Desiree (1954)

Desiree is probably better remembered in France than she is in the United States, although maybe not because Napoleon has a checkered past and it all depends. I watched this movie in the aftermath of reading War and Peace, and it is a fictionalized version of Napoleon's rise and fall through the eyes of a woman who once loved him. Desiree is daughter of a Marseilles silk merchant who meets Napoleon when he is an impoverished general on the rise to greatness. His brother married her sister, and he betrothes himself to her, then heads to France to seek his glory. There he sets his eyes on a more influential bride, the rich and influential Josephine, who launches his career as not just a military hero but also an emperor, cast in the mold of Augustus. When Desiree ventures to Paris to find her errant fiancee, she discovers she has been jilted, but she also meets her future husband, Bernadotte, a man who opposes Napoleon's rise to the throne and his conquering all of Europe. THe movie sticks largely with what Desiree's point of view and knowledge was--so no battle scens and little in the way of military protocol, and more about what it was like for the French towatch all this unfold. As Napoleon, Marlon Brando draws a portrait of a man so sure of the righteousness of his cause that no sacrifice is too great in accomplishing his ends. His Napoleon is arrogant, scheming and temperamental, and yet oddly human in his failings. It is ironic that his wish to unite Europe into one was accomplished bloodlessly 200 years later, and that Russia was not a part of that--his failure to see that led to his downfall. This is a bit wooden in acting but well worth watching.