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traditions. Kroger fresh for everyone. Hi,

1:53

I'm Michael. Welcome to Beyond the Screenplay,

1:55

the podcast where each episode we do

1:57

a conversational deep dive analysis into a

2:00

film. Today we are

2:02

talking about Napoleon, the 2023 film

2:05

written by David Scarpe and directed

2:07

by Ridley Scott. I'm joined

2:09

by the Beyond Screenplay team, Tricia Aran. Hello,

2:12

everyone. Brian Bittner. You think

2:14

you're so great because you have boats. Alex

2:18

Calleiro. Hi. Okay,

2:24

so we're going to talk about Napoleon.

2:27

This is the final episode of our

2:29

Auteur Autumn season. Last week

2:31

we talked about Prometheus over on Patreon. That

2:33

was a lot of fun. And so

2:37

today we are finishing off the

2:39

series and rounding out our Ridley

2:41

Scott Auteur examination. But

2:43

before we dive into that, so

2:46

this is the last episode of the season,

2:48

but like, what does that mean? Where do

2:50

we go in between seasons? What happens? Well,

2:53

lots of different things. So we're

2:55

cooking up cool ideas for the

2:57

next season. Home Alone we're planning

3:00

to do as a patron exclusive

3:02

next month for our holiday season.

3:06

I promised these idiots Princess Bride at some

3:08

point. So that might be happening maybe in

3:10

February. I don't know. I don't want to

3:12

promise anything. What

3:15

we've also talked about is the

3:17

new season of True Detective is coming

3:19

out in January with a little Jodie

3:21

Foster action in there. We've been wanting

3:24

to talk about True Detective. This might

3:26

be a cool opportunity for what we're

3:28

watching style of return to our week

3:30

by week analysis as we watch the

3:32

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3:35

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3:38

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3:50

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3:55

guys want to see. And if you're interested in True Detective,

3:58

so head over to the Beyond Screen by clicking on the

4:00

link. Patreon. There'll be stuff going on there.

4:03

And then also, if you've been writing, as

4:06

you should have been, then we have something kind

4:08

of cool that I think you should take advantage

4:10

of. Trisha? Yes.

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4:22

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4:29

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4:31

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So whenever I have the time,

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I like to extend

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this offer to anybody and everybody.

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Screenwriters at all levels, I love to read

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can find my rates and policies on my website,

5:12

which is just my name. It's trishaarand.com. And I also

5:17

have a form there where you can contact me

5:19

directly and we can talk about how I can

5:21

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And as I said, I offer a discount for

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over there if you are interested. That's

5:31

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To be a fool not to take advantage of this. If

5:36

you listen to this, you know that Trisha is a smart

5:38

one. So head over there. And

5:40

like you said, if you are a Beyond The

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Screen by Patreon, you get a discount. So no

5:45

excuses. Okay. Speaking of

5:47

fools. Hey! Ah!

5:49

What a segue. Segue.

5:53

Okay. Let's talk about

5:55

Napoleon. So I

5:58

just saw this last night in my are

6:00

hot. I sat with Brian and Alex.

6:02

That was fun. This

6:05

movie, I feel like I don't

6:07

feel anything about this movie,

6:11

which is kind of interesting. Like I wasn't bored,

6:14

but I wasn't entertained really either. Like it

6:16

kind of just didn't do anything for me.

6:18

There was some part, like it was gorgeous

6:21

and really well shot, but also kind of

6:23

felt like recycling some

6:25

imagery at times. I

6:29

really enjoyed getting to learn more about Napoleon,

6:31

but also at the end of the movie

6:33

I was like, do I know more about

6:35

Napoleon? So I'm kind of like

6:38

struggling to figure out like

6:41

what what this kind of experience

6:43

even was, what it want,

6:45

what the movie wanted me to take

6:48

away from it. And so

6:51

that's kind of just my opening

6:53

statement. And I'm curious

6:55

to hear from you guys. Brian, what

6:57

did you make of this movie? Yeah,

7:01

I mean I think there's something there that resonates with

7:03

me, which is just sort of like I didn't hate

7:05

it, but I wasn't blown away by it. It

7:07

was just like okay, that movie was there. You

7:10

know, expectations are a thing. We've talked

7:13

about already in this season, what do

7:15

you want from ex-filmmaker? What do you

7:17

expect? And it was hard

7:19

over the past week or so to

7:22

avoid the this scuttlebutt around this movie,

7:24

which was just like not the best

7:26

reviews. And the big headline

7:28

that was going around with this movie is way better

7:30

if you think of it as a comedy. And

7:34

I think that really helped me going into

7:36

it because I was just like, you know

7:38

what? I'm kind of just watching a quirky

7:41

comedy. And every once in a while, it's

7:43

like, PS, this is a Ridley Scott historical

7:46

epic. And like, oh, wow, okay, that's like

7:48

a fun little bonus that you get. You

7:51

know, story wise, I'm glad they focused

7:53

on just like Napoleon and it's like

7:55

selfishness, it could have tried to be

7:57

50% really

8:00

serious Ridley Scott epic,

8:03

and then 50% look at this

8:05

weird little creep. And I kind

8:08

of appreciated that it was just like 80% look

8:10

at this weird little creep and then like 20% like, oh, we're

8:13

gonna do some battles and stuff too. And

8:16

I think that really helped me just kind of get

8:18

into I know what

8:20

I think of is what a Ridley Scott historical

8:23

epic is. But if I can

8:25

kind of divorce myself from that

8:27

and just watch this movie, I

8:30

was really it reminded me a lot of Barry Lyndon, which

8:34

weird sort of historical thing that's happening here,

8:36

as in cinema history, not, not

8:39

history history is

8:41

Kubrick did want to make a Napoleon

8:43

movie, I actually got to like be

8:45

in a room at the Kubrick exhibit,

8:47

surrounded by all of his tomes of

8:49

Napoleonic like history. And

8:52

she wrote a script and everything you can find it online.

8:54

It's weirdly similar. There's like a lot of

8:57

similar character stuff, the whole scene with his

8:59

like the kid coming in asking for his

9:01

father's sword, that scene is like in the

9:04

script, not word for word, but the same

9:06

scene. But

9:08

then and he wanted to use only

9:10

natural lighting like candlelight and daylight. And

9:13

then he did, he took all of those things.

9:15

And then he put them into Barry Lyndon when

9:17

Napoleon wasn't going to happen. And Barry Lyndon is

9:19

very much look at this weird little creep, the

9:21

movie, that also 20% of the time is

9:24

like a historical epic. So it's really interesting

9:26

to sort of like having that in my

9:28

brain to then watch this movie and be

9:31

like, Oh, you know what, I kind of

9:33

like this movie more, because I'm kind of

9:35

thinking of it as this, again,

9:37

this sort of quirky comedy. So in

9:40

those ways, it worked for me, I don't think

9:42

it all holds together. And like I said,

9:44

it didn't blow me away in

9:46

any sort of way that I would want from this

9:49

kind of movie. But I also am

9:51

not I'm not mad about it. Put it that way.

9:54

Yeah, cool. Okay. Well, Alex,

9:56

what about you? Yeah,

9:58

the Barry Lyndon comparison. interesting because I

10:00

kind of hooked into that pretty early in the

10:02

film that this is this

10:05

is not gladiator this is more

10:07

of like a strange Kubrick kind

10:09

of take on a Napoleon story.

10:12

Anyway a Joaquin Phoenix take and

10:16

weird little creep the movie starring Paul Green

10:18

Phoenix. There have been many and

10:21

I had you know read some of the

10:23

headlines and saw the kind of X

10:26

and Twitter buzz about

10:28

how there's historians upset about this

10:30

movie saying it's accurate in all

10:33

these different ways. They have lukewarm

10:35

reviews so I went in not

10:38

expecting historical accuracy. I didn't go

10:40

in expecting a great movie and

10:43

with those low expectations

10:45

and not caring about

10:47

historical accuracy I was

10:49

enjoying myself a good amount of

10:51

the time watching this kind

10:53

of strange satire of this

10:55

man as

10:57

you say Brian also just mixed

10:59

in with like oh here now

11:01

is a really amazingly executed battle

11:04

scene shot gorgeously amazing visual effects.

11:07

You know just throughout the movie it just

11:09

looks so good there's so much money on

11:11

screen and just all these

11:13

big processions and crowd

11:16

scenes and it's that really Scott thing where

11:19

everything has like a lot of contrast

11:21

and texture and the mise en scene

11:23

is so immaculate and it just is

11:25

a pleasure to get to see

11:27

a period piece with this kind of budget and

11:29

just to get to look at it for this

11:31

long. That said

11:33

like you guys are saying I also wasn't

11:36

elevated by it. I was kind of sleepy last

11:39

night and this movie made me sleepier it didn't

11:41

it didn't wake me up. So

11:44

yeah it did leave me

11:46

feeling a little bit just like okay that's

11:49

that's that and then I'm curious what the

11:51

four hour version is. Is it a radically

11:53

different movie? Is it just more of the

11:55

same which I don't need. I don't need

11:58

this for four hours. But

12:00

then Kingdom of Heaven apparently like radical

12:02

difference between those two cuts. Um, so

12:05

anyway, yeah, it's a strange movie. I

12:07

did like, I once I locked into

12:09

what it was, you know, it

12:12

worked for me sometimes, but as

12:14

a whole, I was not particularly

12:16

enthralled. Yeah,

12:18

I'm very curious about the four hour cut

12:20

to see what what was cut, because I

12:22

would imagine they're not going to cut the

12:24

expensive battle stuff. So did they cut other

12:26

stuff? And that's kind of the stuff I

12:29

felt like I was missing some of, if,

12:31

if it exists. So I'm curious to see that.

