"Stanley Kubrick’ Napoleon HBO Series" Topic

I just read that Steven Spielberg is going to adapt Kubrick's Napoleon script for a limited 7 part series on HBO. It's been green lighted so maybe we'll see it in 2023.

This is not to be confused with another Napoleon movie featuring Joachim Phoenix, also scheduled for 2023 release.

Spielberg doing a "woke" version of Napoleon?
I'll pass.

I'd have been interested in a Spielberg movie 25 years ago. Nearer 40 for Ridley Scott. As with war, one has only a certain time for films.

They're both talented cameramen with big budgets, but I'm sure any decent battle scenes will eventually show up on YouTube.

It;s not a ''woke'' version. Kubrick was a Napoleon fan and was going to make the film in Rumania,when ''Waterloo'' was released ,the Studio dropped the film..It would have been on par w/ Spartucus…not ''Woke'''sheesh..

I agree with Juergen. Kubrick wrote the script ages ago before there was "woke". You should look up the story behind the script. It's quite interesting and worth the read.

I look forward to the poignant scene in which Napoleon gazes across the sea from his exile on Elba towards France and says, wagging his finger -- "Napoléon téléphone maison…"

I have no issues with Kubrick, it's Spielberg who will ruin the script.

SB +1

Also not to be confused with Napoleon Dynamite.

Kubrick's screenplay was 148 pages--maybe a two and a half hours of screen time. Spielberg is going to "adapt" it to seven parts. Unless they're half-hour parts, this is going to be more Spielberg than Kubrick.

And given I once took a date to Barry Lyndon, and was plugged into the SF community at the time of 2001--It did not go over well with people who actually read science fiction--Kubrick himself is not a selling point.

I will be happy to be wrong, but I'm not paying money to find out.

There were two major problems with Barry Lyndon: (1) Ryan O'Neal; and (2) Kubrick didn't seem to have the slightest grasp that he was adapting a comic novel. Presumably, neither of those issues will be relevant here.

Well, Kubrick made my top two favorite movies of all time:

#2 2001 A Space Odyssey

#1 Dr. Strangelove

Also liked Full Metal Jacket too

Kim

I just hope he doesn't just steal scenes from the film Waterloo. More recent films about Napoleon turn out to be about him and Josephine and oh by the way there are some battles going on that aren't that important, now back to Josephine as she decides which house is she going to live in. I am a Kubrick fan but I would feel more confident about this new project if Peter Jackson was directing.

Hmm, don't think I have an HBO subscription. But I do have Apple+ for the second one.

I have the limited edition book that the Kubrick estate produced, including large elements of the very solid research he did, the cue cards on which he recorded it, his thoughts on where to find cheap military extras, and much more. It is pretty fabulous. Would the resulting film have been great? Don't know, but I think so. Having been personally involved in maybe 200 AV productions of various kinds over the years, it is better than anything I've yet seen.

In other words, Spielberg could do worse than proceed from this basis, the intention of which seems to have been to create an inclusive and detailed military-political bio on film and not a movie of the week animated by a doomed love story – poor Napoleon, so misunderstood, etc. etc. What he will eventually produce, of course, we might soon find out, for good or ill, but Kubrick seems to have been plotting the full Monty (or full Boney), and very interesting it appeared too, before a certain other film dropped.

you could try Napoléon (1927 film), produced, and directed by Abel Gance. Its silent.

LOL, you guys crack me up. Deciding not to watch a film which hasn't even been made because you won't like it.

Anyway, let's wait and see. A film or TV series about Napoleon. Yay! I'm amazed he doesn't get more air time.

I thought Barry Lyndon was fabulous, a real work of art. The dialogue exchange during the duel reminded me of the similar exchange when Alex was taken into prison in A Clockwork Orange. I guess if you don't like that stage style, then you don't.

