This article was published on Taotao Tao Film Public Account (ttfilm) on October 23, 2017. If you want to reprint, please contact DouPost.
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Thirty years ago today, the film "The Last Emperor" directed by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci was officially released.
This is the first feature film to be filmed in the Forbidden City with the official permission of our country, and it is also the best film about China among foreign perspective films in the minds of many people.
On October 23, 1987, the film "The Last Emperor" directed by Bertolucci was released in Italy. This is the first feature film to be filmed in the Forbidden City with permission from the Chinese government. The Chinese government imposed no restrictions on the content of the film, even allowing Puyi's enthronement ceremony to be filmed inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
The filming coincided with Queen Elizabeth II's visit to China, because the Chinese government gave the crew the right to use the Forbidden City first, and the Queen was unable to visit it. This kind of treatment can be said to be unprecedented, and it is very likely that there will be no future.
The film has a strong lineup of consultants: Pu Yi's younger brother, Pu Jie, Li Wenda, the author of Pu Yi's autobiography "The First Half of My Life", Guo Buluo-Runqi, the younger brother of the last empress Wanrong, and Puyi's cousin, Aixinjueluo-Yujie. Runqi and Yuchang both studied and reformed together with Puyi at the Fushun War Criminals Management Center. The above are all people who have been with Puyi for a long time. It can be said that the details of the film are as close to reality as possible.
Many scenes and shapes in the film are highly restored, and props and makeup are extremely sophisticated.
When the train entered the station, the window was covered with Russian newspapers. This detail was verified by the assistant director Ning Ying.
Cixi appeared on the stage for less than 4 minutes, and the styling referenced a lot of photos of her before her death. After the costume was completed, it weighed about 50 pounds.
Puyi's style is very close to the truth
The scene where Puyi was playing tennis when he was expelled from the palace was fictionalized based on this photo, a dramatic treatment.
In the end, the quality of the film is fully worthy of these efforts, and this is the first best picture Oscar with a PG-13 rating.
"The loneliest child in the world"
This sentence comes from the mouth of Johnston, Puyi's British teacher
If you want to say what definition this movie has given Puyi's life, it may be this sentence.
Director of photography Vittorio Storaro used different colors to express different stages of Puyi's life in the film.
No matter at which stage, Puyi is all alone making senseless resistance. Puyi once kept saying that he was born as a hereditary monarch of the Manchus.
Red is the color of blood, and it is also the beginning of a flashback, connecting the flowing blood with the first "open door" in Puyi's life
Puyi's life has been more and more powerless to "open the door"
Opening the door for the first time in life is the beginning of imprisonment.
After the death of her biological mother, she was locked up in the Forbidden City and could not go home to visit
Wife was sent away weakly murmuring "open the door"
In the end, looking at the door that Wanrong closed in front of her face, she couldn't even say "open the door".
The failure to ask for the door again and again corresponds to the failure to seek the comfort of motherhood again and again
He can't catch up with the wet nurse who was forcibly sent away
Can't catch up with the dead mother
Can't catch up with the wife who was sent away
In addition to Wanrong and Wenxiu, the only people Puyi met in his life who treated each other sincerely, maybe only the English teacher Johnston.
What Johnston brought to Puyi was not only knowledge, but also the ability to see the world. But the decadence of the entire dynasty cannot be saved by Puyi alone.
Mentioning this film will definitely mention the shot of Puyi looking at the sky at the enthronement ceremony
From Puyi's perspective, his world is shrouded in yellow, a symbol of royalty. The curtain is turned up, and the next shot is a dense number of civil and military officials, bowing to a three-year-old child
One of them took out a gourd containing crickets and gave it to Pu Yi. Puyi is like this cricket, imprisoned by the identity of the emperor
The tortoise stewed before Cixi's death and Puyi's tortoise appeared one after another. Although there is a strong contrast between one big and one small, they are essentially the same. They are both burdened with heavy burdens and difficult to move forward.
The cricket-giver always followed Puyi, often accompanied by bad news.
Bringing news of Puyi's biological mother's death
Witnessing Wenxiu's divorce and running away
It was not until the release of the cricket at the end of the film that it symbolized Puyi's real freedom
The script of this film is delicate, and there are hints of previous situations in many plot directions. Puyi's wedding staged a havoc in the heavenly palace, just like the internal affairs reforms he implemented after his wedding. Sun Monkey made a riot and was suppressed, and Puyi's reforms also failed.
The songs sung by Pu Yi correspond to Wen Xiu and Wan Rong who have left him successively.
In the puppet Manchukuo, Puyi just imagined the future with passion, and the next shot is the soup bowl with the flags of the puppet Manchukuo and Japan. The mirage, like a mirror flower and moon, is destined to be soaked in soup;
The scene where Wanrong greedily eats flowers is meaningful. Afterwards, when Puyi and Wanrong were in the same frame, there was a pot of such flowers between them.
It implies that the husband and wife are no longer in harmony. In the end, Wanrong really cheated.
Puyi's abdication has long been hinted: the most obvious is that little Puyi couldn't sit still at the enthronement ceremony (the dragon chair could no longer sit still, and his father was still beside him, saying "it's almost over"
Puyi put his ear to the ground and listened to the sound of the new army training outside the palace, which was equivalent to kneeling in front of the new army.
The lama who appeared before Cixi's death appeared far away at Puyi's puppet Manchukuo enthronement ceremony, casting an ominous color on his future. Everything seemed to be doomed. , will be defeated by the cruel reality
In the end, the old Puyi walked alone in the empty Forbidden City, exactly like when he was a child
"The Last Emperor" is a Western observation of China. They saw the weirdness and weirdness in the eastern culture and expressed deep sympathy for the experience of the last emperor of the East. When talking about the significance of this film, we should not only say that it brings a good story from the East to the Western world, but we should also see our open-mindedness and self-confidence back then. This kind of calm attitude seems to have the atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty.
The attention to detail and the abundance of emotion also make this Oscar classic, even after 30 years, it is still unforgettable by many people, and it is a rare masterpiece.
Of course, in addition to this movie, there is the original soundtrack that can be handed down . Or, we can end today's article with one of the most famous soundtracks out there and lead you into memories.
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