12:34

Trisha, what about you? Yeah.

12:42

Um, this

12:44

movie is really bumpy for me.

12:46

I just, I

12:50

don't know, I just think it's such a mess

12:52

overall. Like I tried to just come to it

12:54

as cold and like as I could, I basically

12:57

didn't watch any trailers. And I don't know

12:59

a whole lot about Napoleon.

13:01

Like, I guess I know the broad strokes of

13:03

the Napoleonic Wars, because I've watched a lot of

13:05

like, naval epics

13:07

about it, mostly from the British side.

13:10

But like, I, they do

13:12

have boats. But I

13:14

just, I just don't understand why,

13:19

like, what the movie is about.

13:22

Like, what are the themes? Who

13:25

is the character? What goals does

13:27

he have? You

13:30

know, what plans does he make to

13:32

pursue those goals? It

13:35

just seems like it's kind of all over the place.

13:37

It's like sort of a, you're

13:40

talking about the percentages a second ago, Brian.

13:43

For me, this is like 30%, you know,

13:45

amazing war epic.

13:48

30% bizarre,

13:51

romantic melodrama. And

13:55

maybe a 30% political farce.

13:59

But some. how all drier than

14:01

a Wikipedia article. I

14:04

just was like, I don't understand what

14:07

the through line is here. Like,

14:09

what is this about? Just

14:11

because it happened, doesn't mean you

14:13

just get to put all these events in order and

14:15

make them not be about anything. Like, this is a

14:18

movie I could just read a book about. Like, if

14:20

I wanted to read a history book, I could just

14:22

read a history book about it. Like,

14:24

and especially if you're not gonna be

14:26

historically accurate, change some stuff to make

14:28

it mean something, please. Wow.

14:33

I just don't, like midway through, I was

14:35

like, why am I watching this? I don't

14:37

know what I'm supposed to care about. Oddly,

14:40

this has a

14:42

lot in common with Prometheus, where

14:46

we talked about character motivations when

14:48

we were talking about Prometheus, and

14:50

I don't know what anybody's motivations

14:52

are in any of these scenes at

14:54

all. It feels like just

14:57

a bunch of people do a bunch of

14:59

stuff without any clear reasons why, except the

15:01

battles, because I know

15:03

why people are wanting to

15:06

win a battle or not

15:08

die or whatever. That seems very obvious to

15:10

me. But a lot of

15:12

the scenes with like interpersonal things, it's really

15:14

hard to track with who wants what and

15:16

why. The

15:20

length to ideas ratio, I

15:22

don't feel, is

15:24

quite odd as we talked about in

15:27

Prometheus. Again, maybe the four hour version

15:29

gives some of these ideas more room

15:31

to breathe, but

15:33

they're just, we're not here. Like I said,

15:35

this feels like three different movies crammed together,

15:40

and I kinda wish either you had made three

15:42

movies or just picked one of them. And

15:45

yeah, there are a few other things where I was

15:47

just like, oddly, this is kind of like Prometheus.

15:52

In some of it, I don't know.

15:55

My confusion about what is going

15:57

on or what's happening and why.

16:00

I think it's really interesting to have those subtitles, which

16:02

look cool as hell I'm

16:04

like I like those and I like that you are

16:07

even putting subtitles of like here's who this dude is

16:09

and He's the king of this

16:11

country. He's the Bishop of whatever.

16:13

I'm like great. Thanks for the info. I do like that

16:17

But then the scene the

16:19

scene with that guy in it or

16:21

here's a date and a place like,

16:23

okay Good the scene with that thing

16:25

is a minute long And

16:27

then there's another scene and another subtitle

16:30

and it's just we're

16:32

just skipping forward through time But I don't know

16:34

what this previous scene has to do with this

16:36

next scene Wow, anyway, maybe

16:38

the four-hour version has more connective

16:40

tissue maybe the

16:42

four-hour version is more political farce and

16:46

That could be interesting, but

16:48

I just there's so much for

16:50

me that doesn't work about Napoleon Yeah

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Thank you to Mubi for sponsoring Beyond the

18:36

Screenplay. Yeah,

18:40

the Prometheus comparison is interesting because in the

18:42

same way Prometheus felt like nothing had enough

18:44

time to sit or affect the characters before

18:47

we were on to the next scene, very

18:50

disjointed feeling. Same thing in

18:52

this movie, like what you're talking about, just skipping ahead

18:54

to the next battle. No context

18:56

for like how we got

18:59

to this point and what the geopolitical

19:01

thing is that's being fought

19:03

over. It's just, oh, we're already here.

19:05

OK, it's happening. Oh, on to the next thing.

19:09

And and just like in Prometheus, it's

19:11

very disorienting to make those jumps and

19:13

to not know why we are here.

19:17

Yeah, I almost saw myself watching two, speaking

19:19

of two different movies, like remember when Ridley

19:21

Scott directed the House of Gucci and

19:24

Last Duel the same in the same year? This

19:26

felt like what if he directed them at the same time in

19:28

the same movie? But

19:31

yeah, for me, it was almost like the more I got tuned

19:34

in to just the like Napoleon

19:37

and like Josephine of it all, the more

19:40

that when it went to political stuff, I

19:42

was just like, whatever, I'm just fine. I'm

19:44

just watching like stuff happen, which

19:46

is not a good thing, obviously. But for

19:48

some reason was able to like make me

19:50

just kind of I'm like generally

19:52

not good at honing in on just

19:56

battle plans and stuff anyway. So I think there was a

19:58

part of me that was just like just. Just

20:01

try to feel it. Don't think about

20:03

it. I

20:05

feel like Ridley Scott was expecting me

20:07

to know more about Napoleon than

20:10

I do. And

20:12

I like, again, I guess I probably

20:14

know more than most people, but I was still just

20:16

like, okay,

20:20

there's so much missing information from the

20:22

actual text of the movie. And

20:26

maybe, again, that's in the four hour version,

20:28

but it's pretty rough, I think,

20:30

to watch it theatrically. Yeah,

20:33

yeah. And it's interesting. So I feel like after

20:36

watching this, what I know

20:38

about Napoleon is that he was good at battles

20:40

until he wasn't. And also some of the time

20:42

he was Joaquin Phoenix. And like,

20:44

I don't feel like that's

20:46

actually like has increased my

20:48

total knowledge. The Josephine plot

20:50

line is interesting. And at

20:52

a cure, again, comparison to

20:54

Prometheus, like, I think

20:57

in some ways, this movie is too good

20:59

for itself. Or like, in

21:01

these sort of three different movies,

21:03

it's trying to be, it's

21:06

really good at it when it's

21:08

trying to be those movies, I feel. But

21:11

like, the combination of those

21:13

three isn't working. And so I wanted

21:16

to be wrapped up in

21:18

the Napoleon and Josephine storyline.

21:21

There's a Vanessa Kirby happening, like, I want

21:24

to be like, all like, let's

21:26

focus on that. She's great. I want to,

21:28

but heard that arc was kind

21:30

of weird. And again, like the character motivation

21:32

thing, like we get kind

21:35

of enough early on to sort of put

21:37

together why she might be into

21:39

Napoleon. But then it's sort of, I

21:43

found myself puzzling a lot of like, what

21:45

does she really feel? What does she really

21:47

after, but not in

21:49

the good way. And kind of

21:51

similarly with the battle things. I, there

21:54

were times, you know, I kind of like that it

21:56

just drops you into the revolution. And there goes Marie

21:58

Antoinette's head and like, all right, we're doing this

22:00

thing. But then there isn't the dominoes

22:04

cause and effect for me to

22:07

follow up why Napoleon's now

22:09

fighting these people at this on this

22:11

corner of the globe. And so

22:13

then I wasn't invested in the battles in a way

22:15

that I felt I should have been kind of like

22:17

you said earlier, Tricia, I wasn't sure. Like, what

22:21

am I supposed to care about? Who am

22:23

I supposed to care about right now? I

22:25

care about these men that are dying. That's

22:27

awful and bad. And I definitely get war

22:29

is bad. I feel like it makes that

22:32

very clear over and over and over again.

22:34

But I wasn't following the connective tissue of

22:37

that. And then Napoleon as a character, like

22:39

I said, I don't really understand

22:41

the psychology of him in

22:44

any kind of clear

22:46

way that I can like, grab a hold of

22:48

and like, figure out how I feel about it.

22:50

I feel like I'm just kind

22:52

of puzzling as to why he makes

22:55

weird noises when he wants to have sex

22:57

with Vanessa Kirby, sometimes like, like

23:00

those moments felt like they were out

23:02

of a different movie than other moments.

23:05

And so it's just really interesting. Right.

23:08

Right. Yeah, favorite in their scenes. Yeah,

23:11

totally. Like, yeah, anyway,

23:13

so just like a lot of really cool

23:15

pieces that didn't plug in together for me.

