Honor

Monday

Alexander Larman

Napoleon heralds the return of the man’s movie

The trailer for Ridley Scott’s eagerly awaited magnum opus Napoleon has finally arrived — and it does not disappoint. Boasting what looks like another Oscar-worthy performance from Joaquin Phoenix, the trailer teases an intoxicating mixture of full-throttle battle scenes, executed and shot on a scale unparalleled in modern cinema, as well as insight into the complex psyche of the French emperor, to say nothing of his often-tortuous relationship with his wife Josephine (played here by Vanessa Kirby.)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?

napoleon

Thursday

Michael Warren Davis

Will Smith: the last gentleman

Cardinal Newman said that “it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.” The key word there is almost, because some things are worth more than gentleness. Honor, for one. For those who somehow missed it, at the Academy Awards on Sunday, host Chris Rock made a crack about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head (Mrs. Smith has alopecia). Her husband Will Smith then climbed onstage and slapped Mr. Rock. America was horrified. Yet Mr. Smith was just obeying the first rule of chivalry: if you insult a guy’s wife, get ready to throw hands. To be fair, Mr. Smith probably should have struck Mr. Rock with a glove or something. Cold-cocking him wasn’t very dashing. And the language he used afterwards was a little crude.

Monday

Dominic Green

What happened to honour in American public life?

‘Honour,’ the French poet Nicholas Boileau wrote in 1666, ‘is like a rocky island without a landing place; once we leave it, we can’t get back.’ Especially, Donald Trump might add, when the outlook is Stormy. But Trump’s concept of honour is perhaps closer to that of Stormy Daniels’ fellow artist and near-namesake, the Elizabethan poet Samuel Daniel, who in 1592 called honour an ‘empty sound’, an ‘idle name of wind’. These early modern attitudes still define how we think about honour. Either it’s a unique defence against life’s ethical challenges, or it’s an instrument, a luxury—an affectation that is, as Trump is alleged to have found Stormy Daniels, desirable but negotiable.