The Emperor's New Clothes
Alternative history and whimsical imagination make comfortable bedfellows in The Emperor's New Clothes. As happens in Simon Leys's novel The Death of Napoleon, the French emperor's demise is faked as part of a political comeback scheme, and Ian Holm--who had previously played Bonaparte in Time Bandits and a 1974 British miniseries--plays both Napoleon and the look-alike who "dies" on the island of St. Helena.