23:17

And expectations

23:20

is interesting, too. I'm curious

23:22

to return to that potentially

23:24

in a minute. Yeah, well,

23:27

when we talked about Prometheus, we

23:30

talked about the character of David in that

23:32

movie, who's Michael Sosbender's character. He's

23:35

an android, and he does

23:37

a bunch of different stuff in that

23:39

movie. And I feel

23:41

like I was just watching a

23:44

similar situation where I don't know

23:46

how Ridley Scott feels about David.

23:49

And I don't know how Ridley Scott feels about

23:51

Napoleon. Like, there are times when

23:54

I'm like Ridley Scott despises Napoleon, right?

23:56

Like Ridley Scott really

23:58

wants to highlight the of

24:00

his poor decision-making or

24:03

his lust for power or his arrogance.

24:08

I feel like those things are really

24:10

on display, but then there are other

24:12

times when the battles are really going

24:14

and Napoleon's really good at them. And

24:17

I'm just like, I think Ridley Scott

24:19

maybe admires Napoleon or I don't know.

24:26

Because I can't track with the character

24:28

arc and therefore I also

24:30

can't track with the themes. So

24:33

I don't know why anyone is doing

24:35

anything. You

24:37

know, it's interesting,

24:40

the last words

24:43

on the screen at the end of the movie where

24:46

he's like, Napoleon's last words

24:48

were, France, army,

24:52

Josephine. And I was like, I

24:54

saw that movie. Yep,

24:59

those are the three movies that I just saw. But

25:02

I don't know how they interrelate

25:05

thematically, right? Those are just three

25:07

different things that Napoleon did a

25:09

lot. And it's wild.

25:20

Yeah, I think there's

25:22

something, I realize this

25:24

is like a central, this could have been

25:26

called like antihero autumn almost because we had

25:29

so many antiheroes. And

25:31

Napoleon's interesting because he's an antihero

25:33

and he's also an antihero, like

25:36

hero, whatever you think of that word being. Not just

25:38

like, what do you think of it like a traditional

25:40

protagonist of your movie, but like, what is a hero

25:42

and like, what is he? But

25:45

I think it's sort of like these two separate

25:47

things. We've talked about this all the way back

25:49

to like social network, which is like, how do

25:51

you feel about this character as a human being?

25:54

And also separately, are

25:57

they like good at their job, right? So

26:00

we talked about the killer and killer's a flower moon. He's

26:02

kind of like bad at both. And

26:06

then this is like a movie where I feel like for

26:08

me, first of all, it's

26:10

a movie about Napoleon. So it's not like really

26:12

Scott's making like he loves Napoleon. I'd

26:14

never expected to be getting that movie.

26:17

But I did feel like other than

26:19

when it was here is

26:21

him doing his job, then it's

26:23

like, look how good he is, look how smart

26:26

he is, and then it's here's

26:28

him as a human being. It

26:30

was just look at this toilet

26:32

water with shoes. It was just

26:34

like complete, just like mess of

26:36

a person. But I was also

26:39

able to sink into

26:41

that toilet water. But

26:43

I'm just gonna keep going. Keep digging.

26:49

Sometimes they say things and then I hear them. But

26:53

no, point being that

26:56

I kind of like when a movie is just

26:58

like, look at this person, he sucks, right? Because

27:00

then I'm able to just kind of be like,

27:02

okay with that. And just be like,

27:04

yeah, I want him to now suffer. And I want

27:06

him to like lose everything that he cared about. And

27:08

I want him to be exiled. And but

27:10

then that Tricia, you're saying it's like the last

27:13

thing is that like Josephine is like, okay,

27:15

but you just told me like all the deaths that he

27:17

caused. But then he's like, oh, but I like was

27:19

in love. It's like, wait a minute, like I kind

27:21

of thought like that was when the movie was doing

27:24

its final like FU. And then it kind of did

27:26

a little like, isn't that sweet at

27:28

the moment? So it's just again, yeah, like I

27:30

felt like I was able to to hone into

27:32

it. But then there were definitely times where it

27:34

was kind of being like, I'm maybe I'm not

27:36

so sure. Yeah,

27:38

the listing of the casualties at

27:40

the end was really interesting, because

27:43

that was assigned to me of

27:45

theme potentially. And I think one

27:47

thing that comes through in,

27:49

you know, one of the three movies here, is

27:52

that political farce aspect, which

27:54

is, you know, people in power

27:57

being, you know, deeply

28:00

unimpressive in their actual personalities

28:02

and kind of silly

28:05

and sad and goofy and weird. But

28:08

them being in power can result

28:10

in just mass suffering and death.

28:14

And look how crazy this

28:16

is, basically. Emperors

28:18

and kings and presidents and just

28:20

how people can ascend to these

28:22

heights and yet be these completely

28:25

flawed, cringe-worthy human

28:27

beings. And so I

28:29

think the movie, I did enjoy that aspect of

28:32

the movie. Once again, if it had committed to

28:34

being a farce, a satire

28:36

in its entirety, that could

28:38

have been an interesting Napoleon movie.

28:40

Just about this, you know, people

28:42

talk about Napoleon syndrome as a

28:44

personality problem. And

28:47

it's almost like the movie about that,

28:49

essentially. But

28:51

then, as you said, it ends with Josephine.

28:54

And it does, the movie's trying to tell

28:56

me if there's something really meaningful here in

28:59

their relationship that this is

29:01

being told through the lens of their story,

29:03

of their meaning, of their romance.

29:06

And I just don't understand why. Like,

29:09

why is this the lens for this movie?

29:12

And what did it actually mean? How

29:14

did it inform that political

29:16

farce or his battles?

29:19

I don't see any connection there.

29:22

Yeah. Yeah. Two

29:25

thoughts. The strongest connection that

29:27

I remember is when the movie kind of

29:29

makes it feel like he left Egypt to

29:31

go check on Josephine because she was having

29:34

an affair. Which is one

29:36

of the historical inaccuracies I read about. Right, exactly.

29:38

That's what I was going to say. They

29:40

ran out of supplies. Right. And

29:43

they like, so like, yeah, so that's just

29:45

really interesting. Thinking about

29:47

these title cards, part

29:50

of me is like, put it

29:52

at the beginning. Like would that have

29:54

helped frame things a little bit? You know,

29:56

because that's not what I had when that,

29:58

you know, aren't me Paris. Josephine

30:00

was obviously Rosebud. And

30:03

right now that is in came. Yeah,

30:05

like a movie where it's like that's

30:08

how the movie opens with the death

30:10

of citizen gain like Rosebud, what does

30:12

it mean? And that's the question that

30:14

somebody's trying to answer throughout that movie.

30:16

So that's the question that's in our

30:19

mind the whole time and sort of letting it's like

30:21

a well of meaning we can

30:23

go back to and like check on and pull

30:25

from. I don't know that

30:27

would have fixed anything

30:29

necessarily, but I feel like having

30:32

something like that, like when the

30:34

final frames of your movie, you

30:36

feel like they were

30:38

the meaning that should have been there the

30:40

whole time, you know, something is wrong. And

30:43

so be curious to see what switching

30:45

that around, or doing

30:48

the Napoleon death at the top, what

30:51

would that have changed? What would that

30:53

have felt like? It's an interesting thought

30:55

experiment. Yeah,

30:58

I think part of the hollowness

31:01

for me of this thematically has

31:03

to do with the lack of

31:05

like subplot or

31:07

supporting character really. Like,

31:11

who are the supporting characters? There's

31:13

a few guys we see around him,

31:16

you know, fairly

31:18

often, but they don't

31:20

seem to have real agency, right? They

31:22

don't really seem like they are doing

31:25

anything that's not at his direction, or

31:28

really pushing or pulling him in any

31:30

direction, or offering another take on the

31:32

theme. No one is trying to like,

31:35

really speak into what's happening in his personal

31:38

life, other than you know, people who are

31:40

pressuring him to eventually to get a divorce,

31:42

but like, I'm hard pressed to remember

31:44

the name of any other characters, other

31:47

than Napoleon and Josephine. And

31:51

I think that that's a little

31:53

bit of a problem. Because if

31:55

I'm just thinking about ways to

31:57

create that meaning that you're talking about, talking

32:00

about Michael where it's like if it's about the

32:02

cost of war or like the cost of this

32:04

one person's ego. Great. That's

32:07

a movie that's worth exploring. But

32:11

who's getting harmed that is

32:13

a name character that I

32:15

know that has something

32:17

going on in their lives that I care about?

32:20

It would be really meaningful if there was

32:22

a supporting character close to Napoleon who paid

32:24

a very high price by the end of

32:26

the movie. Or just

32:30

I mean it's like the dumb way to do it, you know,

32:32

and you see it in every war movie but it's like the

32:35

17 year old kid and here he is,

32:37

he signed up because he like worships the

32:39

general and then like that guy's gonna for

32:41

sure die. But

32:43

war is bad and this is who

32:46

pays the price. And I

32:48

mean I literally needed something like

32:50

that because the carnage on the

32:52

battlefield is horrific in this movie

32:55

but it becomes so much that it's

32:59

and it's only in those scenes and

33:01

it never touches Napoleon but it

33:03

also never touches me. And

33:06

so I'm just kind of like except for that one horse,

33:08

RIP. It's loaded right

33:10

out the gate. Wow.

33:15

Grim. Anyway, but like that's that's the death

33:17

that I can remember the most from this

33:19

movie. You know what I mean? There's

33:22

a more meaningful death of one person

33:24

because we care about the one it's

33:26

easier for us as audience members to

33:28

care more about that like one life

33:30

that was that character that we knew.

