"The Last Emperor": The Stages of History

Abstract

diate impression of the film, however, is decisively at odds with the stated intentions of the filmmaker, and with the highly structured argument concerning the historical process which analysis of the film brings to light. In this article I will show that the aesthetic use of in the sequences set in the Ching court can be correlated with the critical use of in the interrogation sequences through their mutual focus on the production of a image in the figure of Pu Yi. Political power is expressed in The Last Emperor not directly in terms of force and repression but in the molding of social relations through the establishment of a model image. The character's various roles, from Emperor to citizen, contribute in each case to the formation of collective and national identity. The principal dichotomy in the film is not found in the division between the affective and the self-critical phases of Pu Yi's historical existence, but rather between two models of the historical process that Bertolucci holds in constant tension. On the one hand, the film articulates a Marxist view of historical change, in which Pu Yi's transformation from Emperor to model citizen is seen as emblematic of the historical order. The character is shown to encapsulate the stages of Chinese history, from monarchy, to republicanism, to fascism, to communism-fulfilling its process in his own conversion. From this perspective, Pu Yi's story is identified directly with the referential order, the order of history in the making. The film suggests that the reality of can be grasped concretely, and