The Insanely Bizarre ‘Napoleon’ Moment We All Missed
What the actual $%@?!
Director Ridley Scott’s Napoleon landed on Apple TV+ on Friday. It’s just the theatrical version for now - the promised 4½ hour director’s cut still doesn’t have a premiere date - but I decided to rewatch it regardless. And thank God I did, because there is an insanely bizarre detail that none of us seem to have noticed when the film was released in theaters last year.
The moment in question comes very early in the film, when Napoleon arrives at the Jacobin Club to meet with Paul Barras, just as Robespierre is delivering a fiery speech justifying the recent execution of Marie Antoinette.
As Napoleon and one of his brothers enter the building, there’s a group of men in the background carrying on what appears to be a jovial conversation. We can’t hear what they’re saying to one another, of course, but whatever it is, it must be absolutely fascinating - because none of them notice that there’s a dog standing there urinating on one of their legs. Including the guy getting peed on.
I had to rewind the scene several times to confirm I wasn’t seeing things. But it’s really there. There is really a shot of a random dog pissing on a dude who doesn’t even notice.
Wanting to know if anyone else had noticed this decidedly-unusual occurrence, I took to Google. There, I discovered that, no, no one seems to have publicly commented on this moment as of yet.
BUT…
I did learn that Napoleon is dedicated to someone named Lulu. And who, pray tell, is Lulu? Scott told The Los Angeles Times:
“Lulu is my darling little Border Terrier, who died. I was completely devastated. I love dogs. I adore dogs.”
Is that Lulu in the shot, marking some poor schmuck’s leg as her possession? I can’t quite tell if the dog in the movie is a Border Terrier or not.
What I can tell you is that Scott named Lulu’s successor after Napoleon’s wife:
“I’ve got a new one now called Josephine — yeah, Josephine. And she is a seducer. She is charming.”
May Scott never be accused of lacking eccentricity.