33:34

And that's just kind of the way movies work. Interesting

33:37

thing about the battle scenes. They did

33:39

function for me almost totally on just

33:42

a spectacle aesthetic level. Like I

33:44

wasn't feeling emotional

33:48

about them. My emotions

33:50

were actually more just filmmaking

33:52

thrills of just oh how well executed

33:54

this moment is. How gorgeous the shot

33:57

is. How cool this looks falling through

33:59

the ice. in the music right now.

34:01

Osterlitz is so cool. It

34:03

was all about that stuff, but it

34:05

wasn't about storytelling,

34:08

emotions triggered by

34:10

storytelling. It was emotions triggered

34:13

by cinematic awesomeness. And

34:16

so yeah, really Scott can like get away

34:18

with a lot in some ways because he

34:21

is just so good at the craft that

34:23

I am just enjoying watching

34:25

images with sound. But

34:27

at some point, yeah, you start to get

34:29

sleepy when the story

34:31

is not giving you anything. It's

34:33

just spectacle, just images. Yeah,

34:37

I think a cool thing, something I think about with battle

34:39

scenes, I think I've talked about it before is when

34:42

I just understand the hell's

34:44

going on in the battle is nice, you

34:46

know, and really Scott is guilty of this

34:48

sometimes where I'm just like, that's a

34:50

lot of really close up shots of people

34:53

getting stabbed with things. The first battle in

34:55

the dark, like at that fort for

34:57

the first, besides the horse exploding, I

34:59

couldn't follow a lot of the action in that one

35:02

because it was so dark. Sure.

35:04

But like, at least it's like,

35:06

all we have is just a wall. And they're trying to get

35:09

to that wall. They're trying to get up that wall. You know,

35:11

like a lot of the battles, they actually kind of shorten this

35:13

movie, I think, compared to a lot of what we think of

35:15

is, and the ice is probably

35:17

the best example of just like, we

35:19

understand the geography of what's happening. We

35:22

understand what's happening. We are

35:24

learning what's going on just as the

35:26

enemy is learning what's going on. And

35:28

then the plan is executed, you know, and I don't

35:30

know if I think all the battle

35:33

scenes worked that way. But I feel like in

35:35

general, I didn't feel I felt

35:37

very seated

35:40

as I was watching them just going like, Oh, yeah,

35:42

I understand the geography of this place. I understand where

35:44

people are. I understand when the big turning points are

35:47

happening and stuff. But

35:49

to the point you guys are just making, like,

35:51

that just felt so separate to me from the actual

35:54

movie that the rest of the movie was so it

35:56

was just like, timeout Napoleon movie,

35:58

we're gonna go do this

36:00

very well executed battle scene where I understand the

36:02

sort of plot points that are happening and I

36:04

understand the geography of it all and Then

36:07

we're gonna get back to the actual movie that you've

36:09

been watching this whole time So those things felt fair

36:11

and as you were saying Trisha if we actually had

36:13

that that you know supporting character who was doing some

36:15

of That work then we're maybe paying attention to them

36:18

in the battle and we're seeing what they're doing There's

36:21

something about not having more supporting characters

36:23

that helped me focus on Napoleon and

36:25

Josephine in this movie So I

36:27

didn't want just like more Like

36:29

random the supporting characters But like

36:31

one as you're saying Trisha like

36:33

one major character who I am

36:36

like following the entire time and with them And

36:38

he's like a confidant in Napoleon and then tragic

36:41

death Whatever like that certainly would have done

36:44

a lot of work to connect the Napoleon

36:46

story and the like the battle sequence element

36:49

to this whole thing I Have

36:51

the same problem with the Napoleon

36:53

Josephine plot line like when

36:56

Josephine dies her daughter is there And

36:59

then her daughter like I was like, oh you

37:01

I okay you haven't

37:03

been in 90% of this movie. I

37:06

Wanted to feel the emotion

37:08

like the loss of Josephine

37:11

But there were no supporting characters

37:13

in that Storyline that I

37:16

that were like an audience surrogate for me

37:18

to like track with what I'm supposed to

37:20

be feeling About anything that was happening in

37:23

that storyline and there were plenty of people

37:25

that could have been there like Josephine's kids

37:28

For example could have been there And

37:31

I for some reason they just like

37:33

are so left by the wayside Yeah,

37:36

four-hour cut Huh,

37:40

yeah, somebody tell me how it is I Think

37:46

so one of the thoughts I was having is when

37:49

doing a historical

37:52

drama Like what

37:54

is your responsibility to historical

37:57

accuracy? What can you take

37:59

liberties? with what should you, what

38:01

should you not, et cetera. And

38:03

so it is puzzling, as you said, that

38:05

this movie isn't 100% historically

38:07

accurate, but also feels

38:09

like it's committing really hard to

38:11

certain things. And so

38:13

there are strategies that you can

38:15

do, like conflate a bunch of

38:17

characters into a single character that

38:20

is supposed to represent an idea.

38:22

Like that's why you

38:24

have characters in your movies as they represent

38:26

theme and idea. And what happens to them is like

38:28

a statement about whatever you're trying to

38:30

talk about. And so it's

38:33

interesting that this movie doesn't do

38:35

that at all. Well,

38:38

I mean, I guess I don't know

38:40

that, but I didn't feel like it

38:42

was taking liberties with things in a way

38:44

that would help me understand. And

38:46

it almost felt like

38:50

stubbornly committed to the reality of other

38:52

things, to the point of like, this

38:54

is when this

38:56

thing happened. And so we're gonna show it

38:58

to you now, even if it's not the

39:00

most dramatically compelling or meaning-filled

39:02

event, but that's like when it

39:04

happened in the timeline. And

39:07

so I'm sure that's a

39:09

very hard thing to dial in. We

39:11

talked about hidden figures and how I feel like

39:13

that's a movie that took liberties,

39:15

but also told the story, had emotion. I

39:18

knew what the filmmaker wanted me to feel

39:20

by the end of it. And I was

39:22

interested enough to go and like research the

39:24

history, like myself. I

39:27

was interested enough to go and watch a crass

39:29

course history video about Napoleon after this. So I

39:31

guess like that succeeded. But in

39:33

watching that, I also found things that

39:35

were historically accurate, that were also way

39:38

more interesting and had meaning that were

39:40

part of Napoleon's story that were absent

39:42

from this movie. So all

39:45

of that is just a hard thing

39:47

I'm sure to navigate when creating something like

39:49

this. But yeah, what do you

39:51

guys think? When, what's

39:53

the right call to make? Or where should

39:56

you air when doing something like this? simple

40:00

question with a very simple answer. Yes.

40:06

Now I know there was like there was a

40:08

headline that was like

40:10

Ridley Scott Ridley Scott's

40:12

been like very James Cameron in some of

40:14

his interviews right where he's just like he's

40:18

like screw you guys we made alien but

40:20

like he he's just like oh yeah

40:23

we just we had them

40:25

firing cannons at the pyramids I don't

40:27

know if it happened was just a quick way to say we

40:29

took Egypt and it's like okay

40:31

like that's sure but it's kind of

40:33

like you like

40:37

that I assume that had to be

40:40

real because it's too absurd to not

40:42

be real right exactly and

40:44

I and I feel like it's it's almost you know we

40:47

talked about this a little um I'm actually going to talk

40:49

about Priscilla later in the lesson where we talked about sort

40:51

of historical movies that are trying to

40:53

be historical and then historical movies that are trying

40:55

to be really historical fiction like here's sort of

40:57

an idea of a person and we're kind of

41:00

going to like paint a picture with that

41:02

um and I

41:04

feel like Napoleon is trying to be

41:06

both those things and that's where it

41:09

sort of fails is it's trying to

41:11

be weird little creep the movie which

41:13

is just like fun goofy kind of

41:15

comedy and like character study sort of

41:17

thing and then it's trying to be

41:19

here's where these things happen and it's

41:21

like shooting cannons at the pyramids is

41:23

totally fine for your quirky comedy version

41:25

of this right but it's maybe not

41:27

totally fine for your here's the historical

41:29

thing which

41:32

got me thinking about accents

41:35

which you've heard me talking about

41:37

before gather around kid it's time

41:39

for Brian uncle Brian's uh annual

41:42

accent autopsy to

41:44

keep the alliteration alive

41:47

but like I was just

41:50

thinking about I'm always fascinated

41:52

by the choices that people make when they

41:54

are doing accents or basically

41:56

portraying characters who are non-american

41:59

non-English people characters in movies. And

42:02

like where do you kind of draw

42:04

the line between accuracy

42:07

and catering

42:10

to a wider audience? So like the most accurate thing

42:12

you can do is hire

42:14

people who are from that nation and

42:16

speak that language and they

42:18

are speaking that language and you have subtitles on

42:21

screen, right? That is terrible for appealing to a

42:23

wider audience. So I understand that's really not an

42:25

option for most movies. So

42:28

then the next option down is all

42:31

the rest of the options are everyone's gonna speak English,

42:33

right? One version is they

42:35

speak English but with foreign accents and

42:37

if you've seen the trailer for Ferrari

42:40

it's a lot of

42:42

Italian people talking to each other and

42:44

presumably Italian but they're talking in Italian

42:46

accents and it's like it's so strange

42:48

it's like okay I get you're Italian

42:50

but you're speaking English in Italian accents

42:53

you know there's sort of like it

42:56

can be better for immersion or it can

42:58

be like way worse for immersion because I'm

43:00

just going like why are these actors talking

43:02

that way, right? Another option is English but

43:04

with consistent accents usually it's it's a

43:06

British accent where

43:08

it's good for consistency just okay you're telling

43:11

me all these Germans are German but they're

43:13

all speaking English that's fine right? On Friday

43:15

October like got away with it and

43:18

but then of course it can be

43:21

distracting if the actors aren't that accent

43:23

so like last duel is a bunch

43:25

of American actors doing British accents to

43:27

play French characters it's like but but

43:30

why why are all why are these all

43:33

the things happening? I've

43:35

mentioned Troy before and I also was thinking

43:37

of yeah Troy is

43:39

like everyone has their own accent except for Brad Pitt

43:41

who's doing like whatever accent he's doing and

43:44

then the other version is everyone

43:46

gets to keep their own accent. A

43:48

weird version of this is Valkyrie where Tom

43:50

Cruise is they're all German Tom Cruise is

43:52

doing a Tom Cruise accent and everyone else

43:54

is like a European actor doing their own

43:56

accent so it's just like he stands out.

