The death of Bertolucci a few days ago turned the "Last Emperor" craze again.
"The Last Emperor" is the first Western film to be shot in the Forbidden City with the permission of the Chinese government. In the film, more than 19,000 extras were used in the ceremony of Pu Yi's enthronement and the worship of a hundred officials. "Door", as the most common architectural element, has become an important point in the film that defines boundaries and links space. Its opening, closing and closing all imply the barriers, obstacles, and the inability to escape that the last emperor encountered in different periods.
In 1987, Bertolucci came to China and opened the door of the Forbidden City for a long time with the script of "The Last Emperor". In 1988, "The Last Emperor" won the 60th Academy Awards for best film, director and many other honors, opening the door of Chinese history and culture to the world. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Guangxu died, and Aixinjueluo Puyi inherited the throne at the age of 3. The fluttering yellow curtain opened the curtain of change for the last emperor. It is also the most iconic first door in the film. ". A 3-year-old child, who has not yet possessed the power to distinguish right from wrong, has to face the door of power and government, and is innocent and ignorant to be pushed into the life of a puppet.
When the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur explored history and truth,
The idea of "memory-image" was once put forward:
It means that people's memories of the past are always reproduced in the form of moving pictures. Pure memory means that the perception of the past will always be picked up by self-memory over and over again due to the immediate visual stimuli of the present. As a result, mixing and alternating between memory that repeats and memory that recalls produces a memory image in people's consciousness. It is a picture of reality and reality, a cross between reality and fantasy. People's memories will always unconsciously participate in the current behaviors and feelings. This is the "déjà vu" that we often realize inexplicably.
The great director Bertolucci has cleverly integrated this "deja vu" with Pu Yi's memories, and the virtual reality connects the film's metaphorical "door". Even the viewer is brought into the interlacing of repeating and recurring memories. The three important separations in the film are all manifested by the opening, closing, and shouting of "doors".
From the delivery of the nanny to the suicide of the birth mother who wanted to break out of the Forbidden City, to the separation of the Puppet Manchukuo and Wanrong. Every time the gate opens, every time a few steps change the gap between two lives in seconds, and every time the cage shouts, the pictures of history are always strikingly similar.
The movie also puts the viewer in the interweaving of memories and reality. The last emperor is not only the subject of history, but also the object of history. Every time he walked out of a "door", he quickly found the entrance of another "door". Many people say that his life is full of helplessness and control, but maybe his shackles and imprisonment are also the safe havens that he unconsciously seeks and attaches to, but he does not know it.
We live in different lies, and people will live for the "self-righteous truth" at each different moment. Bertolucci deliberately described Puyi’s myopia in his youth in the film, which clearly broke the embarrassing background of the little emperor at the time. Most domestic slaves protected his "unclearness", and only a few people pointed out to him. Lu, tell him what the world looks like.
Marx said when talking about historical figures: "They cannot express themselves, they can only be expressed by others"
Puyi's fate is a persona and symbol constructed by others. When he was young, he failed to become "self" first and then gradually formed an "identity", but was forced to fill in the position that he had already set. On the path of being deceived and searching for freedom, Johnston taught him to reform, break through himself, and change his lifestyle. The director of the War Criminals Management Office taught him to free himself and learn to observe the world with his own eyes. However, the director arranged for a dramatic scene, so that the Cultural Revolution relentlessly criticized the "good" director, and the elderly Pu Yi was pushed aside, unable to fight with it.
At the end of the film, Pu Yi spent a dime to enter the Forbidden City to visit this former "home". He gave the grasshopper hidden under the dragon chair to the guard's child and disappeared in the hall. When the camera switched, there were countless tourists in the hall at this time, and the tour guide's voice fell on:
"This is the Hall of Supreme Harmony,
This is where the emperor prepares the hall,
The last to enthroned here was Emperor Xuantong of the Qing Dynasty,
Aixinjue Luo Puyi was only 3 years old at the time.
He died in Beijing in 1967. "
2018 is about to pass,
We miss him very much.
HKY-ojoworld
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