Word: emperors
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Though he earned his place in history as a ruthless emperor and military genius, Napoleon Bonaparte was also a peerless megalomaniac. In the final years of his forced exile on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, the fallen master predicted that his hated internment by Britain would only enhance his myth. "If it hadn't been for the crucifixion," Napoleon reasoned, "Jesus would not have become a god." It was a truly Napoleonic comparison, but contained a kernel of truth: the Napoleonic legend is enjoying something of a resurrection these days in France...
...Napoleon's Parisian tomb. The exam would end decades of speculation that the British returned the corpse of Bonaparte's valet rather than the man himself to France in 1840. French scientists have already cleared the British of the 41-year-old charge that they poisoned the exiled emperor with arsenic. "Today's world seeks consensus above all, and Napoleon was more about conflict and debate," explains Thierry Lentz, director of the Napoleon Foundation in Paris. "That, too, is one of his great appeals; he left no one the luxury of neutrality or indifference...
...snooty St. Benedict's. He gets his toga into a twist over a brat named Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), a cheeky cheat in whom he somewhat mysteriously detects good stuff. The conventions of the genre usually dictate that the boy will ultimately reform. The considerable originality of The Emperor's Club (directed by Michael Hoffman) lies in the fact that the kid gets worse, not better, going on to sleazy dotcom millions and, of course, politics. This leaves the prissily played Hundert sadder and wiser. But it still may leave viewers emotionally disconnected from this distinctly unchipper Mr. Chips...
...More importantly, the films are, by and large, terrific?a joyous surprise for those who thought the movies might be dusty artifacts, suitable for their time but not ours. That opera film, for example: The Kingdom and the Beauty from 1959, is the sweet, poignant saga of a young Emperor (Zhao Lei) who falls in love with a commoner (Lin Dai), then leaves her to languish in noble Back Street fashion. As for the opera aspect, the dialogue is mostly spoken; and the tunes include one that sounds spookily like a rap song...
...DIED. PRINCE TAKAMADO, 47, cousin of Emperor Akihito and seventh in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne; of heart failure after collapsing during a squash lesson; in Tokyo. Takamado was the first Japanese royal to visit South Korea since 1945 during the World Cup this year in Seoul...