Napoleon

How this film uses it

Reports say Scott and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski ran about 8 to 11 cameras at once during battles. That approach lets the film cut between cavalry, cannons and faces without restaging anything. You feel the scale and the confusion of the fighting.

Where to see it

The Battle of Austerlitz: Napoleon watches from a hill as his army fights, and the enemy ends up drowning when his cannons fire on a frozen lake.

How this film uses it

Scott and Wolski have said they took cues from period painters such as Jacques-Louis David and Eugene Delacroix. Wide, carefully lit frames of crowds, uniforms and ceremonies feel like paintings that moved.

Where to see it

The coronation: The pope crowns Napoleon as Emperor, but Napoleon places the crown on his own head.

How this film uses it

The film trades battle scenes with scenes of Napoleon and Joséphine arguing, courting and drifting apart. The two strands feel connected, as though his private need for her pushes him to larger conquests. It is one way to read the film.

Where to see it

The return from Egypt: After the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon hears of Joséphine's affair and returns to France.

How this film uses it

The film reads as a story about Napoleon's fixation on Joséphine as much as on power. His need for her keeps pulling him back. You can take the whole film as one man's need for her approval, though that is an interpretation.

Where to see it

The exile and return: In exile on Elba, Napoleon escapes in 1815 after hearing that Joséphine is ill, and she dies before he arrives.