Napoleon with this, this woman Pauline who he took from his younger officer, like she was, she was

[01:01:14] industrious enough that she disguised herself as a man to follow her husband on the campaign. Okay. Only for Napoleon to swoop in and- Right. Decided that she was his, whether she or her husband wanted it or not. And that was the end

[01:01:27] of that love. And we just, I want to see that side. Right. That brings me back to a thought I left open earlier when I mentioned something about the, you know, the dates and remembering world history is also the, the nature, the Caesar

[01:01:43] aspect of it, that this is, you know, he's, they even say this in the movie, you know, everybody's relating to you as the Caesar of France. And so that he's had a foray in

[01:01:53] Egypt and that he has a quote unquote, Cleopatra to his name. And yet, and you know, he's a returning general and stepping foot. And there's so many historical parallels there with Rome

[01:02:03] and Caesar. And I just make, it makes me think of Ray Stevenson and the HBO Rome series, you know, anyway, I miss Ray Stevenson. Anyway. Yeah, me too. Especially after Ahsoka. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, yeah. They're just, there's so many, that's a rich history. We could have

[01:02:20] just focused on that aspect, right? Or Marie Antoinette, I always say, okay, we got to get divorced because I'm not producing an heir for you. Fine. Now let me whisper in your ear, you

[01:02:30] should marry this one or you should go after that one or see, you know, is she the power behind him? You know, we never see the events of that. Not in the divorce. She was terrified to be divorced because she didn't want to be left.

[01:02:43] But he goes back and he sees her and he brings his firstborn to her. He did make sure that she met his son. So yeah, we did have his heir was his son, but then after

[01:02:55] he died, the next heir, like I said, was his brother's son who he raised, who was going to be his heir before he had a son of his own, but they didn't address any of that.

[01:03:04] And again, then going back to this idea that he's fighting against something that he ultimately becomes, which is he's self-crowned, but yet the only way that he can legitimize his power is by having an heir to pass his power to. So I did think that that was interesting.

[01:03:22] That part was told well enough. I got that. Yeah. No, that's yeah. They did show the importance to him of that and how that, you know, derailed his marriage at the very least. Some people say it was a political derailment too.

[01:03:36] Yeah. And he's scrambling to hold onto power as he's making increasingly difficult decisions and the other nations around him are getting savvier and better at beating him or containing it,

[01:03:48] what have you. He's getting really mixed up here at the end between, oh, I've got to have an heir who I'm going to marry. Yeah. It gets messy. That's what I can say. But with all of his subjugation of women rights, he did treat his baby mamas,

[01:04:08] you know, he did make sure that they were set up when he was done with them. They all went on to marry a couple other nobles and they went on to have good long lives,

[01:04:20] have other kids. A million francs a year. I think the, you know, they give her right to keep her in comfort. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to give them and the exiles, I wanted to see more of the exiles.

[01:04:36] Like they could have just, they have done entire movies just set on one of those. Like I actually, I went to visit his house in Elba, which is an island off the coast of Tuscany. And I was

[01:04:49] disappointed at first, they didn't show like his house is a museum there. So it's like perfectly preserved. And I thought that that would be on screen, but then I looked up afterwards that it

[01:04:58] was a COVID production. So they only filmed in the UK. So, okay, fine. That's granted, but they still could have shown that story because that's actually where he was when he found out about Josephine's death. And he apparently locked himself in a room for two days and wouldn't

[01:05:11] speak to anyone. Right. And so that's the other, we've touched on this already, but I'll just read it. I'll say it again in a different way going into the film. I think that was one of my expectations

[01:05:23] was that this was going to be this tragic star-crossed lover scenario where he's infatuated in her. She doesn't really love him, but she's using him. And it's this interplay of their two personalities that then shapes the course of Europe. That is true. Kind of.

[01:05:42] Yeah. But yet the story never settles on that. It never settles in one place or another. And so I kept waiting for more. It touches on things without telling us a story. It's more like a sequence of vignettes.

[01:05:59] Exactly. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. That's a good way to relate to it. Yeah. And also it was interesting that his second wife, she just disappeared the second she was introduced on screen like so many other characters. But she played a role. And when he

[01:06:14] was on Elba, he kept trying to get her to come to him. And when he first tried to get Josephine to write to him, she was just like, nah, I'm chilling back here. Found a new guy to hang out with while

[01:06:24] you're gone. And yeah, she ended up never seeing him again. I do have to say though, I liked the ending for him on St. Helena. First of all, it was the most picturesque I've ever seen that island portrayed on screen.

