Napoleon (2023) By Ridley Scott

December 6, 2023 Posted in 4th Comandment / 3rd Commandment / 6th Commandment / 8th Commandment / 2023 / Pastor Ted Giese / Movie Review / issuesetc.org / Radio Interview

Napoleon (2023) Director: Ridley Scott Writers: David Scarpa Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Mark Bonnar, Edouard Philipponnat, Ian McNeice, Rupert Everett Runtime: 158min Rated: 14A (Canada) R (MPAA) for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and brief language.

Listen here for audio of radio interviews about films from a Christian perspective with Pastors Ted Giese and Todd Wilken on IssuesEtc.org where Christianity meets culture. (This review contains spoilers).

Click the banner above to listen to audio of Pastor Giese’s IssuesEtc interview on Ridley Scoot’s Napoleon (2023) about the post French Revolutionary brutal rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) and his complex relationship with Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby) a minor aristocrat.

Along with dealing with some of the films historical inaccuracies during the course of this interview Giese mentioned that Phoenix had grown up in a cult as a child which may have contributed to some of his acting skills. The name of the cult was not mentioned in the interview, it’s called the Children of God. This is the cult that was famous in the 1960’s and 70’s for “flirty fishing,” where young women were sent out to entice with sex, or the promise of sex, young men into their cult. Click here for an Esquire magazine story about the cult and Phoenix’s involvement in it.

Also the possibility of a Free Masonic worldview reading of the film was addresses based on the inclusion of the black and white checkerboard patterned flooring in a prominent scene between Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) and the Duke of Wellington (Rupert Everett) which was not a depiction of a historical meeting but was entirely fabricated for the purpose of the narrative within the film. In many ways the film is a character study of Napoleon and an understanding of what this pattern and its meaning implies from a Free Masonic perspective tracks with the way that Napoleon is presented here. Further investigation of this angle of interpreting the film may be worth more attention. Click here for more information about what the Free Mason’s refer to as The Mosaic Pavement.

In addition to a look at the film from a Christian perspective using the 10 Commandments as a guide Giese gives recommendations of other films and shows either dealing with Napoleon or his time period that may be of interest to viewers. From Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Barry Lyndon (1975) to Sergey Bondarchuk's interesting box office failure Waterloo (1970) staring Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer and Orson Welles to Scott’s modest first feature film The Duellists (1977) staring Keith Carradine, Harvey Keitel, and Albert Finney. The audio cuts off briefly when the Sharpe (1993-2008) series of made for TV films were being mentions, that actors name who was cut off was Sean Bean who plays Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars dealing with warfare and the personal challenges of classism as he scales the ranks of military advancement from conscript to officer.

Rev. Ted Giese is pastor of Mount Olive Lutheran Church, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; an award-winning contributor to The Canadian Lutheran and movie reviewer for the “Issues, etc.” radio program. Follow Pastor Giese on Twitter/X @RevTedGiese. Check out our Movie Review Index!