After talking about Napoleon's fascinating rise to power, his struggles in his personal life I continue where I left off with the 1804 Coronation moment looking at Kubrick's interesting choices of telling the history and events such as Austerlitz, the divorce with Josephine and marriage with the Duchess of Parma, The Russian campaign and failure leading to his first fall & exile and then permanent exile and passing away.   

 I do not own or claim to own any rights to the script which is available via google docs ( link available here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9DS_zk2FintNmFkZjM3ODUtMzY0ZS00Mzg0LWFhMzUtYWRjZjU1YjUwMTEx/edit?hl=en... )   

Intro and outro are excerpts from Invitation to the Castle Ball, by Douglas Maxwell, (public domain) available on YouTube's Audio library.

After talking about the comprehensive logistics and production notes of Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon movie today I talk about the plot & script that describe looking at Napoleon's fascinating rise to power, his struggles in his personal life and much more.  

Painting entitled: General Bonaparte surrounded by members of the Council of Five Hundred during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, by François Bouchot 

In this first part of a longer episode I talk about the production notes of Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon movie while also talking at the beginning about the landscape of historical movies (part about Kubrick and the scripts starts at 04:55)

Intro is excerpt from Doug Maxwell's Dramatic_Swarm (public domain and free to use via YouTube Audio Library).

Painting of Napoleon’s Return from Elba by Charles de Steuben

Link to the script via Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9DS_zk2FintNmFkZjM3ODUtMzY0ZS00Mzg0LWFhMzUtYWRjZjU1YjUwMTEx/edit?hl=en  

Wordpress article : https://wonderershistorypodcast.wordpress.com/2019/09/08/the-napoleon-epic-a-holy-grail-of-historical-cinema/  

A second part about the script will be released next week. Hope you enjoy the episode.

In today's podcast episode I talk about Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg, was an Albanian nobleman and military commander who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in what is today Albania and most of the south-western Balkan region.

In this episode we talk about Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes his brutal reigns and his fight against the Ottoman Empire. He would be popularised and mythologised by Bram Stoker in his 1897 novel Dracula, adapted to the screen with Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman playing the legendary vampiric character. 

In this episode we talk about John Hunyadi, important figure in Transylvanian, Hungarian but also Romanian history, notable anti-Ottoman crusader remembered for his role at Belgrade in 1456.   

Illustration of Hunyadi from the Chronica Hungarorum 

In this episode I talk about emblematic ruler of Moldova, Stephan the Great voivode and notable anti-Ottoman crusader who kept Moldova independent from Polish, Hungarian and Ottoman Rule.

In this episode we talk about Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes his brutal reigns and his fight against the Ottoman Empire.   

In this episode we talk about Voivode, diplomat, historian, ethnographer, geographer, writer, musicologist Dimitrie Cantemir (Cantemiroglu in Turkish), one of the most prominent figures of the Enlightenment in Moldova and later on Romania but also important figure in Ottoman and early modern Russian culture.    

All images public domain.  

In this last episode of the Western Admirals of the Mediterranean miniseries we look at Álvaro de Bazán, Marqués de Santa Cruz, important commander for Spain and Philip II at Lepanto, Tunis and during the War of Portuguese Succession (1580 – 1583)