Ridley Scott deciphers his staging of the battles in Napoleon (video)
The biopic with Joaquin Phoenix returns to Canal + this Saturday evening. If you like his epic scenes, here’s how they were made.
He put the means to put on a show! Napoleon of Ridley Scott has received mixed reviews, but we cannot take away its epic historical film side. It relates the love story between Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) and Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby), but between two intimate sequences, it also shows some Dantesque battle scenesillustrating the military genius of the French Emperor.
At the end of 2023, Sony Pictures released the video below, in which the director discusses his directing style for filming the battle sequences. Interviewed by Dan Snow (from History Channel), Ridley Scott explains the way he arranges the cameras, to let the action come to him. He even confides that he dressed certain cameras in soldier’s uniforms to place them as close as possible to the action, without them being visible in the shots.
Director Ridley Scott joins Dan Snow from @HistoryHit to break down the battle scenes in @NapoleonMovie. See it on Premium Large Formats, Screen X, 70mm and IMAX this Thanksgiving. pic.twitter.com/3o37eCRQ4g
— Sony Pictures (@SonyPictures) November 1, 2023
Napoleon: Ridley Scott talks about the behind the scenes of his biopic (exclusive photos)
The video is notably illustrated by some grandiose extracts from the Russian Campaign, with the Grognards engaged in the cold of Eastern Europe, but the filmmaker also specifically recounted his making of the battle of Austerlitzmade possible thanks to numerous extras and several cameras rotating at the same time to capture the reconstruction of the conflict from all angles.
Waiting to (re)see Napoleonhere is its trailer:
Is Ridley Scott’s Napoleon realistic? His historical advisor answers us
