During ‘Being Napoleon’, one man from a small group in their sixties, dressed in full regalia of a Napoleonic infantry soldier and retracing the route made by the French general after he escaped British exile, says to the director of the documentary that if he’s made out to be a clown he’ll come to America and find him. Though admittedly this in itself is quite funny, I didn’t blame him for saying this. I tend to avoid documentaries on account of the uneasiness I feel when I come across them. Whether it’s a mildly autistic man out on a date or an elderly mother whose child died in tragic circumstances, I just can’t get over the ‘entertainment factor’ that the producers are willing to relentlessly pursue. Maybe the best example came with ‘Tiger King’. According to Carole Baskin and her husband, the makers of the show promised her the ‘Blackfish’ of documentaries for big cat breeders in America. They told her that her missing husband would be a ‘minor topic’. We all know how that went.
Of course however, a documentary has to be somewhat entertaining else its unwatchable. This is why I recommend you go onto Netflix and find, ‘Being Napoleon’. Just shy of an hour and half, it follows the various men and women who will soon play their part in a 200th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo. It is to be of a huge scale with 6,200 reenactors, 330 of whom will be on horses and 120 cannons to be fired. If you’re looking to enrich your knowledge on this battle then you will not receive that but as you already like history I would ask you to hang on. This documentary asks, what does history mean? To help assess that, the history junkies aren’t portrayed as clowns for you to laugh at whilst the producers said they’d be taken seriously, they are taken seriously and they confront the viewer their endearing love for history or as one infantry reenactor states, its more than just ‘reading a book with a glass of whisky’.
The funny thing is a Netflix style documentary could have flourished here. On the poster there are two men dressed as Napoleon and the words, ‘There can only be one’ wrapped in a wreath. One is Mark Schneider, a Franco-American from Virginia. The other, a Frenchman, Frank Samson. No, I haven't gotten confused, these men were not trying to portray Blücher or Wellington (its based on looks not names). Their screen time will have you giggling and gasping. I know what I said if you’re accusing me of being sanctimonious but when Samson stands next to a portrait of himself as Napoleon in a red and white robe after showing off his empire, ‘France ends here’ he says as he pulls into his driveway, it will be hard to be so tight-lipped about it all. Schneider is equally as interesting. A once go-to-guy for Napoleon, even Putin had seen him perform, but now he finds himself in prison on a weekend basis and the possibility of not being able to play Napoleon for this big occasion. But my point still stands, the directors could have so easily focussed on this, hashed it out and made the two men beyond human before, as it seems the ritual is these days, chucking them out onto the pitchforks of twitter, forever condemned through half-hidden facts. Instead, they remain true to why they asked these men to be on a documentary and you cannot help but be moved by their enthusiasm.
Along with the ‘lowly’ infantry reenactors, these men do not talk of the past through the prism of facts, figures and ‘big guys’. At times, the camera follows in silence as they discuss what it must have been like to traverse the mountains as the elements hailed upon the men who slept outside without a tent. “Could you have done it?” says one to another. He might as well be asking us. Just before the battle, someone falls off their horse and is taken to hospital. The man in question is playing General Né. Everyone refers to him as this and the man accepts no pity as he shows his injuries. “It’s battle” is his claim, you’d have thought he’d just survived a British cavalry charge. Their attitude is best understood when a reenactor stumbles over broken English but perseveres, he furthers the desire, not to know history but to feel history. ‘You feel the wind. It’s very important’. Anywhere they go in uniform the public treat them warmly. I remember being as a boy I went to an English Civil War reenactment and was enamoured with these strange figures. That is something that is felt by all peoples to their culture. Through their meticulous uniform, plenty of beeping car horns wailed past and demands for photos of all ages are met with openness.
By the time Waterloo actually begins one doesn’t care for the battle. That has passed. Besides, the reenactors aren’t divided by countries, you’ll know that when a distinctly English voice in a French uniform yells, “English bastards!”. History is being remembered through humanity’s desire for connection, that sounds cheesy but what’s the point of trying to rephrase it and pass off discreetly? Fine, it is cheesy but I'm keeping it. Cicero had a far better way of saying it and I don't intend to compete with him anytime soon. Wait until the end for that, it'll top the whole thing off.