Ridley Scott is a director known for making some of the most wonderful and visually captivating movies in the Hollywood industry. From science fiction to historical dramas, there is no card he leaves unturned when it comes to testing and portraying his directorial talent. Movies like Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner, and The Martian are all born of his genius.
His latest attempt to bring the historical pages of France to life, Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon is yet to be released. However, it has already received a great many number of reviews both positive and negative. Although the movie is only two hours and thirty-eight minutes long, were it up to Scott, it would hold over two hours’ worth of extra footage just focusing on Vanessa Kirby’s Joséphine de Beauharnais.
Ridley Scott Had More to Give with Napoleon
Ridley Scott revealed in an interview with Empire (via IndieWire), that there was a story left untold even after the entirety of Napoleon had been filmed. Joaquin Phoenix’s film had a lot more to it than what made it into the final cut. The cut that is set to make to everyone’s screens is only two hours and thirty-eight minutes long. However, there was more to the film than what meets the eye.
The director shared that there is an extended director’s cut of the film that is just waiting to be released someday. The film includes over two hours of extra footage that focuses primarily on Vanessa Kirby‘s Joséphine de Beauharnais.
With a total runtime of 270 minutes, the film would expand more on her character alongside her relationship with Phoenix’s Napoleon Bonaparte. Not only that, this extra footage would have looked back into her life much before having met the most renowned ruler of France.
Ridley Scott Wanted to Show All Sides of Napoleon
Vanessa Kirby revealed via Empire (via IndieWire) that Joaquin Phoenix left no stone unturned when it came to playing the titular character. She added as to how different Napoleon was from other rulers. His entire way of thinking differs from what is usually portrayed in Ridley Scott’s films.
“Joaquin studies the psyche, and the psyche of Napoleon is so strange,” Kirby said. “The film feels like that. It’s kind of peculiar, and there’s an intensity in that. Napoleon wasn’t stoic and wonderful like Russell Crowe was in ‘Gladiator.’ He was a dictator, a war criminal, really. It couldn’t be rousing, because that man killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men, in my opinion needlessly. And for what? To get an empire, for what? In the end, it all disintegrated anyway. That psyche run wild is dangerous as hell, and very strange. And this is a portrait of that.”
She sees him as a dictator ready to commit one war crime after another in order to expand his empire. She finds Phoenix’s portrayal of the character to be enticing and exhilarating in a rather dangerous manner.