44:00

And so there's like there's kind of something nice

44:02

I think about being like you know what everyone's

44:04

just doing their own accent Because we know they're

44:06

not we know that they're playing these other characters.

44:08

They're just doing their own accent There

44:11

is something nice about that, but it's like the worst

44:13

for just actually trying to do any kind of anything

44:15

consistent, right? meanwhile Napoleon

44:19

The French are mostly

44:21

English and European actors doing

44:23

English accents Their

44:26

mortal enemies the English are

44:28

mostly English and European actors doing in this

44:30

act, right? doing you with accents

44:33

the Russians however are Doing

44:36

Russian accent so they get

44:38

an accent And

44:41

then there's one scene where two characters

44:43

were maybe German talk, but they're subtitles

44:46

So like the subtitles suggest that every the rest

44:48

of the movie everyone is speaking the same language

44:50

Which very clearly isn't the case because there are

44:52

French people talking to each other and their English

44:54

people talking to each other But one scene has

44:56

subtitles with me and then

44:59

at the center of it all we have Joaquin

45:01

Phoenix mumbling is just

45:04

Joaquin Phoenix like way through the movie

45:06

and This

45:08

should drive me crazy But

45:11

it's like Ridley Scott is

45:13

not I think interested in consistency, you know So he

45:15

is he just makes a choice and a lot of

45:17

these choices are choices that were made 40 years ago

45:19

and were fine And then he's like still

45:21

making them today But

45:25

but so like there's no consistency here

45:27

with the accents is all just sort of muddy But

45:29

there is something weird. There

45:32

is something weirdly like appropriate about

45:34

Joaquin Phoenix being like just

45:36

sounding less Noble than everyone else Everyone

45:39

else is like, uh, sir. My my Malaysia.

45:41

I Pray you consider this

45:43

treaty and he's like no, I don't wanna you know For

45:47

his character There's actually something kind of fun

45:49

about the fact that he's just like this

45:51

like mumbly American amidst a bunch of other

45:53

people Who don't have that accent? But

45:56

yeah, it's it's a very strange thing

46:00

And it's an unanswerable question, I think. How

46:02

do you deal with the fact that all

46:05

of these, all of those examples I gave

46:07

are just, none

46:09

of them are great. I

46:13

will say that I normally

46:15

am an ignorant audience

46:17

member that doesn't notice any of

46:19

that, but in this movie I

46:21

noticed it, which is just really

46:24

interesting. That for some reason, whether it's as

46:26

you called out, that it's

46:28

literally about the French being upset but

46:30

the French are all British, it

46:35

threw me and was distracting for me. So

46:39

it's just a really interesting thing. And I

46:41

think you covered all the different

46:43

permutations of it and why it's something

46:46

that is worth considering at least. So you

46:48

can make an informed

46:50

decision when you decide. It's

46:53

been a lot of French critics of this movie,

46:55

not only for the historical inaccuracies, but I imagine

46:57

there's probably a little bit of some thing with

47:00

all the British accents, the American

47:02

mumbler as Napoleon. This

47:05

is your history and this is how America

47:10

or slash a British director are presenting it.

47:13

It's probably pretty annoying. Yeah,

47:17

I mean, I just, I'm

47:21

not gonna say that I think Joaquin Phoenix

47:23

is miscast in this per se, but

47:26

I think that the

47:28

character of Napoleon is kind of all over

47:30

the place. And so

47:32

it's really hard for me

47:35

to praise this performance because

47:37

there's no character consistency in the

47:39

writing. And so the performance also

47:41

feels all over the place to me, like

47:45

the whining and the pettiness

47:47

and the childishness is so

47:50

infuriating most of the time. And he's just

47:53

a buffoon. But

47:56

at the same time, we're asked to accept that

47:58

he's some kind of great leader. The

48:00

scene where he's come

48:03

back from exile or like escaped and

48:06

he like walks up to the French army

48:08

and he's like, I miss fighting

48:11

with you all on the battlefield and like

48:13

join me and we're going to march this

48:15

way. They all like put down their weapons

48:17

and they're like, yes, we are marching with

48:19

you. Great leader. Um, there's

48:22

like no, been done, no narrative work

48:24

to support that. Right. Um,

48:26

this movie is not about leadership in the text. I

48:28

wish it were. It's going to be interesting. Um,

48:31

but it's not. And

48:33

so there's, there's instead a lot of, uh,

48:35

like I said, it just all feels sort

48:37

of erratic. Um, and

48:39

Joaquin Phoenix's performance, I think to

48:42

me doesn't work or like doesn't

48:44

help any of that. His

48:46

accent is a problem. The language is a problem.

48:49

Um, I think we talked

48:51

about this on a Q and a one time, but like

48:53

syntax and grammar are a

48:55

big part of creating a story

48:58

world. So even if you're going

49:00

to have all your characters speaking English, they need

49:02

to be speaking some kind of consistent version

49:06

of English, um, from

49:08

whatever time period. Like if

49:11

you want to have them, they don't have

49:13

to be speaking Napoleonic Wars English, but

49:16

whatever English they're speaking probably ought

49:18

to be from one time period.

49:22

And that means that the grammar

49:24

and the syntax, the actual construction

49:26

of the sentences and the vocabulary

49:28

should be consistent. Um,

49:30

and this movie does not do that at all.

49:32

Uh, there are, there's these weird grammatical things that

49:35

really just, I mean, really bother me.

49:38

Uh, that it's like, no one would put

49:40

that together as a phrase until the 21st

49:42

century. Um, and

49:44

yet here people are saying it in this

49:46

time period. And meanwhile other people are speaking

49:48

in these and bows, like

49:50

it's simply, uh, just jostles

49:52

me out of the story world personally. Um,

49:56

but to go back to

49:58

your question, Michael, about historical

50:00

accuracy. I feel like the

50:02

language and the accents all have are

50:06

rolled into that question of like

50:08

how do you walk this tightrope?

50:10

Obviously you're trying to make a

50:12

movie but this stuff really happens

50:15

these people really lived. Admittedly

50:17

like a while ago now right none of

50:19

them are still alive. This isn't like something

50:21

that happened to the early aughts which

50:24

is a different you know like it's not social network where

50:26

it's like everyone is still alive. But

50:30

I do think that's a valid question. My

50:33

answer for it is one that won't surprise any of

50:35

you which is you should probably serve a

50:37

story in the theme whenever you

50:39

choose. And so maybe you should

50:41

know what your movie is about or which

50:44

movie you're trying to make and then make

50:47

every decision fall in line after

50:49

that decision. And I really wish

50:52

that I had a

50:54

clearer sense of what that was for this

50:56

movie so I could understand how everything dovetails

50:59

in with whatever theme

51:01

this is about supposedly. Yeah.

51:05

Why do I feel scolded after that? Cool.

