‘Napoleon’ Director Ridley Scott Tells French Critics To ‘Get A Life’ After They Pan The Film

Despite the negative reviews the new historical epic Napoleon has received from the French press, its acclaimed filmmaker Ridley Scott remains unfazed.

The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as the notorious French emperor and Vanessa Kirby as his wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.

Reviews for the biographical drama are mixed with a wide variety of opinions. While The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw awarded it five stars, French GQ criticized the film for its “deeply clumsy, unnatural, and unintentionally funny” portrayal of French characters with American accents.

Other French publications have targeted Scott’s latest film.

Le Figaro, a daily newspaper, suggested that the film could be reimagined as “Barbie and Ken Under the Empire.”

Napoleon biographer Patrice Gueniffey stated in Le Point magazine that Scott’s rendition presented a “very anti-French and very pro-British” reinterpretation of historical events.

When BBC presented Scott the negative reviews from France, he responded, “The French don’t even like themselves,” and continued, “The audience that I showed it to in Paris, they loved it.”

Napoleon premiered in Paris, and Scott has since taken much of the criticism in stride on the press tour. At the start of November, Scott went viral for his dismissive response to a historian who had called him out on some of the film’s historical inaccuracies. 

When asked about the controversy by The New Yorker, Scott responded people needed to “Get a life.”

In October, Scott told Total Film magazine, “I’ve done a lot of historical films…I find I’m reading a report of someone else’s report 100 years after the event. So I wonder, ‘How much do they romance and elaborate? How accurate is it?’ It always amuses me when a critic says to me, ‘This didn’t happen in Jerusalem.’ I say, ‘Were you there? That’s the f—-ing answer.'”

Phoenix previously responded to the claims of inaccurate depiction in Empire magazine. He said, “If you want to really understand Napoleon, then you should probably do your own studying and reading. Because if you see this film, it’s this experience told through Ridley’s eyes.”