Chapo Trap House Reviews Ridley Scott's Napoleon (Ft. Everett Rummage)

Our friend and host of The Age of Napoleon podcast Everett Rummage returns to the show (after 700 episodes!) to discuss Ridley Scott’s new historical epic Napoleon. Was Napoleon really that sprung for Josephine? (yes) Did (x) from the movie really go down like that? (mostly no) Did getting blown up by a cannon ball suck? (god yes) We delve in to Napoleon the man, the movie, and the enduring resonance of the Napoleonic age. Plus, of course, a final round of kiss offs to the departed Dr. Kissinger.
Find Age of Napoleon wherever you get podcasts, and all things about the show here: ageofnapoleon.com/
[Chapo Trap House Ep.786 - Able I Was Ere I Saw Ridley ft. Everett Rummage, Released 12/1/23]
For a Chapo + Everett review of Ridley Scott’s first film “The Duellists”, see here: • Chapo Trap House Revie...

[@lostintechnicolor]

Ridley Scott is one of the most frustrating mainstream directors ever. Such a master of creating lived-in worlds, but his ability to get a good script together is so woefully hit-and-miss. He said recently that he wished he would have directed Blade Runner 2049. I’m so glad he didn’t.

[@bengallup9321]

The Duellists is one of my favourites. It does a really good job covering this period in a compelling and relatively accurate way.

[@deathmagneto-soy]

The final shot for that movie is epic.

[@redleaderantilles1263]

It really had been 700 episodes? They need Everett on more often. It is saddening that they didn't get him back sooner, he and Matt always got along really well.

[@ArgDu]

Sick drop, I knew they were going to have to address this at some point.

[@Oceanmachine27]

I was surprised at how much Joaquin Phoenix seemed to struggle with the role. I would have thought playing Commodus could give him a sense of how to be a world-historical commander.

[@Erasmustherobot]

You bring up an interesting point. Most actors strive to make each character as unique as possible, I imagine since most rulers In positions of power had remained largely the same in baseline motivation a guy like napoleon would be much more innovative and hands on then say a Roman emperor. Maybe that's the issue, just spitballing here.

[@dogbeachdigest1139]

The real Commodus was an insane idiot that thought he was Hercules. He was hardly a world historical commander and Joaquin didn’t play him accurately. Also Gladiator is a shitty corny movie

[@voiceofreason2674]

​@@dogbeachdigest1139gladiator is incredible and it will be remembered hundreds of years from now cuz it's got a totally awesome plot a Gladiator killing Caesar and saving Rome?

[@Oceanmachine27]

​@dogbeachdigest1139 you make some good points, but still, you'd think Phoenix could remember a little of the grandiosity and imperious self-assurance he was praised for

[@evanfreshman2450]

Gladiator was just an inferior remake of "The Fall of the Roman Empire" 1964. It had a good soundtrack.

[@fourty-u4g]

Kubrick had cabinettes with folders of Napoleons life so he wouldnt make any mistakes when he finally would make the movie, Rip leg.. so now how else would you make the movie today if not just nuts and all over the place.. i say why not laser scoped rifles

[@deathmagneto-soy]

I hear Ridley is bringing bullet time to Gladiator Part Deux.

[@voiceofreason2674]

If this movie was called Napoleon and Josephine it wouldnt have got as much negative response. Its a good movie just marketed really poorly.

[@garcalej]

“You think you’re so great because you’re on the Internet!!!”

[@zainmudassir2964]

Yes

[@zainmudassir2964]

My favourite comment related to this movie is in a video interview of the film's historical advisor. "They ingored this poor dude(the historian) like my wife ignores me when her boyfriend comes over."

[@jrobert5540]

I love the part where English listeners of Age of Napoleon will angrily email Everett, furious that he says good things about Napoleon. Insane to still have national psycosis over a man that's been dead for 200 years

[@deeznoots6241]

Its so weird too because its not like Napoleon was particularly evil or anti-British in anyway lol. Hell the Napoleonic wars essentially made Britain the superpower of the 19th century Speaking as a Brit I only really hate Napoleon due to him destroying the French republic by making himself Emperor, oh and also trying to re-institute slavery after it was banned by the republic… actually ok there is plenty of good reasons to hate Napoleon but they are never the reasons why people hate Napoleon.

[@parkerlong2658]

​@@deeznoots6241to give credit to Napoleon he also unlike the founding fathers of America or britian fully took responsibility for those mistakes as well at the end of his life and wasnt coy or tried to make himself look good when it came to slavery or Haiti

[@deathmagneto-soy]

@@parkerlong2658 - He didn't forgive the Haitians their debt tho.

[@parkerlong2658]

@@deathmagneto-soy he wasn't in the position to do that for like the last 5 to ten years of his life

[@deathmagneto-soy]

@@parkerlong2658 - Ah, my bad. You are correct, he wasn't in a position to determine that outcome at the time. I wonder would he have?

