Kubrick's "Napoleon" - Part VIII

"Elba, St. Helena, & Beyond."

In the final 20 pages of the script, we see four sequences:

1. Napoleon’s banishment to the island of Elba.
2. His return to power.
3. The world unites against him and defeats him.
4. He is banished finally to St. Helena where he dies.

The Narrator explains how Napoleon was stripped of his throne and given the “token sovereignty of the tiny island of Elba, with the title of Emperor, a yearly income of 2 million francs, an army of 700, and a navy of 3 ships.”

In a scene designed to be a giant contrast to Napoleon's glory days where he was given grand, triumphal receptions in Italy and France with enthusiastic crowds, banners, flags, and the works, here, we witness Napoleon’s humiliation. Stanley describes it as “a comic opera parody of former grandeur.” Napoleon marches in a pathetic procession with a few city officials down “the main street of Elba.” He’s cheered by the local population. A band of twenty fiddlers -- no brass, no percussion -- marches along playing the Elban national anthem.

We’re treated to a scene in Malmaison involving Josephine and Tsar Alexander I. They have become romantically involved. Alexander promises to keep her financially secure for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, that would be very short lived, as the Narrator tells us that Josephine would die two weeks later of pneumonia.

Back in Elba, Napoleon is devastated by the news of her death. Nobody cared to write him and tell him. He had to read about it in the papers. And now, with his son so very far away, he cries that he has lost everything that is precious to him.

We learn that “Marie-Louise would prove to be a little more than a dull, commonplace, sensual girl, accustomed to obey the dictates of her father, who easily dissuaded her from joining Napoleon, and carefully chose instead as her aide-de-camp, the gallant and dashing General Neipperg, who soon became her lover. They would have two children together before Napoleon's death... Napoleon would never see his son again, and the child would grow up in gilded isolation, melancholy, ignored by his mother, in chronic ill-health and haunted by the legend of this father. He would die at the age of 22.”

Politically, the circumstances were ripe for Napoleon’s comeback. The army and the people of France were ready to rise up against Louis XVIII, a king marked by clumsiness and disdain and who proved that the Bourbon dynasty had learned nothing and forgotten everything.

Napoleon sets sail to France with his 700 men. On a road, he is stopped by a regiment of government troops led by General Cannet. He intends to arrest Napoleon. This is a sequence that I really love. A nervous aide rides up to Napoleon and says, “General Cannet presents his compliments to the Emperor, and requests that he lay down his arms and surrender himself and his men.”

Napoleon replies, “Thank you, Colonel. Please present my compliments to General Cannet, and tell him that I shall come presently and bring the answer myself.”

General Cannet sees Napoleon riding toward him. He tells his troops, “Bonaparte is on his way to attempt to illegally reestablish himself over the legitimate government of our King, Louis XVIII. It is our responsibility, as loyal soldiers of France, to prevent him from doing this, by whatever means are necessary.”

The men quietly dissent.

Napoleon rides up and greets the troops. “Hello, men of the 5th -- do you recognize your Emperor?”

The troops cheer and scream.

“I recognize you -- we are old friends. I know you from Friedland and Borodino. And, you there, Sergeant Monestier, how are you?”

More cheers.

“My good friends, I am told that Marshal Ney has promised the King to bring me back to Paris in an iron cage. I have sent word to my old friend, Marshal Ney, that he can make that a wooden box, if he is able to manage it, but I certainly must refuse an iron cage -- I'm not as young as I used to be, and I can't accept such drafty accommodations!”

Laughter and cheers from the ranks.

“Men of the 5th, your general has invited me to surrender myself and my men, but I come to make you an offer -- Men of the 5th, will you join me?”

Thunderous cheers from the ranks. The men rush forward to Napoleon. Some fling themselves at his feet, kissing his coat and his hands. Napoleon's eyes fill with tears.

And in a great transition, a stark contrast to the previous victorious scene, Napoleon is back in Tuileries Dining Room sitting at a large table – eating alone. In fact, this visual statement illustrates what we hear the Narrator tell us, that all of the allies had quickly patched up their differences and they had all refused to have any diplomatic dealings with Napoleon. They declared him a criminal beyond the protection of the law. All throughout Stanley’s script, we were given scene after scene of seeing one thing but hearing something different, which had undercut the meaning of what we were seeing. However, here, we are given a scene in which we see and hear something that has the same meaning – that Napoleon is utterly alone.

