Ridley Scott He has always been a director very given to saying what he thinks. At 85 years old, he does not need to put a filter on his words. And with the promotion of Napoleon He is making it very clear. In fact, several of his statements are not going down well in France. The filmmaker has carried out a project of colossal ambition to portray the soldier. And although he was perceived as a conqueror and in many cases a sadistic and violent man, the French hold him in high esteem and have not hesitated to defend him.
Thus, some criticisms of Napoleon have been very destructive, even classifying it as “Barbie and Ken in the Empire.” They have also defined it as a cluster of clumsy, unnatural and anti-French inaccuracies. But in the counterattack game, Scott is a teacher. And when in subsequent interviews he was asked about such comments, he did not mince his words in responding. “The French don’t even like themselves,” he said before the BBC. A phrase that has gone around the world and has already made its way among the most iconic in the director’s life.
But his attacks on France and, above all, on those who have so viscerally opposed his film, have not ended there. During his visit to Spain he spoke to the media at the Prado Museum. And when he was questioned about the issue by the newspaper ABConce again made clear his position regarding Napoleon and his army. “You did very well by driving out the French,” he ironized. Ridley Scott. Of course, he makes it clear that the audience to whom he showed his film in Paris loved the film. He is aware that the disqualifications come from very specific sectors.
Ridley Scott, against historians for Napoleon
Among them are those who seek to safeguard complete historical fidelity, even in the field of fiction. For them, Scott He also had a few words. “She is an absolute idiot,” she snapped in statements to Europa Press. “There will always be historians who say this, but what they don’t want to talk about is that more than 2,500 books have been written about the figure of Bonaparte. That means there is a lot of speculation and different visions, which also implies a lack of rigor,” she reflects.
He had defended this same idea a few days before before The Times. “Napoleon died. Ten years later, someone wrote a book. Later, someone wrote another book based on that first book, and so on until 400 years later,” he suggests. Therefore, he considers that nothing can be said about his project, no matter how many licenses he has taken. “When a historian tells me something I ask him: Were you there? No. So shut the fuck up,” she says. The New Yorkerwhich Ridley Scott What he asked them was to “buy a life.”
It had to be his own Joaquin Phoenixwhich gives life to Napoleon in the film, who qualified its director. “If you really want to truly understand Napoleon, you should probably do your own research. Because if you watch this movie, it’s an experience told through Ridley’s eyes,” the interpreter recommended. Be that as it may, it is clear that no matter how many years pass, Ridley Scott It has not lost any of its authenticity. And in the meantime, the film hits theaters on November 24.