McPhee on Ridley Scott

Among the dozens of responses to the Ridley Scott Napoleon, here is a noteworthy one from Peter McPhee,  published in The Conversation on 5th December. 

In Peter McPhee's view, detailed historical veracity is less important in a creative work than "authenticity", the ability to recapture imaginatively the "essence of the historical moment." 

.........Unfortunately, it seems Ridley Scott doesn't pass muster here either: 

"The real weakness of Napoleon is Scott’s failure to ground the Emperor’s motivations in the principles underpinning his 1804 legal code – which he saw as his greatest legacy. Scott’s focus on Napoleon’s brutality and megalomania means the explanation for his behaviour boils down to a mixture of murderous territorial greed and a pathetic need to impress Josephine, instead of a more complex impulse to also impose revolutionary reforms.

In their public comments, historians might focus more on the level of contextual veracity in creative works and leave their long lists of errors of detail to professional journals. The problem with the Napoleon movie is not so much its errors of detail as its lack of authenticity about what we know of the man and his world view."

Napoleon director Ridley Scott is calling on us historians to ‘get a life’ – and he has a point. Art is about more than historical facts (theconversation.com)