[01:06:38] Okay. And if you don't know where St. Helena is, go to a Google map, punch it in. It is remote, to say the least. It is literally, it's sort of off the coast of- Because Elba is not remote. Elba, I feel like you could swim in.

[01:06:52] Exactly. And it wasn't a hard trip for him to get back to the shores of France where this is, if you're due west of Angola and Namibia or due east of parts of Brazil, it's out there.

[01:07:08] And there's no easy way for him to communicate or to raise troops. Whereas with, yeah, with not Corsica but Elba, he can communicate. Corsica is just to the side, Italy's to the other side. It's easy for him to marshal troops, to be in regular communication and organize logistically

[01:07:31] a reintroduction. Well, he was also, he was basically left to his own devices there. Right. And the person who was there to keep an eye on him, just let him do whatever disliked him. They hung out and he got to play. He was the king of the island.

[01:07:46] Right. But obviously that's not enough for, it's a small island, a lovely island. I recommend going. It only took him a year to get tired, but he's so close, right? You can see why, hey, I just want to pluck the fruit.

[01:07:57] Yeah. And St. Helena, he was under lock and key and there were boats constantly circling the island. Right. Like a prison. That was, yeah. They were like, okay, we're not messing around this time. But still they showed

[01:08:10] that he had a peaceful death. So, I kind of, it's kind of a nice version. They do say, and I don't know if this is real at all, anytime somebody talks about their last words, I don't believe it.

[01:08:25] I just think people make up nice last words for people. Right. Apparently both Napoleon and Josephine mentioned each other in their last words. So, they say his last word was, he talked about his military campaigns and then his last word was Josephine. Did you like the last shot?

[01:08:44] Where he just falls over? Yeah. I mean, I thought that it was sudden and yeah, I didn't mind it. I thought that, but I wish that they had shown, they may have the back and forth where he's thinking about

[01:08:58] writing to her and their words to each other and everything. But they didn't show, for instance, that when he was defeated at Waterloo before he was sent to St. Helena, he spent his last days

[01:09:09] in France at her old house, picking her favorite flowers, which I think was Iris, and then put it in a locket that he wore the end of his life. And if the movie is supposed to be about the romance, why are you missing details like that? Yeah.

[01:09:22] Not to, I don't want to just harp on the movie because I know a lot of people did enjoy it. And like I said, visually stunning and I hope that it makes people more curious to find

[01:09:37] out more about all these things that were presented. It's just as somebody who's very interested in the history of Napoleon, I hoped for more specific, more give me the juice, give me, bring this man to life.

[01:09:52] Right, right. Yeah. It really suffered from a lack of focus, I think. So yeah, we'll see how it ages. I don't feel like I'm going to run back to see this when it comes on streaming or anything like that, but within the collected visual storytelling of Napoleon,

[01:10:08] we'll see and or Ridley Scott's film, ultimate filmography. So all right, well, let's wrap it up there. How are things going for the Wool Shift Dust feed? You guys seem to be a little bit busy on that side.

[01:10:23] Yeah. Next up is the breakdown of the Dune novel. Well, actually next up is the breakdown of the Shift novel in the book club. And then the Dune novel- You and Abby are covering that, right? Yeah. Very cool.

[01:10:33] And then the Dune novel in the public feed followed by a breakdown of Beacon 23 on MGM+, episodes three through five, we're going to cover together. Okay. I just finished two, episode two and I'm scratching my head a little bit, but still

[01:10:50] invested. I will say this, there have been much, much worse productions made in the history of sci-fi. So there's enough going on that it's keeping me interested, but I don't think it's going to make my top 10 cut for sure.

[01:11:03] Okay. No, that's fair. I think it's good for anyone who's checking it out to keep in mind that the book itself, it's wildly different from the book as I keep saying, just like completely

[01:11:13] new characters and plot and stuff, but they are drawing elements from it. And one thing is the structure, which is a series of short stories that feed into each other. It does feel a little bit like you could see where there are some lines of short stories

[01:11:25] being welded together. I could see that a little bit. But these are not the stories from the book, but they're using that structure where it's like an anthology with a through line. Okay. Interesting. So if you think about it that way, then I think, yeah.

[01:11:40] We'll see. We'll see how the rest of the series goes. For Steve and Anthony over on the Properly Howard Movie Review Podcast, they wrapped up their season this year of remake films.

