The Last Emperor (1987)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci.
Based on P 'u Yi's autobiography, From Emperor to Citizen (with Li Wenda) (1964).
On several occasions when I have shown this film, students have commented that it does not have much to 'do with religion'. In a sense, they are right. Like the film version of City of Joy, religion is not an explicit theme, though Buddhist monks do appear in a couple of scenes. Also, at least in later life, P 'u Yi was himself a devout Buddhist, which could easily have been incorporated into the film, had the Director thought, 'oh, religion professors are bound to use this film in their classes!' which he did not. Yet as soon as you turn to film notices and reviews, you see some such phrase as 'he was worshipped by millions of Chinese' in almost every one of them. Interesting, then, that the life story of someone who was 'worshipped' by millions 'does not have much to do with religion!' My response is somewhat imperialistic, that religion is always there if you can see it! I tell students to look again, this time perhaps more carefully and with the understanding that P 'u Yi was not just a political figure but symbolized everything Chinese; China was the Emperor, the Emperor was China.
When the Empress announces that Y 'u Pi is to be the next Emperor, she uses two ancient titles, 'Lord of a Thousand Years' and 'Son of Heaven'. The child-Emperor sings 'I am the Son of Heaven' as he takes his bath. In the opening sequence, as P 'u Yi arrives back in China from Russia, even some fellow prisoners prostrate before him. They are not bowing down out of any political loyalty, though some remnant of respect for the last of China's long line of Emperors may be at work here. What they are bowing to is all that P 'u Yi still meant to them - thousands of years of tradition, of Chinese civilization, of belief in the Emperor as chief mediator between Heaven and Earth, as guardian of harmony and of peace. As the ancestors obey the Jade Emperor of Heaven, so subjects obey the Emperor of China. Right through until 1911, the annual winter solstice sacrifice to the 'Imperial Heaven, Supreme Ruler' was offered by the Emperor, on the marble Altar of Heaven, south of Beijing. It was believed that unless this ceremony, performed by the Emperor, took place, harmony between Earth and Heaven would be broken. The traumatic events of China's entry into the modern world, all portrayed in the film, involved the disruption of many age old customs, and represents a radical transformation of China's political, cultural, social and religious life. Perhaps, indeed, harmony between 'heaven' and 'earth', so ideologically important throughout Chinese history, was disrupted. In one sense, all this means that the film's subject matter is profoundly religious.
The basic plot of the film is P'u Yi's own tragic life. From start to finish, he is a puppet in others' hands; metaphorically speaking he was history's puppet. In Prison, he tells the Governor that he had only saved him from committing suicide (opening scene) to make him a puupit in his own play. At age 3, he ascended the Imperial Throne, entering the Forbidden City. His grandmother, the Dowager Empress, in whose hands real power lay, nominated him. She had imprisoned the nominal Emperor, her elder son, on a charge of conspiracy and later had him killed. He may have wanted to introduce reforms (P'u Yi thought so). Now, bypassing P 'u Yi's father, Ch'un, who becomes regent, she chooses an infant to continue the Manchu line. In the film, she dies immediately after this announcement. Little P'u Yi is only Emperor for two years; in 1911 a rebel force led by General Yuan Shih-k'ai ceased power and declared China's First Republic. Widespread discontent against the way that the Western powers, through trade concessions and settlements, were manipulating China's government for their own profit, also fuelled resentment against the Manchu dynasty, itself in self-destruct mode due to internal rivalries and corrupt officials. The film uses back/forward flashes as a device to show us both P'u Yi's present, as a prisoner in a Maoist Detention Center, then as a citizen-gardener and his past, first as a boy in the Forbidden City, later as Japan's puppet Emperor of Manchukuo (Manchuria).
The Manchus (Qing Dynasty) ruled China from 1644. Like their predecessors, though 'non-Chinese' as far as the Han were concerned, they claimed the Mandate of Heaven (Tien-Min) and continued Confucian court practices as well as all the Imperial traditions, such as the annual sacrifices at the Altar of Heaven. Obedience to the Emperor was state policy. They were also strong supporters of Buddhism. Aware that their political fortune depended as much on the people as it did on themselves, they assimilated Chinese culture. Unless they were seen as genuine 'Sons of Heaven' they would not survive. Heaven's mandate can be lost; the final seal of legitimacy in China, from Confucius' time onwards, was the people's own contentment. The Chinese were enormously proud of this Imperial system, which they believed was the best in the world. Though their reluctance to appoint Han to the highest posts created some problems, the Manchus were increasingly accepted as a legitimate Chinese dynasty.
