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Regular Feature | Film Reviews while his purpose is to setNapoleon firmly inthe history ofhis age. In this, he largely succeeds, although some of the most important consequences of Napoleon's redrawing of maps and upending of tradition are shghted—the nationaUsmhis armies unleashedinItaly and Germany, for example, a force that would, later in the nineteenth century, again rearrange the map ofEurope. The only other criticism to be added is that Grubin's Napoleon remains, strangely, remote. For aU the scrutiny directed to his motives and thoughts, for the hundreds of visualizations, for the readings from his most intimate (and erotic) letters to Josephine, this Napoleon does not entirelycometoUfe. Somehow, thereis more "Napoleon"inHerbert Lom's ten-second scowl of disgust as the Grande Armée bums its standards in the Russian snow than in David Grubin's fourhours of conscientious documentation. James J. Ward Cedar Crest CoUege jjward@cedarcrest.edu Napoleon, First Emperor of France painted by Robert Lefevre. tion as a strategist, as he sought to achieve with mass of numbers and attrition what he had earlier won with speed and surprise. Denied a Russian surrender, Napoleon again abandoned his army, this time leaving 500,000 men dead, captured, or deserted. His propagandists could hardly disguise the extent ofthe catastrophe. The final halfhour oíNapoleon is markedby fareweUs— from Marie Louise, the Habsburg princess Napoleon married after divorcing Josephine, and the son she bore him, both returning to Vienna as Allied armies crossed onto French soil in 1814; from his officers, at Fontainebleau, upon his abdication; from France, to beginhis exile onElba, the miniature Corsicato whichhis adversaries consigned him. His escape, the baring of his breast to soldiers the restored Bourbon monarch Louis XVIII sent to arrest him, the raising ofyet another army, and the decamp to the soggy field ofWaterloo follow in rapid progression. Waterloo itself is effectively reënacted, and due credit is rendered the late arriving Prussians, who carried the day for Wellington's exhausted infantrymen. Dispatched to the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena, Napoleon finished his days composing his memoirs, constructing his myth, and—unmentioned by Grubin—battling the effects of the mysterious arsenic poisoning which may (the forensics are uncertain) have sealed his death in 1821. Of the twenty some experts Grubin has recruited to augment his script, most are credible and some even manage to say something new on so famiUar a subject. Best among them are Jean Tulard, the dean of Napoleonic studies in France, the British military specialist AUstair Home, and the American historians Owen Connelly and IsserWoloch. ButNapoleon is David Grubin's work. In an interview at the companion web site (www.pbs.org/empires/ napoleon), Grubin addresses the inevitable comparisonbetween his biography and Abel Gance's classic 1927 silent version. Gance romanticized Napoleon with virtuoso filmmaking, Grubin states, Thirteen Days A New Line Cinema Release Fall 2000 Director Roger Donaldson's Thirteen Days sets out to give viewers a sense of what it must have been like at the center of the Cuban missile crisis, perhaps the most dangerous moment in the Cold War. It succeeds brilliantly . From the Oval Office, to U2 flights over Cuba, to ships at sea manning the quarantine (blockade) ofCuba, we feel the tension mount as President John Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood ) cautiously feels his way toward a solution that will remove the missiles, maintain American honor, yet avoid blowing up the world. Greenwood perfectly captures John Kennedy's grace and sangfroid. Steven Culp's Robert Kennedy is every bit as good. CuIp lost weight for the role to give his character Bobby's hardedged , all-elbows persona. The performance is marred only Kevin Costnerprotrayedpresidential appointments secretary Kenny O'Donnell as one of President Kennedy's principle advisors during the Cuban missile crisis. Historians strongly disagree, claiming that O'Donnell's role was minimal at best. Vol. 31.1 (2001) I 69 Regular Feature | Film Reviews President Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood, center) received advice from an ad hoc "Executvie Committee of theNational Security Council" duringtheCuban MissileCrisis. He andtheExCommare shownreceiving a briefing on the latest developments in Cuba from the National Photographic Interpretation Center, which analyzed photographs of the island taken by U-2 spy planes...

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