Saturday, March 12, 2005

12:19 Here are four new entries in the Crosswalk weblog: True Love Says No FAQ on “The Passion of the Christ” The Truth About the Passion Movie Remember and Not Forget 11:10 AM Last night Marlene and Mark and I watched the “Director’s Cut” version of The Last Emperor, the story of Pu Yi, China’s final monarch. He came to power when he was only three years old. Four years later, he lost his throne when the Chinese Republic was founded by Sun Yat Sen. Thereafter he lived as a virtual house prisoner in the fabled Forbidden City in Peking until 1924. In the 1930s he became the puppet emperor for the Japanese in Manchuria. Still later he was imprisoned by the Russians and then the Chinese. He lived out his last year quietly in Peking (now Beijing), dying in 1967 just as Mao’s Cultural Revolution got underway. The “Director’s Cut” is almost 4 hours long. Marlene didn’t make it to the end (she’s watching the rest of it right now), but Mark and I persevered. Both fascinating and sometimes hard to follow, the movie traces the incredible life of a man who was born in one world (imperial luxury) and died in another (Communist China). In between he lived through some of the most momentous events of the 20th century. The film mentions the book Twilight in the Forbidden City by Reginald Johnston, Pu Yi’s English tutor from about 1919 until 1924. I started reading that book during our stay at the Mac Center in Beijing in January.