51:11

Well why don't we move into lessons. Lessons we're

51:13

gonna take away from Napoleon and kind of carry

51:16

this over to there. Thinking

51:19

about the Ridley Scottness of it all

51:21

and as you were saying earlier Alex

51:23

like these battle scenes

51:26

are immaculate clearly

51:28

extremely well planned

51:30

to manage that level of chaos and

51:32

have it be communicated clearly

51:35

takes it and same attention

51:37

to detail and commitment

51:39

which is really really

51:41

impressive. And so it's all

51:44

the weirder to me that Ridley

51:47

Scott can be so detail-oriented and so

51:49

particular about certain aspects of the film

51:52

and not in these

51:54

other arenas like you were just detailing their attrition

51:57

or like you were saying Brian at the accents

51:59

like there's parts of

52:01

the movie making experience that it

52:03

seems like he has this masterful hold of

52:05

and other parts that it sort of Feels

52:08

like he lets it do what it wants to

52:10

do and that juxtaposition

52:13

Has created some of the best movies of all time,

52:15

but I feel like has also created some of these

52:18

Weird experiences like Prometheus like this

52:20

for me And

52:23

yeah, it's also something we talked about with Mank

52:26

which was like Fincher saying like I

52:28

want to make something that feels so true to

52:30

life Except it's gonna be in like a modern

52:32

aspect ratio and it's gonna be digital You know,

52:34

it was just sort of like well choose one

52:37

like either do one or the other and I

52:39

feel like there's a lot of A lot of

52:41

that happening. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like there

52:43

are a lot of similarities I think with Fincher

52:45

and I kind of feel this way about kind

52:48

of a late leave

52:50

Fincher movies recent Fincher movies I

52:55

Kind of keep coming back to this thing of Like

52:58

I want you to tell your story

53:02

and I feel like sometimes

53:08

Auteurs can maybe outsmart themselves or

53:10

think themselves out of a compelling

53:13

experience I think earlier in the

53:15

episode and I forget who was saying this but Maybe

53:18

it was you Tricia like I don't know how

53:20

Ridley Scott feels about Napoleon Like does he admire

53:22

Napoleon? Does he think he's a creep? Like what

53:25

is it and I think

53:27

it's interesting to have complex feelings

53:29

about a character and to render

53:31

that complexity on the screen But

53:34

and again, this might be projecting it feels I

53:38

think you have to Do

53:40

work and tell that story I think you

53:42

can't just put those pieces right in a

53:44

movie and expect that to come out like

53:47

You can't just put me in a

53:49

room with cool things like that's a

53:52

museum that's not a movie like that's fun like

53:54

Museums are really neat. But like I want to

53:56

be told a story and so I think Yeah,

54:00

I think there's probably a fear

54:03

of being, I don't know, too

54:05

handholdy or saccharine or

54:08

I don't know, it's like, not

54:11

cool to like go hard and be earnest

54:13

about the thing. But like,

54:15

go hard and be earnest about the thing if you're going

54:17

to tell the story and you're going to spend all this

54:19

fun, you're going to do all this like, try

54:22

to make me feel a thing like

54:26

you're good at that. So don't be afraid of that.

54:28

And I think that's the job of the

54:31

director and the auteur at the end of the day.

54:34

Tell your story. Tricia,

54:36

what's your lesson? My

54:39

lesson is horseback riding. Actually,

54:42

my lesson, but there's some amazing

54:44

horseback riding. The scene

54:46

in Waterloo where the riders have the like

54:48

extra horse because they're messengers and they

54:50

have to like ride through the night and

54:53

ride extra fast or whatever. And then

54:55

he like jumps from the moving horse onto

54:57

the other moving horse. Like, this is

54:59

what I want from my historical

55:01

epic like give me all the

55:04

horseback riding action. I love it.

55:07

The stunts are so good. The

55:09

horseback stunts are so good.

55:11

Yeah, that almost makes it worth the price of admission

55:13

for me. But

55:16

actually, my lesson has to do just with

55:18

I don't know, it

55:20

goes back to character motivations, but I especially want to talk

55:23

about Josephine. I

55:25

think the movie is trying at various points

55:27

to make me feel like Napoleon

55:30

really did care about France or

55:32

something. Where like

55:35

the central conflict in his relationship with Josephine

55:38

is that she can't give him an heir.

55:40

And France demands that he has

55:43

a child. And so for that reason, he's

55:45

going to divorce the love of his life,

55:48

despite their weird relationship and all

55:50

of the conflicts that they've had over the years. And

55:54

that seems to be the arc of

55:56

that relationship because France

55:58

is his priority. Um,

56:01

cool, great. But we lose Josephine

56:04

in that, right? Like, I

56:07

feel like when it starts, we

56:09

kind of have, as you mentioned,

56:12

Michael, some sense of who Josephine

56:14

is, right? She is willing to,

56:17

uh, like, sort of, I

56:19

don't know, do things that are maybe morally

56:21

questionable to survive, right? We see that she

56:23

made it through the revolution, even though she

56:25

was sort of a member of the aristocracy.

56:28

And she is kind of a

56:31

little bit conniving in the way that she like

56:33

goes after Napoleon and marries him. And there's

56:35

a sense of like a survivor

56:38

about her, um, and this

56:40

sort of inner strength. But

56:43

when we get into their relationship and

56:47

like, it starts to get

56:49

into the like grit of

56:51

the conflict of she can't

56:53

provide him with an heir. Um,

56:55

I don't know how she feels about being queen.

56:57

Does she care about the power aspect? Is that

56:59

why she married Napoleon in the first place? I

57:02

don't know. Um, and

57:04

then it goes to the divorce and

57:07

then she's in exile. I, there's

57:09

simply not enough like motivation work done

57:12

for that character of Josephine for me

57:14

to feel anything about what, like, I

57:16

don't know what Vanessa Kirby is playing.

57:19

Like she's an amazing

57:21

actress. I love her. I don't

57:23

know what she's playing in most of these scenes.

57:25

Like is she trying to rattle him, you

57:28

know, in some of these scenes where she's

57:31

sniping at him in front of their guests or vice

57:33

versa, um, where

57:35

she's like indulging him in the

57:38

bedroom or not. Like I just,

57:40

I don't know what angles she's

57:42

playing because I don't understand her

57:44

motivations. One interesting thing

57:46

would be, does she also really care about

57:48

France? Like at the end of the day,

57:50

does she see herself as a public servant

57:52

or take her role as a queen empress?

57:56

Does she take that seriously and she's

57:58

willing to like take herself. out

58:00

of the picture for the good of the

58:02

nation. That would be interesting. But

58:05

again, that's kind of not in the text.

58:08

So it makes me sad for

58:10

that character because she's the second lead

58:12

of this movie. And she

58:16

gets even more lost, like the themes

58:18

of the character arcs and the motivations are

58:20

muddy everywhere. But with her

58:22

as the movie goes along, and she becomes

58:24

even more sort of sidelined, I feel like

58:26

we know less and less about her in

58:28

every given scene as like until the end

58:30

where she's like, I just

58:33

want you guys to be happy. Here's this baby

58:35

you are a miracle child of France. We have

58:37

sacrificed so much for you to be here. And

58:40

like, why?

58:43

So anyway,

58:45

motivations, you should have them. That's

58:47

my lesson. Yeah, I

58:49

think that helps. I mean, because it feels like there's so

58:51

much subtext happening. And

58:54

maybe that's just Vanessa Kirby being amazing,

58:56

where I'm like, you are thinking things.

58:58

There's something happening. She knows what she's

59:00

playing. But I wish I had some

59:02

insight into what any of this means.

59:04

And like, yeah, you have to have

59:06

those pieces there for us to connect

59:10

with that great acting and that subtext and

59:12

understand what it means. And that was lacking

59:14

for me as well. Right.

59:17

What's your lesson? My

59:19

lesson is about the passage of time

59:21

and how that can

59:23

feel disorienting or not in a movie.

59:26

And I think that I

59:28

said in Priscilla, that

59:30

even though sometimes years are going by, you never

59:33

feel like the rug's been pulled out from

59:35

under you because the central conflict is always

59:37

there and they're only focusing on a few

59:39

central characters. And I actually felt

59:41

that way with this movie, too, for the most part, we've

59:43

talked about how there are times where I don't know what

59:46

this plot thing is, or I don't know what's going on

59:48

here. I don't know why they're here, but

59:50

I did feel like there

59:53

were times in this movie where it's just like, anyway,

59:55

five years later, anyway, like this kid's a teenager now.

59:57

But I was just like, yeah, but I'm

59:59

all. There's like two characters in this

1:00:02

movie and I'm always focused on them. So I

1:00:04

think that like that at least was helpful for

1:00:06

me, where it just felt like

1:00:08

I was watching one

1:00:10

slightly small story

1:00:13

that was told in this huge

1:00:15

epic multi-year way. And

1:00:19

for all the reasons we've said, it's not clear

1:00:21

what that small story is all the time, but

1:00:23

I didn't feel... I think the

1:00:25

thing I'm getting at is that there are other movies where

1:00:29

every time there's like a time jump, it's

1:00:31

like now we're in a new location and there

1:00:33

are new other like supporting characters

1:00:36

and there's a new dramatic question and

1:00:38

there's a new plot thing happening over

1:00:40

here. And I'm just like, I'm like

1:00:42

so tired now because I have to

1:00:44

like keep re-upping my investment in this

1:00:46

movie every time that there's a time

1:00:48

jump. And I think something that

1:00:51

both Priscilla and Napoleon did pretty well was

1:00:53

I didn't even feel the

1:00:55

time jumps. I understood they were happening partially

1:00:57

because both of those movies have kids who

1:00:59

like age. So obviously that is like just

1:01:01

a very easy way to say, here's how much time

1:01:03

has passed since like that kid was born. But

1:01:07

just ultimately because Priscilla

1:01:10

was more focused than Napoleon was focused in terms

1:01:12

of what the hell is actually going

1:01:14

on. But in both those movies, because

1:01:16

I was just like watching a fairly small

1:01:19

character story, the time jumps felt like

1:01:21

they were super organic

1:01:23

and didn't feel like they were like

1:01:25

throwing me off the bucking bronco every

1:01:27

time they happened. Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:31

I think it's really a good call out. And I think it's, you

1:01:33

know, I thought I was having, this is a long movie.

1:01:36

It's not as long as Killers of the Flower Moon, but

1:01:38

it's a long movie, but it didn't

1:01:40

feel as long as Killers of the Flower

1:01:42

Moon felt. And I think part of that

1:01:44

might be kind of what you're

1:01:46

calling out that there wasn't Yeah,

1:01:49

you don't get thrown off the bucking bronco. Like you

1:01:51

said, have to like put new mental energy into like,

1:01:53

okay, got to grab a hold of this new thing.

1:01:55

It did feel like it was kind of just continuing.

