Today Ridley Scott’s new film “Napoleon” premieres in Spain. It will be a cinematic event. Will I go visit her? Well, I liked some of this director’s films. I have seen The Duelists several times and always with pleasure, although of course I prefer the Noveleta – that’s what the Cubans call the short novel: Noveleta – by Conrad. I liked, who wouldn’t, Alien and Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise and even Black Rain, even though Michael Douglas starred in it. Then one day I went to the cinema to see Gladiator and said to myself, “This is it, Ridley; the righteous nonsense”.
I won’t be watching Napoleon, although Ridley Scott’s excellent performance as an atmosphere creator is amazing. But I already know how Napoleon’s story ends, and I am also vaccinated, immunized against him. ¿How can you show respect for such a butterfly?, someone capable of entering Russia with 600,000 troops, escaping with 20,000, and, instead of committing suicide as any Roman would have done, arming another army, causing a few dozen thousand more deaths, and to still feel like a victim in exile British meanness? I understand that not hundreds but thousands of books were dedicated to him in France because he transformed that country into an empire in a short time (albeit at the price of its decimation), which flatters his childish desire for greatness. To justify the unjustified, it is claimed in his favor that he exported the egalitarian achievements of the revolution… Well, I am sure the day will come when it will be fully understood that ideas and ideologies are not despicable mental constructs, but often little more than the decorative interface of will to power.
“It is the stylization of a terrible reality, a process that already began with the fake portraits of Jacques-Louis David.”
Even today, many people are still fascinated by the little Corsican. One of his bicorn hats was just sold at an auction in Paris for two million euros, which is a wish that is either very fetishistic or very stupid. Under the pretext that a film is not a history lesson, Ridley Scott presents it to the galloping leather rasta at Waterloo, sword in hand, attacking, reason enough not to visit him unless you have the mentality of a five year old child. It is the stylization of a terrible reality, a process that began already in his time with the fake portraits of Jacques-Louis David, who presented him under the title Napoleon Crossing the Alps on a spirited steed on his hind legs and his arm outstretched and the Index finger points to the bright future, the living image of the romantic hero. Now Napoleon himself tells of this event with less exalted accents: “The first consul (that is, himself) rode through the most difficult passes on the donkey of a resident of Saint-Pierre, which the prior of the monastery had chosen as the safest donkey throughout the country. This is how Paul Delaroche portrayed him half a century later, and the French who saw his painting rejected him as an iconoclast. The truth is bitter, the illusion is always preferred.
It’s fun to re-read Stendhal’s stupidest remarks in the Charterhouse of Parma, in these pages about how delighted the Italians were in welcoming him. Napoleon’s French soldiers, who, according to the great writer, embodied youth, balance and adventure. Or reread Sainte-Beuve’s Causeries du lundi, which the little Corsican admired so much and was amazed not only by his war exploits but also by the eloquence of his speeches. In one of the many memorial papers he dedicated to him, there is a significant quote from Napoleon’s speech to his soldiers as he prepared to invade Italy in 1796: “Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed; The government is indebted to you, but it can give you nothing… I want to take you to the most fertile plains in the world… There you will find honor, fame and wealth…” As Cruyff would say, “It there is no reason to argue anymore.