Ridley Scott says what he pleases. Where Martin Scorsese is relatively diplomatic in his criticism of comic book movies, Scott is not, saying their scripts aren’t “any f*cking good.” After a journalist gave him a backhanded compliment about his films, he told them to “go f*ck yourself” — then continued the interview. There’s a new New Yorker profile of the filmmaker, which includes him again showing how few effs he gives.
The piece concerns his latest film, Napoleon, an epic that reunites him with his Gladiator supporting player Joaquin Phoenix. Scott didn’t immerse himself in the infamous French emperor, as other filmmakers would. He isn’t, the piece says, “big on biographies,” and he only read two on Bonaparte before giving up.
As such, there might be a few historical inaccuracies here and there. Sure enough, after the trailer came out, TV historian Dan Snow dropped a TikTok breakdown of all it got wrong, including the myth that Napoleon shot at the pyramids and that Marie-Antoinette had cropped her hair before being executed.
But Scott’s reaction to Snow was very brief: “Get a life.”
Elsewhere in the profile, Scott claims that he got Russell Crowe “back on his feet” after his notorious phone-throwing incident by offering him the 2006 dramedy A Good Year. A representative for Crowe, alas, disputed that account.
Scott also teased that in the Gladiator sequel (in which Crowe emphatically does not appear), Paul Mescal’s hero fights baboons, which came about after Crowe saw a video of the creatures attacking tourists. “Baboons are carnivores,” Scott said. “Can you hang from that roof for two hours by your left leg? No! A baboon can.” So get ready for some baboon fighting action.
Napoleon hits theaters on November 22, though you may one day be able to see an even longer cut Crowe claims is “fantastic.”
(Via The New Yorker)
Source: https://uproxx.com/movies/ridley-scott-napoleon-historical-inaccuracies-get-a-life/
