Napoleon Director Ridley Scott Explains That Strange Egypt Scene
In July 1798, Napoleon led a campaign into Egypt and Syria as a means to conquer the region and, in the words of unreliable history textbooks, to establish trade and scientific exchange. It was Napoleon's campaign to Egypt and Syria that uncovered the Rosetta Stone, although it came at the cost of about 65,000 lives. Napoleon's campaign has been famously dramatized in a series of paintings, several of which director Ridley Scott recreated for his new biopic "Napoleon." The above scene of Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) sitting on horseback in front of the Sphinx is taken from Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1897 portrait, called "Oedipus," painted to celebrate the centennial of the event.
After Scott stages a scene of Napoleon firing cannons at the Pyramids of Giza, he then recreates another notable painting, this time by French artist Maurice Orange who, in the late 19th century, painted "Bonaparte at the Pyramids." In Orange's portrait, the battle is over and Napoleon can be seen standing among several Egyptian locals who have retrieved and opened a sarcophagus. Bonaparte regards the mummy inside, perhaps dimly perceiving the enormity of Egyptian culture for the first time.
Scott stages the exact same moment (likely apocryphal) with Napoleon witnessing the opening of the sarcophagus, but then standing for a moment to really take a close look at the face of the mummy inside. He places his hat comedically on top of the stone casing, and it looks, for a brief moment, like he's leaning in to give the mummy a kiss.
In a recent interview with Deadline, Scott discussed that scene, who the mummy might have been in the filmmaker's estimation, and what the scene was about. To Scott, it was a clash of the ancient and the modern.
Bonaparte at the Pyramids
It's worth noting that several museums throughout Europe are more or less active crime scenes. A lot of the Egyptian artifacts on display throughout France and England were plundered from their home country in campaigns like the one Napoleon staged. Scott was well aware of this and said:
"They did raids and found and brought back a lot of wonderful artifacts from Egypt, including the needles of Cleopatra that are standing now in Paris. There was a lot of plundering done by Napoleon in those foreign places like Italy, where they took all the fine art out of the cathedral in Milan."
Scott noted that the mummy in the sarcophagus "wouldn't be Tutankhamun, maybe a less important Pharaoh." Scott also mentions the two above paintings. He noted that he was very impressed by "Oedipus," as well as "Bonaparte at the Pyramids," and those two evocative images dictated the tone of his Egypt scenes for "Napoleon." Scott noted that, compared to other battles, Napoleon's time in Egypt was relatively bloodless, leaving the French more time to absorb the culture. He said:
"They took it over pretty easily. I think the Egyptians threw in the towel immediately. I don't think there's even any conflict. And so they were able to, let's say, enjoy themselves in Egypt at that particular point. While he was there, they were definitely staring at extraordinary artifacts and decided to take them back to France."
And the mummy?
"I thought, I just had to do it, it was such a beautiful counterpoint of two universes. The modern universe of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the ancient universe of the Pharaoh, a lesser Pharaoh, but nevertheless a Pharaoh. He would've to be important to being embalmed and actually buried in the casket like that."
The sliding mummy
The bizarre part of the scene, however — the part where Napoleon stands on a box to look at the mummy face-to-face — was evidently improvised by Joaquin Phoenix. In the scene, the actor reached out to touch the mummy, and it slid ever so slightly from its upright position to a leftward lean. The moment surprised audiences as well as Phoenix; his startled reaction was genuine. Scott recalls shooting the scene:
"[W]hat's interesting though, as we were doing it ... Joaquin, gets this box to stand on, he took off his hat, put it on top of the casket, and stared closely at the Pharaoh. Then he reached out gently to touch the surface of this skin, that looks like brown paper at this point. And the Pharaoh suddenly slipped to one side and gave Joaquin a hell of a shock. But I let it run. And he played with that momentarily, got down off the box, and when I said, cut, he said, did you do that? I said, no, it was an accident. It was fantastic. It scared the s*** out of him. I said, no, no, no, I didn't do that."
Scott's film, at least in its first half, possesses a lot of strange moments of mild humor, and he likely included the sliding mummy as a comedy bit. Napoleon was a grand military conqueror, but also a little shaky when faced with the enormity of history. Moments like the sliding mummy humanized the character better than any fictional speech might have. "Napoleon" is hardly historically accurate, but the character Scott created for the film was still fascinating.