Director Ridley Scott isn’t shy about taking creative liberties in Napoleon, a historical drama about the legendary military commander Napoleon Bonaparte. Several important details have been changed in the film. We investigate what’s real and what’s made up.
Few men in Western history have had as seismic an impact as that of Napoleon Bonaparte. Naturally, he has fascinated filmmakers since the invention of the medium itself: pioneering filmmaker and inventor Louis Lumière made a 42-second film called Entrevue de Napoléon et du Pape in 1897.
The latest big-screen historical epic to chronicle Napoleon’s life comes from Ridley Scott, who has helmed several historical epics across his career, including 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Last Duel. Napoleon re-teams Scott with Joaquin Phoenix, who previously worked with the director on Gladiator.
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Many have been quick to point out Napoleon’s historical inaccuracies, and Scott’s promotional tour has been marked by his no-holds-barred response to those criticisms. “When I have issues with historians, I ask: ‘Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the [expletive] up then’,” he tells The Times.
Here’s a brief look at where Napoleon deviates from history — and where it lines up with it.
Fiction: Napoleon witnessed Marie Antoinette’s execution
One of the film’s earlier scenes depicts the beheading of Marie Antoinette (Catherine Walker), the former Queen of France and wife of King Louis XVI, in the aftermath of the French Revolution in October 1793. Napoleon is shown in the crowd, observing the execution. In reality, he was off commanding French troops at the Siege of Toulon at the time.
Fiction: Napoleon’s forces fired on the Pyramids in Egypt
One scene that was prominently featured in the trailer foreshadowed how Napoleon would play fast and loose with history. In it, Napoleon’s troops shoot at the Great Pyramids in Giza with cannons, hitting the top of the Great Pyramid of Khafre. In addition to not being historically accurate, this would have been physically impossible, given the maximum elevation of the cannons. The ‘Battle of the Pyramids’, fought between the French Republic, the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluks in July 1798, is a bit of a misnomer — it took place near the village of Embabeh, around 15 km away from the Pyramids.
Fact: Napoleon crowned himself the Emperor of France
Napoleon rose to power in the wake of the dissolution of the French monarchy. As such, it is ironic that a brief 11 years after the execution of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor. According to legend and as depicted in the movie, Napoleon refused to let Pope Pius VII crown him, taking the crown himself to express his rejection of Papal authority. Napoleon’s wife, Joséphine was also crowned Empress that day. The movie’s depiction is visually based on the painting The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon’s official court painter. The massive artwork can be seen in the Louvre Museum.
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Fact: Napoleon divorced Joséphine when she couldn’t bear him a son
The movie focuses heavily on Napoleon’s tumultuous relationship with his wife Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). While there are several inaccuracies in the movie’s depiction of their marriage (including the fact that Joséphine was six years older than Napoleon, but Kirby is 14 years younger than Phoenix), the movie accurately shows the main driving factor behind the couple’s divorce. Joséphine was unable to bear Napoleon children, causing him to divorce her in December 1809, at a public ceremony. Napoleon did not, however, slap Joséphine during the ceremony, as shown in the movie. He then went on to marry Mary Louise, the sister of the Austrian archduke, but the French alliance with Austria soon failed. Napoleon and Joséphine did remain friends until her death in 1814.
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Fiction: Napoleon met the Duke of Wellington
The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 pitted Napoleon against Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. The Duke commanded a British-led force comprising units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau as part of the Seventh Coalition. Napoleon was defeated by the Coalition and abdicated four days later.
The movie depicts an audience between Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington (Rupert Everett) aboard the HMS Bellerophon in the aftermath of the battle before Napoleon is sent into exile. This meeting never really happened. Ironically, this scene was filmed aboard the historic HMS Victory, a British naval vessel that was Horatio Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson, who commanded the British Navy, was famously an adversary of Napoleon.
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A spectacle-filled action epic that details the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix). Directed by Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte's relentless journey to power.
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