He is bitter and gloomy. A valet enters and tells Napoleon that Madame Avrillon has arrived. She was shown to his bedroom. Napoleon says very coldly, “Please ask her to get undressed, and tell her I'll be along as soon as I can.”

With an animated map and about six pages of battles scenes, we see the world’s armies led by Blucher and Wellington mobilize and descend upon France and Napoleon. We’re given scene after scene illustrating how close Napoleon came to winning certain battles but lost due to calculated tactical errors. Napoleon would become painfully ill. He would rest the decisions of the war on the shoulders of Marshal Ney, whose incompetence would prove to be his undoing. He would “make tactical blunder after blunder, while gallantly rushing around the battlefield like a young subaltern.”

And we would witness the decimation of the French Army.

When the returning monarchy reacquires France’s throne, Ney would be shot for treason for joining Napoleon.

On the deck of a ship, a depressed Napoleon stares at the cliffs of St. Helena, which is a mass of bare volcanic granite rising steeply out of the sea. Napoleon had surrendered to the English, his lifelong enemies. The Narrator tells us “he was sent as a prisoner to the tiny island of St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, a thousand miles from the nearest land. He would live out the last five years of his life there, amid the petty squabbles of his own entourage, and his captors.”

“His house was a hastily rebuilt collection of buildings originally constructed as cattle-sheds. His four constricted rooms were infested with rats. His food and wine, and opened mail were subjects of continuous dispute.”

“His final illness would, until the very end, be dismissed by English doctors as a diplomatic disease.”

In his bedroom, Count Bertrand, “a figure of despair in this dimly-lit room,” keeps a lonely death-watch.

Napoleon stirs.

“Who is there?”

“Bertrand, sire.”

“I have just had the most vivid... dream... about Josephine.”

“Yes, sire?”

“She was sitting there... and it was as if I had last seen her only the night before... She hadn't changed -- she was still the same – still completely devoted to me... and she told me we were going to see each other again and, never again, leave each other... She has promised me. Did you see her?”

“No, sire... I was asleep.”

“I wanted to kiss her, but she didn't want to kiss me... She slipped away, the moment I wanted to take her in my arms.”

And he dies.

Cut to his grave site.

His grave is unmarked. The Narrator tells us, “Napoleon died on May 5, 1821. Hudson Lowe insisted the inscription on the tomb should read ‘Napoleon Bonaparte.’ Montholon and Bertrand refused anything but the Imperial title – ‘Napoleon.’ In the end, it was left nameless.”

And in the final shot, we’re in the bedroom of his mother, Letizia. She is dressed in black. She sits alone, “a study of gloom and lament.”

We move “to an open portmanteau. It is filled with very old children's things -- faded toys, torn picture books, wooden soldiers and the Teddy bear Napoleon slept with as a child.”

Kubrick's "Napoleon" - Part VII

“The Defeat”

Or

“The Thousand Mile March into Oblivion.”

Despite the pleading of the French diplomat, Tsar Alexander completely reneges on his treaty with Napoleon, who we see in the next scene cheerfully asking Barbier, “I would like to have all the books that are best worth consulting, on the topography of Russia…”

He enters Austria first and visits the royal family, the last time he would ever do so as emperor. This is also one of the last occurrences in which Stanley uses that clever technique of showing us one thing but making us hear words that undercut what we are seeing. As we SEE Napoleon embrace warmly the Emperor of Austria and his wife and King Frederich Wilhelm, we HEAR the narrator tell us that they sent letters declaring their secret allegiance to Russia.

Napoleon leads his “Grand Army” of 400,000 into the heart of Russia. He calculated all the probabilities and he had concluded that in every scenario he would win. The Russians are so outnumbered, they don’t even bother to fight. They simply retreat.

Napoleon's horse collapses. He stands to his feet and tells his entourage, “Well, this is an ill-omen, indeed. Caesar would probably turn back.” There is uneasy laughter.

Napoleon continues leading his army into Moscow… where they find it deserted. “…not a chimney sends up smoke, not a man appears on the battlements or at the gates. All is silence.”

