Napoleon exists as a documented Stanley Kubrick project, not as a film he directed. Research files, images, correspondence, and a screenplay make it possible to trace the work that was done and distinguish it from its hypothetical results.
A biographical and cinematic project
After 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick developed a feature film about Napoleon that combined his political career, military campaigns, and private life. The surviving documentation makes it possible to study an advanced stage of preparation, especially during 1968 and 1969. However, no amount of research turns the project into a completed film. Its history must be reconstructed from working materials, proposed decisions, and agreements that did not lead to the planned production.
The historical research brought together timelines, images, and consultations with historian Felix Markham. These materials addressed different problems: establishing when events took place, learning about personal relationships, studying appearances, or preparing settings. They were not all intended to go directly into the screenplay. A reference library can contain alternatives, fact-checking, and questions that do not translate into scenes but make it possible to make decisions with a more precise context.
The screenplay dated September 29, 1969 is an identifiable reference point in this process. It offers a narrative structure that can be analyzed as a text, with its selection of episodes and distribution of information. It cannot confirm the exact running time, the actors’ performances, or the editing a subsequent film would have had. Written proposals belong to one stage of the work and should be described as such.
From documentation to production requirements
The project’s practical preparation raised a different set of questions: casting, locations, costumes, extras, and the organization of military scenes. These are production challenges, not simple extensions of a historical timeline. Knowing how an event unfolded does not automatically resolve how to film it with the people, resources, and time available. The gap between these two kinds of knowledge helps explain why the preparation required such different documents.
The relationship between Napoleon and Josephine was part of the dramatic challenge, alongside the depiction of power and military campaigns. The project cannot be reduced to a catalog of battles or to a love story detached from its political context. Each approach had implications for the selection of scenes and the balance between private moments, public ceremonies, and collective action.
A proposal by Kubrick dated October 20, 1971, reproduced in the exhibition catalog, considers a new draft and an organization of the production in blocks. The document shows that the search for a workable form continued after 1969. It also makes it necessary to distinguish between versions and dates: it would be inaccurate to combine all the surviving ideas as if they belonged to a single, definitive, unchanging plan.
Why it was never made and how to study what remains
TASCHEN’s editorial presentation links the withdrawal of support by MGM and United Artists to concerns about financial risk. The reasons and stages behind the project’s failure to materialize require a specific timeline, because a funding decision is not necessarily explained by a single subsequent event. For this guide, the verifiable outcome matters: the preparation did not result in the feature film directed by Kubrick that these materials were intended to make possible.
The UAL catalog confirms that documentation for the project has been preserved, while publications and exhibitions present selections from that collection. An inventory describes the existence of materials; a reproduction makes some of them available for examination. Maintaining this distinction prevents us from attributing conclusions to the archive that require consulting specific documents. It also allows us to recognize the value of a proposal without turning its aspirations into achievements.
A comparison with Barry Lyndon can explore documented connections between projects, but it does not make that film an exact substitute for Napoleon. Each film or proposal has its own structure and conditions. The unrealized project can be studied through what survives: organized research, written versions, and production attempts. This body of material offers a history of filmmaking without requiring us to imagine as fact the film that was never made.
References: University of the Arts London, Stanley Kubrick Archive, catalog SK/18/1, “Napoleon.” Eva-Maria Magel, “The Best Movie (N)ever Made: Stanley Kubrick’s Failed Napoleon Project,” Stanley Kubrick exhibition catalog, pp. 156–159. TASCHEN, editorial presentation of Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, edited by Alison Castle.
