Theo Zenou

Kubrick’s Napoleon – the greatest movie never made

The director was preparing orgies and battles that would be like ‘vast lethal ballets’ for what he said would be his best film

Costume research photograph, 1968, of a French Grenadier uniform, for Stanley Kubrick’s unmade biopic. Credit: Courtesy of Taschen 
issue 01 May 2021

Two centuries ago — on 5 May 1821 — Napoleon Bonaparte died in a rat-infested house. The fallen Emperor had spent his final years exiled on the British outpost of St Helena. Yet Napoleon’s ignominious last act was only the beginning of his legend. A recent data-driven study, published by Cambridge University Press, crowned him the second most significant figure in history, after Jesus no less.

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