'The Last Emperor:' Why Chinese gov't helped to make the movie

Scan page 15

in other productions from the West) has embarked on a series of broad reforms of the performing arts, including "The Last Emperor" tells the story of Pu Yi, who at the encouragement of performing-arts companies to seek the age of three ascended the Dragon throne in Beijing's Forbidden City to become titular ruler of one-half the According to Ying, "With reform in the economic fields, we now have quite a number of millionaires, and After the Chinese Revolution of 1949, Pu Yi spent 10 some of them are willing to sponsor certain artistic years in a prison for war criminals, undergoing a process efforts" (New York Times, Jan. 10, 1988). The social of "reeducation." In 1959, he was pardoned and ended his inequality resulting from China's economic reforms is days as an assistant in Beijing's botanical gardens.

The ostensibly radical subject of the film-an Since "The Last Emperor" was the first fiction film aristocrat who is reeducated to become a worker, about modern China to be directed by a Westerner, it was achieving personal freedom in the process—is virtually important that a director be chosen who would encourage unprecedented for a film that garnered nine Academy a sympathetic viewpoint toward current developments in awards and the praise of numerous critics in the West.

The film was promoted by capitalist corporations and banks eager to increase their connections to the Chinese market. Financing was arranged by independent English producer Jeremy Thomas, who put together a multinational banking consortium headed by the Hill-Samuel Thomas stated that the bankers "were attracted not only by the project, which they found interesting in itself, but also by a project that would give them contacts and links in China." (Variety, Jan. 28, 1987, my emphasis)

While such an enterprise should not be condemned in principle, we would hope that the Chinese government would make the distinction between capitalist techniques used in service of the workers' movement and those which might be used to reshape the economy as a whole.

However, as with growing numbers of other joint ventures between capitalist states and workers' states, there is no sign that such a distinction is being made.

For example, there appears to have been no demand for good wages for the Chinese film-production workers and more than i9,000 actors, including 1000 soldiers from The China Film Coproduction Company, operating within the Ministry of Culture, agreed to allow Bertolucci to make the film in China (the first Western feature film made there since 1949). Studio facilities and an unlimited supply of extras were offered in return for Chinese distribution and the right to approve the script.

"Nothing in the script was challenged by the Chinese," said Bertolucci, "except for a few details of fact." The film is consistent with a new point of view within government circles in which portions of their history have been reevaluated to aid in the push for market For example, the film ends in 1967 with Pu Yi coming upon a group of Red Guard youths carrying posters of Mao and parading several prisoners wearing duncecaps. Among the latter is the prison warden who reeducated Pu Yi and whom Pu Yi had come to respect.

After the warden refuses a youth's instruction to "confess" to his "crimes," he is ordered to "kow tow to Chairman Mao." This sequence is a direct parallel to an opening sequence in which subjects of the Ching court were commanded to kow tow to the emperor. Bertolucci thus, with the full approval of the Chinese government, China's vice minister of culture, Ying Ruocheng, played the part of the prison warden. Ying (who has acted people on earth.

Bank in London. the People's Liberation Army.

Mao-the new emperor? reforms. equates Mao metaphorically with an emperor.

"A number of millionaires" private support. thus sanctioned by a high-ranking official. munist Party. artists. revolution.