Napoleon, Spielberg, Scott; personally I cannot see a problem. The subject is ever fascinating and both directors have reputation and skill. Both also are known for taking pains over the historical details (Indiana Jones excepted) so I am optimistic. As Martin has suggested, best have a look before making your mind up (unless you just have a problem with the initial trilogy whatever).

Martin has it!

Martin, my point was that the humour of the book was completely absent from the film. In the book, you can't believe a word of Lyndon's recollections. I can see that someone could enjoy the film, even with Ryan O'Neal's terrible acting, but it is a lot harder to do so if you've read the book.

It's about Napoleon?
Yes!
Well, I will probably watch it and make up my own mind.

P.S.
I will try to keep my mouth shut and not comment on any historical inaccuracies in front of my wife!
Especially if it is about uniforms!!

Actually Martin, I said I'd wait for feedback, and that the Big Names involved hadn't done anything I cared for in recent decades. (Most of my worst book purchases have involved authors who did great stuff--years ago.)

What I can't understand is excitement over promissory films. There is time enough for excitement when a film is actually released and someone who shares my tastes says it's worth watching. The problem is worse when someone doesn't want me to go to a movie theater and pay once, but to subscribe to a service and watch an epic battle on a computer monitor.

The more Napoleonic films and series all the better. Not sure where the bandied about vague term "woke" comes into it at all.
I personally just wish a film in the style of Gettysburg could be made about Leipzig or Wagram but I don't hold my.breatb

I'll be watching it. I'll be buying a copy. Can't have too many Napoleonic vids to pop in whilst painting!

Hope it goes really well for them and studios make more.

Preferably not War & Peace again though, I already have 3 very nice version of that in the library.
: 3

We have a free HBO sub, so I'll check it out.

I think "woke" is no more vague than "democratic" George, and a lot less so than "liberal" which has at least two contradictory meanings.

In this case, I believe the fear is that current Hollywood obsessions will get in the way of the story. If I can drop completely out of present controversies, it was once said of Schlesinger's The Age of Jackson that "every page voted for Roosevelt." Schlesinger produced an inferior history because he kept trying to interpret 1824 events in terms applicable to 1932. In film terms, take a look at Northwest Passage (1940) and Pimpernel Smith (1941). They're both good movies, but they're less good than they might have been because they both bang the drum for Anglo-American unity in a way that sometimes gets in the way of the story. Other cases suggest strongly that Goldwyn was right: "if you want to send a message, use Western Union."

That is not my fear in this instance. I'm thinking the names mentioned are a long way from the last film I enjoyed, and they're not even really offering me a film, but trying to sign me on to a subscription entertainment system. My intention is to read the reviews and decide whether or not to buy them when they come out on DVD--if they are ever actually made and released, and if I'm still alive when the DVD is offered for sale. I just can't understand the excitement over a product none of you have ever seen, and which in fact may never be made or released.

Batgirl DVD, anyone?

"bang the drum for Anglo-American unity"

Clearly, we need Mel Gibson to direct a 'Northwest Passage' remake.

Sorry, 42nd. My rule is that once Hollywood gets a story pretty much right, no further remakes are allowed. Otherwise, you wind up with the Harrison Ford Sabrina and the Tom Cruise Mummy. (That said, if someone can find a way to CGI in the right tanks in Patton and The Battle of the Bulge…)

Hollywood doesn't really enter into it anymore. From the Sopranos onwards, the best writing and direction has been moving more and more into premium television and Hollywood is pretty much left in the dustbin now.

Even subjects that were done well by Hollywood in the past have the potential to be improved with a limited or full video series where the creative team has a lot more time to develop deeper characters and plots.

And for new subjects, odds favour premium video productions to outshine Hollywood.

"once Hollywood gets a story pretty much right"

Well, there were those green Glengarry bonnets…

I agree with Robert. My second Decree when I am emporer is "Thou shalt only remake movies that suck."

