⚢

i very rarely follow back because i want to follow very few people, but i welcome interaction and replies from everyone :-)

you may use my art as an icon, i don't need it to be credited to me

if you'd like to send me a tip, you can send money to an association i support (msf, utopia 56, sos méditerranée or pcrf)

i haven't read many yet, no, but i've been enjoying "l'empire des mots" by charles-éloi vial (a historian i don't really like but i do respect this book specifically), a book that came out this year and tells his story through retelling specific conversations he had over his life. im finding it to be well written and rigorous, always noting when something is dubious or apocryphal. that's a thing with napoléon, the research on his life is still changing. many things that i learnt as facts have since been debunked, just in the last few years. so that does make me enclined the trust the veracity of the quotes he does share, and some of them paint such a funny picture to me... example

"napoléon is talkative, he wants to speak in aphorisms and for everything he says to be remembered." while he enjoyed having the fascination of those around him, the eagle mostly relished in saying unkind things. (...) his rare moments of wit consist mostly of cold irony : "when one wants to dine well, one should dine at cambacérès's ; when one wants to dine badly, one should dine at lebrun's ; when one wants to dine quickly, one should dine with me." he often targeted his courtiers, accustomed to being humiliated, but held back by etiquette and unable to retaliate : "oh, such ugly an ugly hairstyle! who did this to you?" he always acted even colder to those who tried to influence him, only affording them a couple of banal remarks, leaving only the most foolish to feel chosen by the master. as did deputy charles de rivaz, a young politician, who exchanged six trivial sentences with him at a salon of the tuileries and thought himself "on the path to earning his favor".

i have still not seen it fully, i just dont think im strong enough for all of that based on what scenes i have seen + ridley scott's god-awful attitude towards historians... it's absolutely normal for artists to draw inspiration from history and distort it more or less for artistic purposes, but 1) that doesn't mean we should have disdain for historians, whose work is what allows us to be inspired by history in the first place, so let us not be ingrates 2) taking a really interesting part of history and making it boring, and worse, and cliché, not something to be proud of my friend. it's such a shame, cause i have liked ridley scott movies, i love the idea of joaquin phoenix as napoléon, and with such a budget, we could have had theee most amazing depiction of austerlitz, of the siege of toulon, of vendémiaire, so on. all these moments i struggle to picture because they're on such huge scales. i did like the scene of brumaire well enough, although they downplay how incompetent and goofy napoléon was, if anything

but like you said, our friend abel gance gave us the only napoléon movie that matters :-) and that is a movie that takes a lot of liberty from real history (as it was known then), like by having saint-just deliver his final speech entirely when in real life he was interrupted right at the beginning, adding the force ghosts of the jacobins, and i dont think napoléon had a teenage girl stalker in his house. but i dont mind them cause abel gance clearly cared about the topic passionately, and these are all respectable artistic choices, cause abel gance was an artist with a vision. it's such a stunning, gorgeous movie!

i was skeptical of the 40 year old director casting himself as 26 year old saint-just, but he was so charming actually. possible one of my favorite fictional saint-just, which actually doesn't mean a lot cause he's mostly reduced to robespierre's cute sidekick or turned into an evil, charisma deprived petty tyrant child. at least abel gance has presence! i also really love the actor who plays napoléon himself, plus the stalker girl, plus marguerite gance as charlotte corday, and antonin artaud as marat. hello