Napoleon in front of his history. In front of the historical figures he met and the battles he lost. And all without leaving the Prado Museum, contemplating paintings by Goya such as The Shootings of May 3rd or The Surrender of Bailén by José Casado del Alisal. El Prado and Sony released a video yesterday in which an actor dressed in the suit – brought from Los Angeles – that Joaquin Phoenix wears in Ridley Scott’s new film walks through the halls of the Madrid art gallery where on Monday Scott himself will present the film in Spain. The director will make a wider tour of the museum’s rooms than that of the resurrected French emperor, who during his first life could not know the Prado because it opened in 1819, when he had already been deported to the Atlantic island of Santa Helena
From the Prado they explain that they are always looking for ways to remember the current state of the museum and the stories that are told there and also to bring culture closer to the citizens, and that in this case Sony España was looking for a different place to premiere the film and they came into contact. “The premiere of a film by a great director, which will come to the museum for the presentation, is the occasion to bring to life Goya’s paintings that portray the historical figures with whom Napoleon coincided, such as Charles IV and Ferdinand VII and his intrigues, and also the battle of Bailén, the first French defeat in the open field, despite the fact that Napoleon was not there, and, of course, the shootings”, they reason from the center.
In the video, Napoleon contemplates La família de Charles IV, in which Goya creates a masterful psychological portrait of the characters of the reigning family, especially Charles IV and his heir Ferdinand VII, whom the general would force to abdicate in Bayonne. The emperor also observes Ferdinand VII in royal cloak, by Goya himself, as well as two key scenes of the war of independence such as May 2, 1808 in Madrid or The fight with the Mamluks – in which the people of Madrid try to prevent the departure of the last members of the French royal family and attacks on the Mamluks, an army body that came from Egypt – and May 3 in Madrid or The Shootings, which records the punishment for the revolt. Napoleon also stops in front of The Surrender of Bailén by José Casado del Alisal, with the capitulation in 1808 of the French General Dupont before the Spanish troops of General Castaños.