[01:11:52] Right now they're covering Severance season one. We have a dedicated feed set up for that. So if you're not seeing those, you need to just go into your podcast player. And if you search for

[01:12:04] Lorehounds Severance, you should be able to find that. Steve and Anthony are doing all of season one. And then the moment that we hear news about season two, we'll set up our schedule for that.

[01:12:14] And John and I are going to join Steve and Anthony. So the four of us are going to cover that week to week, episode to episode. For the Lorehounds ourselves, we've got a bunch of stuff

[01:12:24] in the pipeline. We don't have any big marquee show to cover right now. So we're sort of covering a lot of different things. For our Star Wars Film Festival, we have Solo. We did a live watch,

[01:12:36] a community live watch of that. And then we did a podcast about it and then caught up with a whole bunch of feedback from Ahsoka and Star Wars News in general. And then Lorehounds play,

[01:12:49] sorry, John and Anthony, wow, the names are getting all jumbled up in my head. John and Brandon are going to be covering Skyrim. We've been waiting for this podcast for a while, but that should finally be out sometime around the first December. And then John and I with

[01:13:10] Steve and Anthony covered the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. So that was a lot of fun to discuss that. That'll be out probably on the 5th of December, which is the same time that there's

[01:13:20] a big documentary and book being released about that. And that should be out. We've also got the creator still in the can. I've got to get that edited. You and John- It's on VOD now, so people might be able to watch it.

[01:13:29] Is it? Okay, good. That works. You and John are going to do something on Doctor Who. Yeah. Meow, meow, meow. Anyway- Yeah, and we're bringing in, we're going to have a Brit representing, don't worry. Okay.

[01:13:42] We're bringing in a friend of mine who's the Who expert in my life. So- Very cool. That's great. That should be fun. We've got Silmarillion Stories. It's going to be out in middle of the month. Then we've got Earthsea. We're going to finally put Tehanu

[01:13:56] to bed. And we recorded that, so that's all ready to go. And then John and Marilyn are going to cover Hogfather. This is a title that I am unfamiliar with. Yeah, I'm excited. I love folk horror, so I'm very curious.

[01:14:11] Okay. Very cool. And then wrapping it up for the year, on the 25th, we will release our second breakfast podcast, which is typically an exclusive to Patreon subscribers only. That's where we talk about life in general, and we usually cover a goofy movie or two,

[01:14:27] talk about breakfast food. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, we are going to do our annual year and review, so our top 10 for 2023. I've got my lists mostly together. We're going to be

[01:14:42] interviewing all of our other co-hosts. So Alicia, you and John and Marilyn, we're going to be getting your guys' top three, just for timing-wise. I've been thinking about it. Okay. Along with some extra bonus questions. And if you're a Patreon subscriber, we're going to

[01:14:56] do a community list this year. So the email went out today where folks can go to a Google survey form, fill in their top 10, and then the three bonus questions. And then we've got some folks

[01:15:10] in our community who are more data-driven than I am, and they're going to be able to work some magic on that and come up with a ranked list for us. So that should be a lot of fun.

[01:15:19] So we always make that podcast available to the general public as our holiday present to everyone. So pretty good. And then we're going to see what we get in January. We've got a couple

[01:15:32] of things on deck, but we'll let everyone know. Lastly, we always like to give a shout out to our Patreon subscribers, to our Loremasters in particular. They are Samartian, Cyrus, Mark H.,

[01:15:45] Michael G., Michelle E., David W., Brian P., Nick W., SC, Peter O.H., Bettina W., Adam S., Nancy M., Lavinia T., Dove71, Brian8063, Frederick H., Sarah L., Gareth C., Eric F., Matthew M.,

[01:16:02] Sarah M., DJ Miwa, Andra B., Kuang Nhu, Laura G., DeadEyeJediBob, Nathan T., Alex V., Aaron T., SubZero, Aaron K., and Adrian, who is always last but never least. Alicia, thanks for jumping on with me today. This was fun. Even though it was

[01:16:22] not the movie we were expecting, I think it was still fun to break it down. It's still fun to talk about. Yeah. Exactly. And try to find some of the gold threads that were inlaid in the fabric. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to end that metaphor there.

[01:16:35] Wishing you liberté, égalité, fraternité, also for the women in your life. Absolutely. Thank you. Merci. Bonne chance. A toute à l'heure.