Interesting vocabulary divergence, miniMo. I would have included the TV and cable stuff as "Hollywood" the same way I might refer to our big-time investor class as "Wall Street" without insisting that they have a matching street address, or said that "the White House" made a decision even if the President was somewhere else at the time. "The Pentagon" works pretty much the same way--a place name as a shorthand for a class, rank or type.

Not as though we have two different sets of writers, directors or producers with different world views or political beliefs.

Robert, ah, but as an HBO series, this has much more potential to be good than a Hollywood Hollywood production designed to be a Blockbuster(tm) running at less than 2 hours because cinemas don't want to run anything longer.

Cuts both ways, miniMo. All series work is incentivized to break up the story into standard-length bits with their own climaxes. If you gave me a heap of money and told me to do Napoleon in words and moving pictures, you'd get three long movies: one would be the young revolutionary general morphing into the Emperor, one would be the invasion of Russia and--well, I wouldn't need to film the third, because "Eagle in a Cage" already exists. Everything else is just a war story with Napoleon in it.

All means of telling a story have restrictions and incentives, and you can tell great stories under any of them--but only if you're good enough, and not always the same stories. As I said, I'll see what is actually produced before I get too excited. There are only about three or four living authors whose books are presumptive buys, and no producers and directors.

One pet peeve: I would like to see period artillery impacts that resemble direct-fire solid shot, rather than shell bursts that look like they were lifted from a WWII movie. Shell bursts seldom look right anyway (the infamous great gout of fire), but I don't remember seeing a period movie that seemed to me to plausibly capture the look of solid shot hitting formed units- files being swept away, etc. I get that the proportion of howitzers in batteries means you would expect some shellbursts, but you would expect a lot more in the way of direct fire solid shot impacts, ricochets, etc.

Just getting that right would suggest someone put some effort and thought into it.

you mean like just having cannon ball flying through the ranks of infantry etc – hmm yes i cant think of a film where i have seen that – doing it right would be pretty graphically horrific too i imagine, i cant think of something more terrifying on the battlefield in that time of cannonballs flying through the air – one flying through ones torso,

THe howitzer fire is a steady and constant part of the battery fire, and very important for the big splashy boom to shake the enemy's morale.

In the hore artillery, the French phased out the 4 pounder for the 6 because the 4 just didn't make enough noise to be heard over the general din of battle. It was just as effective at ripping through a person as any other cannonball, but that would only shake the morale of the immediate bystanders, not the whole unit.

For film, the shell bursts do convey what is most apparent and terifying to the troops.

I just finished reading Robinson's The Battle of Quatre Bras 1815 and is quite full of graphic descriptions of a horrific battle. I would be happy to watch a movie about Quatre Bras, but not one that depicts the full level of gore. That's not in my 'entertainment' zone.

Russian Empire
1825
Battle of Russian Line Infantry in Decembrist revolt

YouTube link

Spielberg did, I think, a bang-up job to finish up Kubrick's unrealized script/film of "A.I.", so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this. When he's on, he's on. And Kubrick was mad keen to make a Napoleon movie and it's a shame he wasn't able to realize it in his lifetime -- so maybe now things can be put to rights, in a way. I would love to see the results. The only enjoyable Napoleon film I've seen made since "Waterloo" has been "The Emperor's New Clothes" (that one is sensational!! And terribly overlooked.)

I don't get all this Spielberg hate. He made Saving Private Ryan, a war movie that has influenced nearly every war movie that has been made since.

Ah…but what if he is woke!! It might mean something…

i dont know if you are making a joke or not Tortorella, Spielberg is Spielberg, i dont feel like his values or priorities in filmmaking have changed at all over the decades, that being said, has he ever done a historical epic that is pre 20th century?

someone like Peter Weir who did Master and Commander, and Gallipoli or the director behind Russian Ark i could imagine doing a epic .. but first lets see what Ridley Scotts film is like, perhaps that might dictate whether the Kubrik script gets realised (a bit of history repeating there given it was waterloos poor reception that shelved kubricks project)