Napoleon Production Was Planned "A Little Bit Like a Battle"

When it comes to massive productions that involve thousands of people recreating some of the most complicated and bloody battles that have ever existed, the plan of how to approach that must be very specific, or it'll all come tumbling down. We have seen plenty of war movies fall apart because a battle scene was unwatchable for whatever reason, whether it be too confusing, not well framed, too long, or too short; there are [by design] a ton of moving pieces, and if even one is misplaced, it can send the entire house of cards tumbling down. More amateur directors might be overwhelmed by this, but Sir Ridley Scott has been doing massive war scenes like the ones in Napoleon for a long time. He knows as he explained to Entertainment Weekly, that to film a battle well, you have to approach and plan it like, well, a battle.

"I can read all the books in the world on him, but instead, because the film is such a large event, I rely on my very good team," Scott explains. "My team does marvelous military costumes like I've never seen before. The costumes are mind-blowing, and then I have a military expert for cause-and-effect battle sequences. That's all coordinated. I plan it, in a funny kind of way, a little bit like a battle."

Scott goes on to talk about the process of creating scenes like the ones in Napoleon and how everyone working on these scenes needs to be on the same page to make everything work the way it needs to.

"When you do a film like this, you have to have all your department heads edge around the table regularly," Scott says. "We have meetings once a week, and we go page by page. Page one, I have a problem. What's the problem? And then on to page two. We fly through it like that because everybody's in the picture, and the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing."

No matter how Napoleon turns out in terms of quality, we know it will be well-directed and well-presented. We got the chance to see the scene in the picture above in almost its entirety at CinemaCon back in April, and it was stunning. So, Sir Ridley is showing up this awards season and reminding everyone why he is one of the best in the business regarding this type of filmmaking.