Category: Film

Napoleon: A Review

How to summarize the life of a man?

Plutarch resolved to write rather long chapters of famous Greeks and Romans, but these parallel lives were meant to be read in comparison, suffused with didacticism. His intent for readers to reflect on the strengths and failures of great men would prompt them to form their own lives after these fashions. But whereas it might take a reader two and a half hours to read Plutarch’s chapters on Caesar, Pericles, or Alcibiades, one certainly could not expect to translate that same seat time reading history into a film that depicts the exact same things.

How we answer the question depends largely on what moments in a life make a man great, the significant victories and tragedies that advance the story of his life. We might depict when he met his wife, when he published his Nobel-winning paper, when he conquered a battlefield or a disease, when he sacrificed his life for a cause. We would not focus on a sleepless night, the drudgery of a random Tuesday, or what he ate on Christmas Eve forty-four years before he died—unless those events played some recognizable role in his greatness. It may be true that, if we consider David Hume’s analogy of the billiard table, what a man eats on one day may somehow have tremendous import on his life years later, but even if we could know it, it would not likely make for good storytelling.

And here we meet the problem of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (2023), whose recent biopic falls horribly flat on so many levels. Depending on whom one consults on the internet, Napoleon has been of such interest in the last two centuries—centuries that he largely helped to create—that more has been written about him than any other historical figure. (Other contenders for that prize include Lincoln and Christ.) A man out of time, Napoleon was a man more fit for the fame of the twentieth century and the ruthlessness of the fifteenth. I do not mean to imply that he was barbaric; far from it. But he seems curiously immune to the more political calculations and optical considerations of a man of his stature. Perhaps it is because of his failure to make those calculations, like his Roman predecessor Coriolanus, that we are more sensitive to them in our age.

Several have compared him to Hitler in his swift, avaricious conquest; this analogy is a poor one, as Winston Churchill points out, for Napoleon was a man of wit, taste, and vision, while Hitler was little more than a thug boss. Of his 61 battles, Napoleon only initiated a small handful, being less the aggressor and more a defender of his vision. The only true comparison to Hitler is that he and the Fuhrer both underestimated the costs of invading Russia in the winter. Napoleon, on par with Washington and Franklin, is a man of the Enlightenment, one who can rise from the obscurity of lesser nobility on a French colony to become the most powerful and despised man of Europe. He was as competent an administrator as he was a general, bringing infrastructure, judicial reforms, and a sophisticated bureaucracy to government. He was an amateur curator of antiquities, having birthed the systematic study of archeology, and he respected the art and culture of each country brought under his sway. His reputation notwithstanding, he created more than he destroyed. Such a man demands our attention in any medium.

Yet despite these many features to choose from, these many possible directions, writer David Scarpa and director Ridley Scott instead opt for a broad overview that covers twenty-five years from Napoleon’s rise to military greatness to his death in exile on St. Helena. The effect is too wide a span to provide any detail. And, unfortunately, there is hardly any thematic thread holding these twenty-five years together. One potential thread is the love affair between Napoleon and Josephine, yet neither of these characters are depicted in a flattering light. Their love for one another cannot rise to the level of Abelard and Heloise, and their abuse of one another does not dip to the level of disgust, like we might see in Heathcliff and Cathy. The audience, thus, experiences in this erstwhile Antony and Cleopatra a banal treading of water, as the lovers cannot experience transformation through their romance. And much though I may enjoy the many characters of Joaquin Phoenix and the aesthetic delights of Vanessa Kirby, I was never drawn in by their performances.

One of the film’s virtues is its cinematography. The greatest moment is the Battle of Austerlitz, which unsurprisingly receives the most screentime of any other plot point, more even than the invasion of Russia or Waterloo. The creativity with which Scott covers these milestones is impressive, with eleven cameras shooting a battle sequence simultaneously. If this film receives Oscar nods, it will be for camera and editing work.

Perhaps the most important lesson of this movie, as implied above, is that one cannot truly summarize a life on screen—not without sufficient screen time to make room for the story. History on film often does not succeed because film is primarily a literary medium. Barring the exceptional documentaries, the popular audience is socially wired to read film as they would a novel. This modality requires a discernible plot, themes, symbols, motifs, etc. It requires rejecting many historical elements for the sake of narrative (which is why many readers balk at film adaptations leaving so much of the story on the editing floor).