[@mt-zf6xp]

Why can't we just get a series of movies about Napoleon? NCU, dawg

[@JPH1138]

Wellington refusing a shot at Napoleon kind of isn't a historical inaccuracy in itself, because it's at least a longstanding tale of the battle that's been around since at least the 1870s, but every other version of it has it being an artillery officer, which makes sense. The scene drove me crazy in the film, because setting aside the idea of tying a telescope to a Baker rifle to make a sniper rifle being goofy af, WHY THE HELL would Wellington order that guy to do that if he didn't want to shoot enemy generals? Just in terms of internal logic it made no sense whatsoever.

[@montrose252]

The Duelists is great. I once read a huge doorstop of book about Bonaparte and I finished with more questions than answers. This movie is WEIRD.

[@lukabostick4245]

💕

[@soconfused8031]

The movie has some good battle scenes, but if this movie is all you had ever watched about the life of Napoleon (like me), you'd think Napoleon was a mid-grade commander at best who bumbled his way into being emperor. In the movie he wins 3/4 battles. The first battle, recapturing a port from the British, Napoleon does some clever tactics and is awarded for his performance: very cool. At some point, he has to control some rioters in Paris, where he just draws up a firing line and shoots the rioters point blank with rifles and cannons. Not sure that makes him look like some genius commander tbh. Then he does the lake attack vs the russians, which is cool but like Everett said not accurate. He goes to egypt and fires one cannon shot at the pyramids, and then the egyptians just immediately surrender, which is not impressive at all. He just won by default because his enemy haven't got guns like they do. It's like how you don't give the british credit for steam-rolling indians or native americans. Then he finally gets clapped at Waterloo. Only 1 of the battles seemed like he had any skill besides "shoot them with cannon"

[@gwynbleidd1917]

This is genuinely your ownly actual interaction with napoleonic history?

[@soconfused8031]

@@gwynbleidd1917 I think so? I can't remember explicitly learning about any of it otherwise, being a Brit we only ever were taught about WW1 and the Tudors.

[@SlimeJime]

It didn't seem like a movie about the battles, but i wouldn't say it captured napoleon's personality either. He was the most charismatic guy in the world irl, and the good leadership was only like half of it. In the movie his charm is non-existent, he's more like an autistic artillery guy who discovered he can connect to other people by telling him he loves them really hard. He pulls josephine with this move, and later he pulls the french soldiers the same way. Really funny to watch but as a biography of the guy it falls so short

[@JPH1138]

@@SlimeJime Yeah, when I was watching the film I was wondering how they would handle Ney's army surrendering to Napoleon at the beginning of the Hundred Days, because it would make so little sense with the uncharismatic way he was depicted (and as OP said, the film doesn't even make him seem like that amazing a commander). But the film depicted that part accurately - all the soldiers immediately defect to him because they love him so much.... and the audience has no idea why this is.

[@soconfused8031]

@@SlimeJime Exactly, this movie sucks at telling a story. It's like trying to straddle too many topics at once and ends up explaining none of them very well

[@RedSaint83]

Who'd torture themselves like this. Napoleon was somehow worse than PotC 3.

[@RedSaint83]

Also, I do think about the Napoleon a lot. Being a Danish dairy man that enjoys Civilization I'm quite aware of his historic contributions. He named the Camembert cheese, had margerine popularized, this supposed quote about steam power: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fZ7LqWt-gZihatE and of course the Brits smashing the Danish fleet because they're a bunch of c*nts during the napoleonic wars. I cheered when you lost the Euros.

[@jeremylawson6648]

i love the are podcast

[@Praisethesunson]

I wish Matt was stable enough for this episode

[@nohbuddy1]

Always amused Chapo getting some other podcaster, in this case a Pop History podcaster, instead of an actual historian. Like you don't bring up the Peninsula campaign and all that shit with Spain which was just as big an L as the invasion of Russia?

[@gwynbleidd1917]

This podcast has always been pseudo-leftist and pseudo-educational.

[@nohbuddy1]

@@gwynbleidd1917 I know, but it just demonstrates everything wrong with them and the online Left/Podcasters

[@Djonin]

This post has very strong bowtie adjusting energy. Also I’m gay

[@nohbuddy1]

@@Djonin Who cares about being accurate, just get more white podcasting bros

[@Djonin]

Lmao as opposed to all the people of color who are hardcore numbers and dates Napoleonic experts

[@Louie_The_Dago]

God, Felix is so unfunny

[@David-gr1do]

Wrong!

[@Louie_The_Dago]

@@David-gr1do gay!

[@DD-zh4by]

This has to be the hardest fall off of any podcast. Milking these trash skype shows, shameful.