Napoleon says, “It was all very well for Alexander to do more damage to his country than I could possibly do, but he could not destroy Moscow. This is the prize that will end the war. You will see. We will have peace offerings from him within a few days.”

Alexander is, indeed, ready to surrender the city.

But another man steps in, the Mayor of Moscow, Rostopchin. He has very different ideas.

Early one morning, while sleeping inside the Kremlin palace, Napoleon wakes to some strange light in his bedroom. He leaps out of bed and rushes to the window.

All of Moscow is in flames.

Incendiaries, under the orders of the Russian Secret Police, run through the streets and set fires to buildings. There are skirmishes between looting French soldiers and the Russian Secret Police. Napoleon says to Duroc, “to start a fire like this in five hours -- how is it possible? It would take a carefully organized plan, tons of combustibles and hundreds of people.”

He is told, “There are hundreds of agents, all over the city. The combustibles seem to have been carefully placed beforehand, and all the fire-engines have been removed from the city.”

A Russian General plants an idea in the ear of Alexander – lead Napoleon on to believe that they WILL sign a peace treaty until winter comes and then hide. Napoleon will be forced to retreat with nothing. “Can he afford to stay away from Paris for what will amount to a year by the time he commences his campaign again in the spring? Will he then be willing to remain, completely out of touch with Paris -- for a year? The French are like women. You cannot stay away from them for too long… Can Napoleon afford to abandon Moscow without signing even the preliminaries of a peace treaty with you?”

Napoleon does, indeed, wait. The narrator tells us, that “lulled by events and by realities he could not face, Napoleon seemed to fall into a dream in Moscow.”

He watches a theatrical performance in a Kremlin salon. He spends time discussing the merits of some new verses he had received. Or he discusses the regulations for the Comedie Francaise in Paris which took him three evenings to prepare.

They eventually withdraw from Moscow.

As the Russian cavalry moves through the debris scattered along the roads -- dead men and horses, overturned wagons containing the booty taken from Moscow, gold candlesticks, porcelain vases, paintings, beautifully bound books, silverware, priceless furniture, etc, the Narrator tells us: “It was not until October 20, that Napoleon withdrew the Grand Army from Moscow to begin their thousand mile march into oblivion.”

They were almost completely wiped out by the devastating winter weather. The narrator tells us that “by November 5, the temperature was down to 30-degrees of frost, and 30,000 French horses were dead. They were not bred to endure such cold and, not being properly shod for ice, had no chance to survive in these conditions.”

A French trooper soothes and strokes his dying horse, gives him a bit of sugar, and then he shoots him. The shot draws the attention of some ragged soldiers who rush up for a meal. They are kept at bay by the angry trooper and his pistol.

A dozen French soldiers sit around a small fire cooking bits of horse-flesh and a saucepan full of blood while four or five others fire at a small party of Cossacks to keep them at a distance. The men who are cooking could care less about the fighting.

In a Russian village, we see a posting house crammed with so many officers and men and horses that when a fire breaks out, no one can get out. They all die. The noise and flames attract other men who have been huddled outside in the open. Since they can do nothing, they crowd as close as they can to the flames to warm themselves or cook bits of horse flesh on the points of their swords.

Following their return to Paris, we learn that France has been invaded by all of the combined forces of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. There are broad cinematic strokes illustrating the loss to France, such as a shot of a mass of French refugees walking away from their burning village. French townspeople gather around a courier reading war dispatches. And we also see Napoleon in his office in Tulieres burning private papers and playing with his 3-year old son. Outside, he kisses Marie-Louise and son for the last time. They leave in a carriage with an escort in tow. He will never see them again.

And in blow after blow, despite his brilliance strategies, which really bedeviled his enemies, he would lose Paris. A treaty would be signed without his knowledge or approval. Napoleon would lose everything.

And in a visual stroke that's pointedly similar to the first appearance of Tsar Alexander I, Napoleon would sit down by the side of the road and hold his head.

The Narrator would tell us:

“In defeat, Napoleon would be punished by the Kings of Europe, according to a standard which they would not have applied to each other. He might marry the niece of Marie Antoinette, and call himself an Emperor, but that did not make him one.”