Session 020 - The Last Emperor
Who saw it and what are your thoughts on it?
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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4 comments:
I should be able to fit it in this weekend hopefully. Just hard for me to sit down and watch this film I guess. I've already seen "All About Eve" at least, so I'll be on track soon.
Somehow I'm guessing this will not have nearly has much nudity as the two other Bertolucci films I've seen...Last Tango in Paris and The Dreamers. So already The Last Emperor has quite a hill to climb. :)
So a week later than I said, but than again I didn't realize I had downloaded the nearly four hour long director's cut either.
This film is total Oscar bait that we have come to expect, but it is also an extremely ambitious film that shows how the Chinese Culture has changed over the last century. We start with the fall of imperialism, the rise of the Republic, WWII, and finally the birth of the Chinese communist government. All of this is told through the life of one man, China's Last Emperor, Puyi.
Coronated at less than 3 years of age, Puyi would grow to be spoiled and lonely. Being a minor, his throne was abdicated with the republic revolution and he was essentially imprisoned behind the Forbidden City. Puyi is a character that is both at times easy to sympathize with, but also be completely disappointed with due to his ego and presumed God-like heritage.
I don't think any set could ever be better than the Forbidden City. It truly is a sight to behold and I now really want to go see it for myself. So vast and sparse, it is intimidating and far from being an ideal place to be a child growing up. I mean they don't even have a TV.
The score was something out of a Miyazaki film. It totally was welcoming, yet haunting all at the same time. I can't stop humming it.
Also I really liked the ending a lot. It comes full circle as he goes from Emperor to citizen, and there are more than a few ironic moments at the end that probably didn't happen, but that doesn't make them any less profound to watch.
One thing I will say that I didn't like in this film was the acting. Peter O'Toole and John Lone are great, but no one else really seemed like they were acting. They seemed to be reading a script and didn't ever truly embody their characters. Obviously there are ones that do get it or at least get it at moments, but for being such a sweeping Oscar winning epic, it thought the acting was sub par.
This was a story I was totally unfamiliar with, and I was fascinated every step of the way. It's not perfect, but for nearly four hours, I was never bored either. I look forward to now picking up that gorgeous Criterion set some day.
Well, we’re gonna come at this from two different angles because I watched the shorter version. Hell, I even went out of my way to avoid the 4-hour long one. I tell myself it was because I wanted to watch the director’s originally intended theatrical version and not just because I secretly dread the thought of 218 minutes of historical biopic.
Obviously I don’t know what is left out of the version I saw, or what is added to the one you did, but I came away admiring the film, liking it, but feeling largely detached from it.
What it amounted to for me was a well constructed, beautifully staged biopic. And in a film this ambitious, a film dedicated to showing the end of Imperial China as it was before the implementation of the People’s Republic… it’s the director’s job to connect us to this character, the Emperor, and I for one never felt for him. Maybe this is also the fault of the actor – as you noted in your recap - but I didn’t see that as a standout fault.
However, I don’t think it helped that Bertolucci chose to show Puyi attempt suicide at the very beginning of the film either. Obviously if that’s what happened you can’t skirt the facts, but I find more fault with the choice to show it before we really get to know the character. It’s hard to feel sorry for a man given everything as a child who tries to take the easy way out when things get tough (and how tough they got is up in the air as well, because besides getting yelled at a few times I never felt him “suffering”).
So since its main character never totally worked for me, I needed a different “hook” to get involved in The Last Emperor.
And I found it in the exquisite locales, sets, staging and some of the more interesting themes that Bernardo Bertolucci was examining here.
The most interesting of which was the phony sense of power and sheltered lifestyle of the Emperor. Emperor Puyi was supposed to be the most powerful man in China, yet he didn’t even know he’d been removed from power until his own brother clued him in. He could make a man bow before him, or drink a saucer full of ink, but he can’t even leave the gates of the Forbidden City.
His power was largely impotent, something I felt very compelling in the movie. This was a man steadfast on challenging the culture he was born into, pushing against the rules and boundaries he was set in, but his biggest rebellions amounted to nothing more than running away from his guards, cutting his hair and adopting an English fashion sensibility.
Bertolucci fills the film with stunning shots, such as the one of Emperor Puyi as a child running out to a scene of thousands bowing before him. And two of my favorite scenes, the gates closing on Puyi at the end as they had as a child, trapping him and reaffirming his state of powerlessness and the now defunct Emperor’s return to the empty, tourist attraction that the Forbidden City had become.
Also interesting is Bertolucci’s portrayal of the Puyi as a spoiled child figure, one that never appears to grow up entirely or seems in total control as the Emperor. He makes questionable or poor decisions, seems to be always struggling against his advisors (except O’Toole’s teacher character) and is at least partly responsible for why he lost his handle on the Emperor position, landed in prison and ended up a common citizen.
That’s one helluva story arc and there’s more than enough here to recommend the film. Still, after letting the film percolate, I don’t feel any closer to its characters than I did while watching it. There’s no doubt in my mind that this film is more deserving of its Best Picture status than our previous “Screening Room Session” The English Patient, its beauty and storyline actually amount to something, but I came away from the movie feeling like I’d seen a large scale history lesson. Where’s the connection?
The film is grand, but not human…
…maybe I should have watched the 218 minute version?
I don't think I can disagree with any of your comments. I think you hit it on the head, but in the end I guess my unfamiliarity with the story made it a more engaging viewing experience.
I would definitely agree that for a film about one man, you don't feel very connected to him. Maybe that's because he is, for most of the film, a "god" as opposed to a human, but still I would definitely wished I could have had more of an emotional connection to the plight of Puyi.
Perhaps in the end, the film's ambitiousness casts a shadow over the possible intimate story lines here, but sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too. I certainly at least appreciated it trying to have it both ways, even if it isn't wholly successful.
I still think it was the most deserving in '87 of the best Picture award of those nominated (Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory?, and Moonstruck). I could have predicted its win back than and I was only 3. Nobody else even had a shot.
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