How accurate IS Ridley Scott’s Napoleon? From Marie Antoinette’s hair to shooting the pyramids with a cannon – experts reveal the film’s fabricated scenes after it sent French critics into a frenzy

With a week away from general release, Ridley Scott’s new Napoleon biopic has already managed to ruffle the feathers of some critics.

Reviewers in the French media this week called it “very clumsy” and “boring” and described Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon as a “petulant man-child.”

But some have also taken issue with the film’s inaccuracies, despite reviews in the UK and US being largely positive.

After watching the trailer, historian Dan Snow pointed out that Napoleon was not present at Marie Antoinette’s execution.

It was also noted that the fallen queen’s hair was shaved – not long and curly as depicted – when she was beheaded.

And during Napoleon’s escapades in Egypt, the pyramids were not under fire, but the film shows them being shelled with cannons.

Below, MailOnline elaborates on these inaccuracies and more.

Antoinette’s hair was cut short when she was executed and she did not wear a black dress

The film’s trailer shows Antoinette with a mop of frizzy hair as she defiantly walks to the guillotine in front of a baying crowd.

But in fact the French queen had short-cropped hair when she was put to death, after having it shaved by her captors.

She can also be seen in Scott’s production in a black dress.

Although she had wanted to wear black, she was forced to don a white dress – the color worn by widowed queens of France.

Napoleon was not at the execution of Marie Antoinette

The film’s trailer shows Napoleon beheading Marie Antoinette in front of a baying crowd in Paris during the French Revolution.

In reality, the future French emperor was on the other side of the country at the time.

He took part in the siege of Toulon, in which he played a key role in forcing British-led forces to withdraw.

Antoinette was executed after a trial in which she was accused of incest with her son. Her husband, King Louis XVI, had been beheaded eight months earlier.

Marie Antoinette was probably not defiant when she was put to death

The French scientist Dr. Estelle Paranque said on BBC Radio 4’s Today program yesterday that she was irritated by Scott’s spicy portrayal of Antoinette.

“It kind of annoyed me because he made her a little bit fearless and a little bit feisty, and at the time she honestly wasn’t,” she said.

‘She tried to remain dignified at the end, but I don’t think she would have been that bold. And of course Napoleon wasn’t there.’

Napoleon did not focus on the pyramids

The Napoleon trailer also shows the emperor’s troops firing at the pyramids during his escapades in Egypt.

A cannon is loaded, aimed and then fired at the top of the ancient structures.

But historian Dan Snow elaborated on the scene in a TikTok analysis.

He said, “We see this 12-pound gun firing at maximum height. Can it hit the top of the pyramids from where they stand? I highly doubt that.

‘Nor did Napoleon shoot at the pyramids, and the so-called Battle of the Pyramids was not fought at the foot of the pyramids.’

Napoleon did not come from nothing and conquer everything

A promotional poster for the film features the provocative tagline ‘He came from nowhere. He conquered everything’.

But Snow pointed out that Napoleon’s father was an aristocrat.

Carlo Bonaparte and Napoleon’s mother Maria lived in their palatial family home on the island of Corsica, where the emperor grew up.

Napoleon’s father rose to become Corsica’s representative at the court of Louis XVI.

The Bonaparte family also descended from Tuscan nobles who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century.

As for the claim that he ‘conquered everything’, despite his efforts, Napoleon did not conquer Britain.

His planned invasion was never even attempted. Although an invasion force had assembled on the French coast, Napoleon’s campaigns in Austria and Egypt ensured that they never left for the British coast.

The plans were finally shelved in 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens ended hostilities between Britain and France.

Napoleon never led a cavalry charge

The film also shows Napoleon going into battle on his horse.

But Snow points out that the French emperor never led a cavalry charge.

However, Napoleon did order cavalry charges in several battles and was present at the fighting.

Despite his historic defeats in the Peninsular War and at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was largely successful in the battle.

Of the sixty battles fought by his troops, only seven ended in defeat.

The French newspaper Le Figaro said in its review that the film should be renamed ‘Barbie and Ken under the Empire’ and added that Napoleon is depicted as a ‘sentimental brute with a gun in his hand and who is quick to shed a tear traps’.

The Canadian French-language newspaper Le Devoir led with the headline “Not Waterloo, but not Austerlitz either,” referring to Napoleon’s useless last stand in Belgium and his tactical “masterpiece” against the Russians in what is now the Czech Republic.

The article described Phoenix’s Napoleon as a “prickly man-child who doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing.”

In an interview with the New Yorker, Scott hit back at critics, telling them to “get a life,” adding, “400 books have been written about him.” Perhaps the first was the most accurate, the next is already creating a version of the author.

“By the time you get to book 399, guess what, there’s a lot of speculation.”

He also responded tellingly to claims of inaccuracies by critics France Inter Radio: ‘My answer to them is: “How do you know? Were you there?”

He added that he speculated about history but stayed close to the facts known about Napoleon, including by studying his letters.

In response to Scott’s defense, historian Guy Walters said: ‘Ridley Scott has resorted to that most time-dishonoured and lamest excuse to misinterpret his history in his Napoleon film.

‘If you tell people, ‘You can’t know because you weren’t there,’ it defeats the whole pursuit of historical knowledge and essentially gives you the opportunity to make everything up.