Delving into enigmatic General Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign
Astar-studded cast explores the complicated life of Napoleon Bonaparte in the mini series Napoleon now showing on Amazon Prime.
The cast from the 2002 blockbuster includes French actor Christian Clavier in the lead role, John Malkovich, Isabella Rossellini, Gérard Depardieu and the late Julian Sands.
The series is one of a number of successful releases that Amazon appears to have got its hands on and which are now being shown on the streaming service.
Back in the day Napoleon was the most expensive television miniseries in Europe up to that time, costing an equivalent of (USD) $46,330,000 to produce.
It covered Napoleon's military successes and failures, including the battles of Austerlitz, Eylau, and Waterloo and his retreat with his army from Russia.
It also delved into Napoleon's personal life: his marriage to and divorce from Josephine de Beauharnais, his marriage to Marie Louise, the Duchess of Parma and daughter of Francis II, and his affairs with Eleanore Denuelle and Marie Walewska.
The series drew from Max Gallo's biography of the French revolutionary general and is told in flashback from his prison on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1818.
It follows his first meeting with the widow Josephine de Beauharnais, and follows his career breakthrough, the suppression of Royalist rioters on 13 Vendémiaire (1795). It then follows his part in the Battle of Arcole, 1796. We then see the couple – Napoleon and Josephine – inspect their future house, Château de Malmaison, and Napoleon’s allegiances with Talleyrand and Fouché. Napoleon conducts the French campaign in Egypt and Syria, 1798-1801, the Coup of 18 Brumaire, and avoids the Plot of the rue Saint-nicaise, 1800.
In 1804, Napoleon oversees the controversial arrest and execution of the duc d'enghien, followed by the elevation of members of the House of Bonaparte, and Napoleon's imperial coronation.
In a work that is recognised as being historically accurate it is led by a French production company and, as such, gives a French perspective of Napoleon’s life.
An actor not familiar to me is Christian Clavier who plays the title character. He has almost exclusively starred in French cinema and has a film career going all the way back to 1973.
He puts in a solid performance and it helps that he has a slight resemblance to the emperor. He gives his character a rough and ungainly edge and a slight soldier's roughness in keeping with the title character.
Seasoned actor Isabella Rosellini gives an excellent performance as Josephine, and rough and ready Gérard Depardieu (who is now in his 70s and seems more famous these days for investigation over sex assault allegations) is hypocritical minister Fouche for the new emperor. Even regal looking Toby Stephens makes an appearance as Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
Still at the forefront of the acting profession and making films and TV series, John Malkovich brings to life important French political figure, Talleyrand, who during his career went through several governments and was an adept chameleon style figure in the process. As can be expected from an actor with he gravitas of Malkovich he managed to imbue minister Talleyrand with the right amount of adaptability and latent hypocrisy he needed in his post.
The costumes and sets of the series are very well done and give a visual feast and great historical grounding to the whole production.
The battle scenes, by today’s standards, are not really spine tingling but they are pretty well staged, but are few and far between and don’t really reflect in depth the countless fights that Napoleon experienced.
In general the historical events depicted are presented accurately, and the series gets better as each episode is shown.
If there was to be a criticism it would be that the wider political impact that Napoleon made is subsumed within the series’s over emphasis on the emperor’s private life.
There is sometimes an over emphasis on the minutiae of
Mini series drawn from Max Gallo's biography of the French revolutionary general Napoleon
his private life rather than it dealing with the huge social and political issues of the late 1700s and early 1800s. But, after all, the series is about Napoleon and if you want to find out about the wider implications of his life then I suppose you could always watch a documentary – there’s plenty out there.