1:01:59

It's just. trajectory start to finish in a way that

1:02:01

was helped, I think.

1:02:08

Yeah, kind of going back to what we're talking about with,

1:02:10

you know, how do you do historical

1:02:12

fiction? How do you compress

1:02:14

characters or compress ideas into

1:02:17

people or scenes? And,

1:02:19

you know, something just, we're talking

1:02:21

about the time jumps, there's also a

1:02:24

jumpiness, just with

1:02:27

scene to scene to scene, even without big time

1:02:29

jumps in this movie for me, where I don't

1:02:32

feel like a lot of the scenes in this

1:02:34

movie are scenes. If a

1:02:36

scene is a sequence in which somebody walks

1:02:38

into a room, and there's the one,

1:02:41

you know, we're on one end of

1:02:43

the polarity of, you know, they want something,

1:02:45

the person doesn't want that thing, and by

1:02:47

the end, something's changed, and the relationship has

1:02:49

evolved. There's so many scenes with Napoleon

1:02:51

Josephine, where he walks into the room,

1:02:54

something kind of quirky happens, or

1:02:57

weird happens, and then the scene's over, next

1:02:59

scene. And I don't know what

1:03:01

changed, I don't know what evolved, I don't know who

1:03:03

feels what about what. And

1:03:06

it made me think about another

1:03:08

historical drama that I'm watching right now, which

1:03:10

is the new season of The Crown. And

1:03:14

The Crown, I think, is a great

1:03:16

example of, you know, we don't

1:03:18

know what went on behind closed doors in

1:03:20

the royal's, you know, personal

1:03:22

lives. But we

1:03:24

do know these broad strokes of,

1:03:27

you know, the last century of

1:03:29

the royal family, and what

1:03:31

changed in the society, what changed in

1:03:33

within their family dynamics, and the big

1:03:35

public dramas that occurred around them. And

1:03:38

you can take those things

1:03:40

and then craft a scene that

1:03:43

kind of embodies all those things.

1:03:46

And things can

1:03:48

be very meaningful. Every

1:03:51

scene can be very meaningful. If

1:03:53

you approach historical fiction that way. And I think

1:03:55

a great example in the first episode of the

1:03:57

new season, there's a scene where Prince Charles goes

1:04:00

to visit the Queen to ask

1:04:02

her to come to his partner

1:04:05

Camilla's birthday party as a way

1:04:07

to give Camilla some legitimacy in the wake

1:04:10

of his divorce with Diana. And

1:04:13

it's just a really good scene where

1:04:16

every part of the

1:04:18

scene is telling us kind

1:04:20

of thematic story about this

1:04:22

parent-child relationship. He's made to

1:04:24

wait outside the door as like anybody else

1:04:26

would. He's not given any special treatment as

1:04:28

her son. When he comes in, she's

1:04:30

doting over her dogs and barely looking at

1:04:32

him. That's information right there.

1:04:35

And every like ounce of

1:04:38

that scene is squeezed for meaning and

1:04:40

there is an arc of the scene

1:04:42

and a change by the end. And

1:04:46

it just feels really good when every

1:04:48

scene is that and it feels really

1:04:50

disorienting when every scene is not

1:04:53

that, which is what Napoleon felt like to me,

1:04:55

which is just all these snippets,

1:04:57

all these jumpy snippets that are kind of interesting

1:04:59

or quirky or funny in their own right. But

1:05:02

where's the meaning? Where's the change?

1:05:04

Where's the compression of all

1:05:06

this historical information onto a couple

1:05:09

of characters in a room,

1:05:12

going on an arc with each other? So

1:05:14

that point did not do that for me. Crown

1:05:17

does do that for me. And

1:05:19

first part of season six,

1:05:21

the final season is currently streaming on Netflix

1:05:23

and very, very well done in

1:05:25

my opinion. So gorgeously shot and

1:05:28

just historical fiction done right. The

1:05:31

crown. I can't wait. I

1:05:33

haven't started watching it yet. I'm so excited.

1:05:35

Yeah. Yeah. You're

1:05:38

making me think of this

1:05:40

thinking like Inglourious Basterds and The

1:05:42

Killer, two movies where the

1:05:44

movie is basically like here's five 20

1:05:47

minute scenes, right? And

1:05:49

like every scene is a short film that

1:05:52

like has a complete thing to it versus

1:05:56

Ridley Scott and I want to say Christopher

1:05:58

Nolan, who do a lot. of just kind

1:06:00

of like, here's two people in a room, they're

1:06:02

going to say two lines to each other. Meanwhile,

1:06:04

over across town, here's two more people, and they're

1:06:06

going to say some stuff. And eventually, it's all

1:06:08

going to pan out. And when that's done, well,

1:06:10

it's the dark night, you know, but when it's

1:06:12

not, it's just it's very confusing. It's very off

1:06:14

putting. And I definitely felt that I felt it

1:06:16

less in like the second half

1:06:19

of Napoleon, but I felt it a lot in the first,

1:06:21

I don't know, 40 minutes or so as I was getting

1:06:23

settled in where I was just like, that wasn't a scene,

1:06:25

you just showed me a building and a person and like,

1:06:28

meanwhile, five years later, here's another building like, wait,

1:06:30

what are you talking about? Yeah.

1:06:34

Yeah, well, I

1:06:36

feel like good lessons have come from

1:06:39

this movie, but also the season. And, you know,

1:06:41

like you're saying, Trisha, like, what's the movie about?

1:06:43

What are the themes? Like you're saying, Alex, what

1:06:46

does it mean? Like tell a story,

1:06:48

like we're here. That's what

1:06:50

we're here for. That's what we're here for. Anyway, I

1:06:52

don't know. Other people

1:06:54

like people criticize history for being just like

1:06:57

a list of names and dates. And

1:06:59

actually, history is an incredibly powerful

1:07:01

story. If you can look at it as a

1:07:03

story, and then

1:07:05

you have Napoleon, which is just a list of names and

1:07:07

dates and

1:07:10

cool action in between. Okay,

1:07:13

true. And horseback riding. And we're

1:07:15

little creep scenes. And

1:07:20

Vanessa Kirby trying to hold it all.

1:07:22

All right, well, so we know what

1:07:24

Alex has been watching recently. Brian, what

1:07:26

have you been watching recently? I

1:07:28

have been watching Less Than Normal because

1:07:31

I've been reading, which I just finished

1:07:33

a couple hours ago, Tomorrow and Tomorrow

1:07:35

and Tomorrow by Gabrielle

1:07:37

Zevan, which was

1:07:39

a book that I had seen recommended a

1:07:41

lot when it came out. It's about a

1:07:43

video game industry. So I think I saw it

1:07:45

on like gaming Twitter. I had

1:07:48

it sitting on my wish list for the longest time.

1:07:50

I was at a party three weeks ago.

1:07:52

And my friend said, Oh, have you

1:07:54

read this book? And I said, Oh, no, but I've been meaning to

1:07:56

it. I mean, you know what, I'm going to order it. And then

1:07:58

between the time I ordered it and And when it came

1:08:00

two days later, one of my best

1:08:02

friends texted me and said, have you read this book? And I was

1:08:04

like, okay, well, it's coming and I'm gonna read it. So

1:08:07

I read it over the past two weeks. It's

1:08:09

about a boy and a girl who meet when they're 11 and 12

1:08:12

and connect over video games. And

1:08:15

then later when they're adults, they kind of reconnect

1:08:17

and they start a video game company together and

1:08:20

it becomes very successful. But

1:08:22

there's always like a tension between them. Sometimes they're

1:08:24

not speaking for months

1:08:26

on end. And

1:08:28

so it's like a book about

1:08:30

interpersonal relationships but also about creating

1:08:33

art with someone, especially someone that

1:08:35

you care about, starting a

1:08:37

business with someone that you care about and like,

1:08:39

what does that look like? So there's a lot

1:08:41

of interesting themes about all of that kind of

1:08:44

stuff. And I really

1:08:46

enjoyed it. It's very sweet and it

1:08:48

takes some interesting turns both narratively and

1:08:51

authorially, like the way that the story is

1:08:53

told sometimes takes some turns,

1:08:55

which I found really fascinating. Yeah,

1:08:58

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, obviously named

1:09:00

after the McBeth Silo-Liqui, which is relevant

1:09:02

to the story by Gabrielle Zevon. Nice,

1:09:05

sounds cool. Nice. All right,

1:09:07

Tricia, what if you were to watch it? I'm

1:09:12

so happy to share this movie with you guys.

1:09:14

I recently watched a film called The Train from

1:09:16

1964. It's

1:09:19

a Bert Langcaster movie. It's

1:09:22

a John Frankenheimer directed. Yeah,

1:09:25

it's about so

1:09:28

I don't know if any of you

1:09:30

guys saw the movie Monuments Men, which

1:09:32

is a very bad

1:09:34

heist movie starring

1:09:37

and directed by George Clooney from

1:09:40

The Odds, I believe, but it's about a

1:09:42

Nazi art train, right? Where they're like

1:09:44

trying to, the Nazis are trying to move

1:09:46

a bunch of priceless art out of Germany. Also

1:09:48

the beginning of Dial of Destiny is

1:09:50

sort of about this kind of thing where it's

1:09:52

like the Nazis are trying to steal national treasures

1:09:54

from France. And

1:09:57

people are trying to stop them. But The

1:10:00

train has the same plot, but it's a really,

1:10:02

really good movie. And,

1:10:05

uh, Bert Lancaster plays like a

1:10:07

railroad man. Like he's

1:10:09

sort of the director of this local railroad

1:10:12

station. Um, Paul Scofield

1:10:14

plays like the Nazi general

1:10:16

that's, uh, tried to get the train out.