Simply put, Scott and Scarpa bite off far more than they could chew. A more profitable and compelling story would have been to focus on one campaign or on one period of Napoleon’s life. Even were Napoleon to be musing about his life while in exile and the story told in flashbacks, we might at least pick up a theme to draw the story together.

If one is interested in reading about Napoleon rather than watching the film, I might recommend Andrew Roberts’ excellent biography, Napoleon (2014). Having read this work several years ago, it allowed me to sit in the theatre and at least not be confused about what was occurring, which is more than I can say for my fellow viewers. Perhaps books, like films, never quite summarize the life of a man, but with greater time and space, they can at least help us better understand him.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Review

I do not fear death. At least no more than in an academic sense. It may be that when all the chips are on the table and I’m face-to-face with the pitchfork or the gun that I would kneel and beg, even trade in my own children just to avoid pain and finality. I like to think that I would be courageous and stand up to the demons. But I don’t really know whether I would bend or buckle. I imagine few of us know the answer to that question.

No, what I fear is barbarism. The end of civilization. The degradation of all law and standards and morality. I fear the death of a western light burning in the deep darkness. I fear that darkness spreading. I fear a moral decadence that caves in on itself and has no strength or will to resist evil. I fear crawling over the ruins and bodies just to find a crust of bread. I fear the fall of Jerusalem, of Rome, of London, of Washington. Perhaps better to die than to struggle for life in a hell on earth, reverberating the echoes of Jeremiah, “Do not weep for the dead king or mourn his loss; rather, weep bitterly for him who is exiled, because he will never return nor see his native land again” (22:10).

Agnostic historian Tom Holland argues persuasively in his book Dominion that the human rights we take for granted, including and especially ideals like the sanctity of human life, the abolition of slavery, egalitarian marriages, liberal democracy, and more all have their origins in Christianity. Worked out through its historical theology, its unsung servants over the centuries, and a preeminent doctrine of love, it gradually spread its reach deep into European soil and stretched out across continents to progressively reform the way men and women looked at the world and how we should treat one another. This reform has irrevocably permeated all of our institutions, so much so that we are often entirely unaware of the Christian roots, even as we love its fruits. In other words, without Christ, there is no West.

We are living in a “cut flower culture,” according to Will Herberg, oblivious to the ideas from which progress originates. I think we intuitively recognize this, as many of our modern stories are driven by this same fear I’ve highlighted. A civilization that has reached its peak has no way to travel but downward. This is why once we dropped the bomb and ended World War II we became enamored by dystopian nightmares. 1984, Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Blade Runner, The Handmaid’s Tale, White Noise, The Road. And, to recent acclaim, The Hunger Games.

This roundabout introduction to the titular review sets the stage for a broader discussion of what The Hunger Games represent. For this installment of the bestselling franchise digs much deeper than its predecessors. To my mind, the main series was influenced too deeply by star power and special effects to be much more than a blockbuster movie. This film, however, having already established itself as a storyworld to which audiences will continually return, excels by focusing more on narrative, character, and philosophy.

Set ten years into the annual Hunger Games, the story follows young Coriolanus Snow, the as yet president of Panem, as he tries to win a scholarship into university. Poor and always hungry, but presenting himself as rich and powerful on the strength of his dead father’s name, Snow itches to prove his worth as he and his classmates compete not in the games themselves but as mentors for the tributes who will be sacrificed in the arena. Snow learns to manipulate, to connive, to cheat, torn between his ambition and his heart, to win it all.

It is a rare story where we learn how the good guy becomes the villain. Ambition is, of course, the obvious motivation—and Snow is clearly driven to land on top. But we see he is also motivated by the same fears mentioned above. One who has been truly hungry longs never to be hungry again. One who has seen death wants only to drive it far away. He, and many of the other characters thirsting for power, at root, fear another cataclysm of civilization. The end of all order, meaning, light. All of us are just one or two steps away from the sin of Cain—which means we are only a stone’s throw from tearing down law, legislation, and democracy.

What are the Hunger Games for? Snow is asked. The gladiators in the arena exist not to prime our bloodlust but to break us from the illusion that we are humane. We watch not because we want to see people die but because we need reminders of how we would behave without the tyrannical authority of civilization. Much of my anxieties expressed thus far in this post would probably support this claim. Yet it can only be a partial truth. Such a nihilistic conclusion taps into these base fears, asserting that civilization is only a veneer and that we are all scrambling for power—and thus freedom from fear—by socially acceptable means. Rip off the drapery of culture, and those means need not be socially acceptable at all. We will, in the words of Nolan’s Joker in The Dark Knight, eat each other.

