The film director Ridley Scott says that those who worry about the historical inaccuracies in his new biopic of Napoleon should ‘get a life’. Or as the told The Sunday Times last week: ‘When I have issues with historians, I ask: “Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up, then.’
If you’re not careful you can end up changing history
You don’t need to be Alan Bennett to cock an eyebrow at that. While I’ve not yet seen Napoleon – and I will because I’m sure it’ll be a cracker (it’s Ridley Scott, after all, and Joaquin Phoenix) – I have read about its various delusions, not least Scott’s decision to have Bony present at the execution of Marie Antoinette or his army firing their cannon at the Pyramids which they did not.
The point is that this stuff matters. It matters because when people see it on the screen, (or indeed the stage or the page) believe it really happened that way.
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