A Collision Of Decisions.

Or, "How I Watched the Director's Cut of 'Napoleon' and Other Tales Of Woe."

I don’t remember much about the initial trailers for “Napoleon” back in 2023 other than the part that really and truly stuck: Canons firing on soldiers in the snow, and those cannonballs piercing the snow-dusted tops to reveal that all the soldiers were on a frozen lake, and now most of them were heading to the bottom, with their horses, dead, victims of tactical trickery on the battlefield.

A solemn Napoleon (played by Joaquin Phoenix), stares blankly at the mayhem he’s unleashed, and for a second he seems to quarter-smile.

That’s it. That’s all I remember.

Fast forward what must be more than a year and I, in the infinite wisdom that at times washes over me when my brain is off and defenses down, decide that I’m going to spend a Saturday night watching the director’s cut of this movie, even though Ridley Scott ranks nowhere near my favorite directors. I do quite like “Blade Runner” and have watched the director’s cut of that, plus I’ve watched “Black Hawk Down” two or three times because it quite easily fell into my War Movies Of Note collection. I also liked “Gladiator,” which I should mention because the, uh — whatever’s Latin for second, version, is coming out.

I have no measurable passion for Ridley Scott, good or bad, so I have no reason at all — none, zero — for doing what I did on Saturday.

Now, obviously, that was a huge mistake. Gob from “Arrested Development” will agree with me. But I rarely read movie reviews and I did not for “Napoleon” (regrettably).

It was a marathon of endurance, and I spent a lot of time squinting at the screen, looking for a hidden meaning, a point larger than telling a tale of Napoleon, parts of which may or may not have been fudged a bit (I’m guessing Napoleon lied to his beloved Josephine about his exploits in Egypt) and studying this film so closely absolutely, without question, led me to realize I had no idea there would be a dom/sub part of the Napoleon biography.

I missed that in history class.

But truth be told, I missed a lot back then. However, I did catch this screenshot of a scene that made me laugh so hard I stopped it a few minutes after, went back, took pictures and wondered (without actually checking — so me, that bit) if it had become a meme. I have no idea but, yes, it’s a meme in my house now:

This is historically accurate.

During the three-and-a-half, felt-like-seven, hour director’s cut, I began to fill with a certain sense of pride. Clearly no other person was doing this, were they? I resolved to finish, straight through, despite 91 others movies and 167 television series, calling my name. I had enough wine. I was alone. My dog was sleeping. I make my own schedule. I could do this!

So I did it.

And I prevailed.

I laughed gleefully when the Brits shot a perfect hole in Napoleon’s absurd hat. I laughed, though I’m quite sure I wasn’t supposed to, when Scott framed an older, ostracized Napoleon from behind, with that absurd hat, and Napoleon slowly tipped to his left, off his chair, out of frame. Dead. End of movie.

I laughed so uproariously at that part that I rewound it.