Lucy Grey provides an alternate perspective. We are all, a la Rousseau, born good; it’s the world that makes us bad. We might all be swimming by the lake if it were not for the demands of society. Without people, there would be evergreen fields that had never seen war, famine, or climate change. While this is a more pleasant prospect, it too is but a partial truth. We move from one world of survival (the lake will be frozen over by winter) to another world of culture (competition drives us to the top of the heap). Without people, there would be no morals, no art or accomplishments, and no self-reflecting entities to ponder a world without people.

Yes, we are transformed by our experiences, nurture being a prominent teacher, but the sins we commit are not only committed against civilization. Not all of us cheat on our taxes or rob banks, of course, but all of us are greedy (Exodus 20:17). Not all of us are murderers in the legal definition, but we are all murderers in the spiritual sense (Matt 5:22). The doctrine of original sin forces us to confront the evil outside by beginning with the evil within. Which god we serve, then, directs our path not just to civilization or barbarism. That is a good—and a necessary one, as we have seen the gods of politics and false religion lead people to all sorts of evils. But the higher path is one of self or others, of power or holiness. And if we choose the path less traveled, we find the light.

There is much else to recommend this film, but time does not permit. The thematic and philosophical concerns are warrant enough to view this one in theatres. May the odds be ever in your favor.

The Pursuit of Happiness and the Seduction of Pleasure

When the prison door closes behind Boethius, he does not yet know that the cell walls are almost entirely of his own making. As the lock clicks home, he looks around desperately, blind to the fact that the key is in his own hands. Accused of a crime he did not commit, Boethius descends into despair, believing there is nothing good left in the world. He is wont, like most of us, to view life as good or ill, just or unjust, upon our external conditions. In other words, we believe the secret to happiness is found in fortune. But fortune is not found entirely—maybe not even primarily—in wealth, as we often assume. We all have the survival instinct to create our own fortune, and perhaps the strongest among us can truly will our desires into reality. We grope and fight and push as hard as we can to make our fortune good. And the more we do, the smaller our prison cell becomes. It is, then, unable to bear the weight of reality, we turn inward. We seek out, stealthily at first, the small distractions and the little highs to balance out the lows. If justice is imbalanced, then we may steady the scales through titillating evasion. If the prison cannot be torn down, it can be waited out through pleasure.

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Disney’s Pinocchio depicts the titular wooden puppet-turned-real boy distracted from his quest for reality. Granted a partial humanity, the boy nevertheless rejects his kindly father Geppetto’s ambition of humane education, leaving the demanding life of learning to perform in an exploitative puppet show. Freed by the Blue Fairy only to become a victim of puppet trafficking, he chooses a life of hedonism on Pleasure Island. There he and another disobedient boy, Lampwick, spend their days riding roller coasters, playing games, and drinking beer. He unexpectedly receives the transformation he and his father long for—but he is turned into a beast. Pinocchio’s allegory is a sobering reminder that the unbridled pursuit of pleasure turns all of us into jackasses.

Such a reminder is always necessary in a dissipated age. But the message tends to overplay its hand—or loses its translation in the hands of the untrained or accusatory. Pleasure is as natural as breathing, and its ubiquity among the human experience is proof not merely of man’s desire to be happy but of God’s desire that we be happy. It is not, however, the highest route to happiness—which means our analysis must be all the more subtle, neither embracing all pleasure as good nor refuting it all as evil. Nuance and moderation are required here, and we must urge happiness without indulgence, and uphold morality without moralizing.

