About Max Gallo and the Napoleon 2002 miniseries
Since I was talking with @bunniesandbeheadings about Max Gallo and historical fiction influencing people's popular vision on historical characters.
So everytime I find informations about the 2002 French miniseries by Simoneau (the one featuring Christian Clavier, Isabella Rossellini and John Malkovic), the movie subject is not indicated as inspired by Napoleon's life but rather by Max Gallo's literary saga about Napoleon.
I've both seen the miniseries and read massive chunks of that saga and I'm like.
How.
Why?
They are SO different works. The one has nothing from the other.
Max Gallo's saga is based on giving a very precise interpretation of Napoleon's personality and it's basically about how this influences his life. His vision is so heavy that it trickles down to precise writing style choices. Even if it's written in third person, it's also written in present tense and there's basically no limits between Napoleon's direct thoughts and the rest of the text. You literally feel trapped in his mind and he throws you into a relentless, greedy, angry search for more, and more, and more, either despising anything (or anyone) else or exploiting it. All the other characters are just evanescent figures in his path, because he only sees himself and his destiny. It's and exhausting reading, I felt claustrophobic and depressed. He's indifferent to any other person's well-being or any ideal, there's just himself. He's always so angry-ish, and constipated, and shamelessly cynical, and greedy. He just NEVER chills even a bit and it's angsty and ugly.
It looks like you're supposed to feel shocked by how relentless and unabashedly self-centered Napoleon is, but can't help to also admire him. You would feel sorry for how lonely and harsh to himself he looks, if he wasn't so heinous.
Thank God it's not in a demeaning way like in Ridley Scott's Napoleon. Max Gallo's Napoleon is still a fucking badass you can't help but be impressed by, only a very mean and obsessive one.
I hate how it makes me feel and I've never been able to sit through it entirely. It's so intense.
But the miniseries has no style elements which may tie it to this book.
It's the basis for fillers in most documentaries about Napoleon that I've ever seen, because it's really just the most basic take ever you could get about him. Every dialogue is an exposition which takes you away from any sense of reality and immersion, the direction is quite standard, and Napoleon has nothing of Gallo's boundlessly narcissistic version of him. Clavier is shown as genuinely caring about many other people other than him, even if he's deeply focused on his path. He strikes me more as argumentative rather than aggressive and self-centered. I dunno, he doesn't give off the same vibe as Gallo's Napoleon.
I can't help but see the series as the basic standard with no great creative vision behind, basically an empty canvas.
If I had to think of a good movie version of Max Gallo's Napoleon, that would rather Austerlitz by Abel Gance (1960). In that movie, Napoleon is much more the unapologetic, self-centered asshole Gallo portrayed.
Even the narrative frames are very different. In Max Gallo's work, everything starts with Napoleon arriving at Brienne during his travel to Milan as a King of Italy-to-be, then it continues his whole story from his years at Brienne until his last breath, in perfect chronological order.
In the 2002 series, everything is told as a flashback because Napoleon tells his story to Betsy Balcombe, but only starting from his first meeting with Josephine. It's a more endearing approach to the character who aims to make him sympathetic, not offputting.