1:10:19

Uh, and Jan Moro is like a local,

1:10:21

um, innkeeper woman who

1:10:23

helps Bert Lancaster's character. And

1:10:26

it's just this like amazing

1:10:28

action thriller, like World War

1:10:31

II action thriller that kind

1:10:33

of all in a train yard slash

1:10:35

on a train and the train's carrying

1:10:37

all of these like priceless works

1:10:39

of French art and Bert

1:10:41

Lancaster and the other railroad men are just

1:10:44

trying to stall it basically and keep

1:10:46

it from going into Germany where the

1:10:48

paintings will never be recovered. And, uh,

1:10:50

but stall it, but not blow it up and

1:10:53

not let it get bombed in an air raid and like all

1:10:55

of this stuff. So they're trying to save it, but

1:10:58

also like make it totally immobile using all

1:11:00

the tricks and trade of the railroad. Um,

1:11:03

so it's kind of a heist movie, but it's

1:11:05

also this action movie. Oh God,

1:11:07

it rules so hard. Um,

1:11:10

yeah, I can't recommend this movie enough. I

1:11:12

just had a blast watching it. Bert

1:11:15

Lancaster is amazing.

1:11:18

I don't know if you've seen a lot of Bert Lancaster movies. Um,

1:11:21

first of all, a babe forever, but like

1:11:23

did so many of his own stunt

1:11:25

slash action in this movie. Like he

1:11:27

must've, there's a scene where he's up

1:11:29

in a tower, um, watching

1:11:32

a train through a pair of binoculars. He

1:11:35

runs out of the tower. He

1:11:37

slides down a ladder, you know,

1:11:39

like probably a 20 foot ladder,

1:11:41

uh, just quickly runs

1:11:43

over, like jumps onto a moving train

1:11:46

and like ducks into the cab. It's

1:11:48

all one shot. Clearly Bert

1:11:50

Lancaster just did all of that. There's

1:11:52

another scene where he's like forging parts

1:11:54

for a train engine. Um,

1:11:57

and it's all one shot. He's like working

1:11:59

with. a forge and like molten metal

1:12:02

and forging train parts.

1:12:04

It's awesome. It's

1:12:06

just they really don't make movies

1:12:08

like that anymore. It's amazing. Strong,

1:12:11

strong recommend. If you like

1:12:13

manly men and large machines

1:12:15

foiling Nazi plots, which

1:12:18

I really do, the train is

1:12:21

here for you. It has sort of

1:12:23

a submarine movie vibe to it. It

1:12:25

rules. Nice. Unsold.

1:12:28

Yeah. Yeah, trains are kind

1:12:30

of like submarines on land in some ways. Sure.

1:12:33

I wonder. Snowpier, sir. Yeah, for sure.

1:12:38

Wonder what the

1:12:40

average like release

1:12:42

year for each of our what we're

1:12:44

watching. I'm

1:12:47

not giving a challenge necessarily to

1:12:49

a certain discord patron, but I'd

1:12:51

be curious to know if well,

1:12:55

do your do

1:12:57

your like, you know, podcast episodes that

1:12:59

came out 10 days ago count? No,

1:13:01

films only. Oh, films only.

1:13:03

All right. So what about TV? I

1:13:06

don't think it would significantly change Michael's average.

1:13:09

Right? It

1:13:11

might strictly films. It might. I

1:13:14

feel like it'd be Trisha, the oldest

1:13:16

to newest Trisha me. And

1:13:19

then Alex Michael. Probably Alex

1:13:21

Michael. Yeah, it is. But

1:13:24

Alex was a lot of like, I just, you know,

1:13:26

it's all the new A24 movie that's not right. See

1:13:28

that or whatever. Yeah. Interesting.

1:13:31

Well, one day maybe we'll

1:13:33

know the answer to that question. That

1:13:36

very important question. I've

1:13:40

recently been not watching a movie, but

1:13:42

I watched the Queen's Gambit. Finally, I

1:13:44

got around really 2020 and watched it.

1:13:49

It had been on my list, but I kind of

1:13:51

started it one day when it came out and I

1:13:53

was like, I'm not in the mood for this and

1:13:56

then never went back. And that was a good call

1:13:58

now that I've seen the rest of it. But

1:14:00

I really liked it. It was

1:14:02

slow, took me a while to get into it. But

1:14:05

a lot of just a

1:14:07

lot of really good storytelling happening in it.

1:14:10

And, you know, everyone knows

1:14:12

this already. But yeah,

1:14:14

it was just really, really well done. I

1:14:16

think great examples of subtext

1:14:18

and creating like the inner life of

1:14:20

a character in the audience for, you

1:14:23

know, on your spot on your Taylor

1:14:25

Joy look and think. And

1:14:27

I'm like, Oh, I know exactly what she's

1:14:29

thinking. She's thinking this because this happened to

1:14:32

that person. I'm like, this is what this

1:14:34

really means. And it's just very engrossing kind

1:14:36

of better call solid breaking bad ish for

1:14:38

the psychology of the character I was very

1:14:40

involved in. And it was a great example

1:14:42

of stakes and how

1:14:44

the scale of stakes do not

1:14:46

necessarily correlate to the emotional magnitude

1:14:48

of those stakes and where it's

1:14:51

like, it's like, what's the worst

1:14:53

thing that's going to happen? She maybe won't

1:14:55

be the best chess player. But

1:14:57

I'm on the edge of my seat. And I'm just

1:14:59

very involved in a way that, you know, epic

1:15:02

action scenes don't have anything. So I just

1:15:05

really enjoyed it. Gorgeously shot the

1:15:07

color palette. I know people have talked, but like,

1:15:11

very good color grading, very good cinematography. I

1:15:14

enjoyed it a lot. Queen's Gambit on

1:15:16

Netflix. If you haven't heard of

1:15:19

it. The thing you watched during

1:15:21

the pandemic. Yeah, I got

1:15:23

better. And if you're watching on

1:15:25

YouTube, go back and watch Trisha's micro expressions

1:15:28

during all of that. Something

1:15:32

we should talk about the themes in that show or

1:15:34

lack thereof. Okay,

1:15:37

interesting. I wasn't sure how to read those

1:15:39

micro expressions. So I started looking away because

1:15:41

I didn't want to be distracted. Well, now

1:15:43

we need to talk about it. Interesting. Interesting.

1:15:47

Yeah, I think I know what you mean Trisha. Yeah.

1:15:49

I also like looking at it. Interesting.

1:15:52

All right. Well, put

1:15:55

this on the list of things

1:15:57

to talk about in the future,

1:15:59

along with home alone. alone next

1:16:01

month as our holiday film for

1:16:03

December and Patreon. Like

1:16:06

I said, yeah, maybe Princess Brian at some point. I don't

1:16:08

know. We'll see. Let us know if you want us

1:16:11

to talk about True Detective and the

1:16:13

What We're Watching format. Again, we

1:16:15

did it with Loki season

1:16:17

one and Foundation and third thing

1:16:20

at least. Or

1:16:22

is it just those two? Boba Fett. Boba

1:16:24

Fett. Did we really do it? We really

1:16:26

did. We did a good one, y'all. We're

1:16:29

trying to get a really good

1:16:31

one in here. So potentially True

1:16:33

Detective, the format is yeah, for

1:16:35

our $5 patrons week by

1:16:38

week, we release an episode talking

1:16:40

about our thoughts analysis on

1:16:42

each episode. So hit us

1:16:44

up on Twitter, Patreon, Discord, Spotify, all

1:16:46

the places. Let us know what you

1:16:48

think. And

1:16:51

this has been our Auteur Autumn season.

1:16:53

This was really interesting. Like happy it

1:16:55

worked out that we were able to

1:16:57

do an old ish movie for each

1:17:00

tour and a new ish one. There

1:17:03

was some unexpected gems,

1:17:05

I feel like I was listing like what

1:17:07

are my favorites of of this season in

1:17:10

my head. And it's like Priscilla was

1:17:12

the movie I enjoyed the most and

1:17:14

I knew the least about going into

1:17:16

all of it. So yeah, there's

1:17:18

been a lot of fun. No,

1:17:21

I know. Remember

1:17:26

when we talked about Shutter Island? I

1:17:29

really do. What a season. What

1:17:32

a season choices were made in

1:17:34

this season. Yes. And here

1:17:36

we are. Thank you to our

1:17:38

patrons for supporting this show and

1:17:41

making it possible. Thank you to

1:17:43

our producer, Vince Major. Thank you to our

1:17:45

editors, Donovan Bolin, Caleb Berg, Graham Harther and

1:17:47

Eric Schneider. I'm Michael Tucker and I've been

1:17:49

joined today by Tricia Rand, Brian Fittner and

1:17:52

Alex Cayetros. If you want to help us

1:17:54

out leave a review on Apple Podcast or

1:17:56

Spotify. Let us know what you think helps

1:17:59

the show. out, say hi to us on Twitter

1:18:01

and we will see you soon

1:18:03

if you're a Patreon supporter and

1:18:06

if not next season, happy

1:18:08

holidays. Bye everybody. Bye

1:18:11

bye. Bye.