In a previous post, I noted that Nietzsche’s vision encourages a hedonistic ethic. If traditional morality is seen as an oppressive force that dominates the people, then it is only right that we reject the immoral constraints of morality and each follow the desires of our heats. If his vision is accurate, then Freud also is correct, and we should throw off the now-useless constraints of society; restraining our impulses will only inflame boiling cauldrons of subconscious danger. The danger in this psycho-social narrative is labeled harm, and 150 years later it is now a cultural commonplace that restraint actually hurts one’s self. (Only in such a luxurious and unserious time might words be considered “violence.”) Curiously enough, many of our modern societal cataclysms use an apocalyptic language of despair, concluding that if people do not indulge desires, they will run headlong into suicide. Tossing a colossal fit off a cliff seems a poor answer to one’s problems, to which a much deeper psychological problem exists than mere desire. One might surely conclude that a person may be happy seeking pleasure for a time, but only the naïve or obtuse think such happiness shall be permanent. As Lady Philosophy tells Boethius: “what do we have but the pains of longing followed by the regrets of satisfaction? One indulges the body and for this one gets pain and disease” (III.7). Obeying the self-rule of pleasure makes one a servant to his own body (III.8), and giving in to one’s selfish inner child makes one a slave to his impulses.

This does not mean that pleasure itself is the evil. God’s first commands to man and woman were to be multiply and to exercise lordship over the earth (Gen. 1:28). Creation and recreation both of fellow human beings and of civil society are pleasurable actions designed to beget more fruitful, pleasurable actions. The Lord busies himself with the proliferation of joy that comes through human connection and human community. But only he as Creator knows how best to prompt joy. Thus, in the two-fold command is premised the dual impulses of responsible liberty and delightful authority.

Here we must pause, taking care not to play the part of the moralist, who would prohibit all pleasures for the sake of authority. It was the Pharisee who accused Jesus of drunkenness, as he ate and drank with sinners (Luke 7:34). It was David’s wife who accused him of appearing undignified with his dancing (2 Sam. 6:20). It was the gnostic who persuaded the Colossian church to maintain an appearance of worship through total abstinence (Col. 2:20-23). Each example here attempts the exercise of power of one group over another to fit individual, not universal, definitions of righteousness. The moralist adapts the virtue of self-control to the vice of other-control. An alcoholic must rigorously control his impulses for the drink; given too much control, however, he develops an overexaggerated sense of ambition, which easily slips into narcissism and megalomania. Even righteousness unchecked can become a hedonism of self-righteousness, impotent substitutes for the joy intended by God.

Yet neither is joy absolute. Freedom and play must be virtuous, firmly fenced by the bounds of reality if they are to flourish. To cross those bounds, to violate the limitations of the eternal order, is to act in a way contrary to our created nature, in a way that will do actual injury to ourselves and others. It is, as Boethius mentions, like a man trying to walk on his hands. He might accomplish his goal, in part, but not efficiently or sustainably. Far from causing harm, order preserves our dignity and that of our fellow man. To do less makes us “the instrument of our own torments” (I.5)

How, then, to view pleasure? How to use it reasonably without falling under its spell? It may help, first, to consider the ends of pleasure. I, for one, tend to think that the pursuit of pleasure is often a coping mechanism rather than the end goal. The man who loves the drink surely desires to feel good, but the feeling good is the means by which he avoids the bad. The mother without her child, the employee without labor, the lover without the beloved all struggle to accept the pain of reality. Pleasure numbs the ache, or, to use another metaphor, it is the fluid that fills the cracks in our broken psyches. Yet it cannot be a glue, and its presence is only temporary. If this is pleasure’s end, then one hopes to escape reality, not confront it.

Further, we should also consider pleasure’s effects. Does it lead us toward the good of people or away from them? Pleasure is frequently self-reflective, and when consumed by it we turn not outward to the community of others, nor even upward to prayer, but inward into self-pity. The prodigal is not profligate because he spends his money on riotous living; this is only symptomatic of the greater loss of being estranged from the Father. He indulges in hedonism because he mistakes pleasure for happiness. The Father, wisely knowing that pleasure, ironically, brings emptiness, imposes on us behavioral limits, a series of Thou Shalt Not’s for our own well-being. To live in the Father’s house means a life of holiness—a life worlds away from hedonism.

Love God, said St. Augustine, and do as you please. If our desires, in other words, are ordered under the lordship of Christ, then we may feel at liberty to do all things pleasing and beneficial. Happiness, which is pleasure at its apex, allows us to overcome suffering. Pinocchio does not discover happiness at Pleasure Island. It is only during the harrowing journey into the belly of the beast, into the death of Jonah, that Pinocchio can experience true transformation. He becomes a real boy not through the freedom of riotous self-rule but through the humility of selfless suffering.

And, at last, we begin to arrive at an answer to one of humanity’s greatest questions by debasing idols falsely claiming to bring happiness. Yet how, then, might we truly become happy?