The Emperor's symbolic importance is suggested by several events covered in the film; for example, the fact that the First Republic allowed P 'u Yi to retain his titles, granted him a stipend and the right to continue living in the Forbidden City. Obviously, there were some politicians who may have wanted to restore the monarchy but it is difficult to see what the First Republic gained by allowing him to retain his titles, especially as Yuan Shi-k'ai is suspected of wanting the post himself. Why then preserve the 'Imperial system', even only as a 'theatre without an audience', which is how the Emperor himself describes it, instead of abolishing it entirely? Of course, P'u Yi had no power outside the Forbidden City. I think the 'theatre' was preserved because it was exactly that - a drama representing thousands of years of tradition. In the Forbidden City scenes (Volume One of the Director's Cut edition) we see hundreds of eunuchs, hundreds of servants, Concubines (who run the Palace), all the ceremony surrounding P'u Yi's daily lunch. When, after marriage P' u Yi decides that as he can not introduce reforms outside the City (in what he calls the City of Sound) he will inside, he expels all 1200 Eunuchs (who had been selling off imperial treasures). However, apart from the affection of his 'Butterfly', his wet nurse, his is a lonely and love starved childhood. He sees his mother (who dies from opium addiction) twice in ten years.
Wherever the boy-Emperor went, dozens of retainers followed in his wake, much to his childhood amusement. In the Palace, he did have considerable authority. When he was naughty, someone else was punished. Quite a few of the scenes are taken directly from P'u Yi's autobiography, although some are edited to help the plot along. For example, when P'u Yi's brother wears imperial yellow, in the film this is used to introduce to P'u Yi the fact that he is no longer Emperor. In the book version, his brother declares that he is not wearing yellow but apricot, and stands to attention, calling him 'Sire'. In the film, the outraged boy-Emperor commands a servant to drink ink to prove that he is still Emperor, which he does! Much of the story revolves around the relationship between P'u Yi and his Scottish tutor, Reginald Johnston. Johnston later wrote Twilight in the Forbidden City. We see the Prison Governor reading this; he also cites from p no 449 during an interrogation of Prisoner No 981.
The scene when P'u Yi leaves his wife's chamber on their wedding night is historical. Some claim the marriage was never consummated. It is in the film, although Elizabeth later complains that the Emperor is no longer making love to her; she had also become addicted to opium. The scene in which the Emperor's No 2 Consort demands a divorce is also factual. In real life, he agrees; in the film she runs out of the house and never returns. Outside the Forbidden City and with the end of China's ancient traditions, her status as Secondary Consort was an anachronism, 'In the West you can only have one wife', she says. In addition to chronicling significant historical events (the First Republic, the rise and fall of the Nationalists, the Japanese occupation, the Maoist victory) P 'u Yi's own developing personality and eventual transformation makes compelling viewing. It is probably the latter story that the Chinese Government wanted to tell. They co-operated fully with the making of this movie, hence never seen before shots of the Forbidden City. The film won 9 Oscars.
In 1924, the warlord Fen Yu-hsiang forces P 'u Yi to leave the Forbidden City, ending his allowance and privileges. This scene is depicted at the start of Volume 2 (Director's Cut) and shows P 'u Yi addressed as 'Mr' for the first time in his life. He is to be under house arrest as a 'Manchu rat' in his father's City house. Leaving the Forbidden City, he fulfils a life-long wish, though not under ideal circumstances. He gets to ride in a car, which he had wanted to do since he saw the President of the Republic in his car, as a five-year-old. Johnston tries to arrange asylum for him with the British (Johnston was previously a Colonial Officer). However, it to the Japanese enclave at Tientsin that P'u Yi actually goes, where, financing his own exile, he starts to live the life of a playboy, favoring everything Western. He becomes 'Henry'. In 1928, when Chinese rebels desecrate his family Tombs, he starts to stress his Manchurian heritage and turns against the Chinese in hatred. He revered his ancestors - a very Chinese tradition! In the Prison, P'u Yi is asked whether he considers himself Chinese. He says yes. He is also asked to identify the region his family had originated from. 'The North East of China', he replies. When pressed, he admits to having called this area Manchuria. Obviously, despite the historical charge that the Manchus were a 'foreign dynasty', the New China regards Manchuria and Manchus as fully Chinese.
Lured by Japanese promises to restore him as Emperor of Manchuria, he becomes increasingly blind to their real motives, about which Elizabeth (his wife) warns him. Only later, when P'u Yi tries to assert his equality and sovereignty does he realize that he is a puppet on Japanese strings and that Japan expects Manchuria to pay for her colonization just as India had paid Britain for hers (citing the Ambassador's words). He finally admits his blindness to a now opium ravished Elizabeth. She has a still - born bastard child, at least this is what the doctor tells Henry. The price of Manchuria's subjugation is Opium production and as we learn from a propaganda film shown in the Prison, biological experimentation on human subjects. Not shown in the film is the Japanese attempt to convert P'u Yi to Shinto, which actually resulted in his becoming a very devout Buddhist. Nor do we hear that P'u Yi's first titles in Manchukuo were 'Tranquility and Virtue', which sound very religious! However, the coronation ceremony (see below) also contained religious language. In the film, after the end of World War Two, the Emperor is captured by Russian troops. He spent five years as a prisoner in Russia, then he is returned to China (in what is the opening sequence of the movie, dated 1950). There, as we see throughout the film, he is Prisoner No 981 charged with war crimes, collaboration and counter-revolutionary thought.
The Prison's function is remodeling and reeducation through confession and useful labor. Some of the communal scenes, with singing and 'inspirational' speeches suggest just how much like a religion Maoism can look. Indeed, there are interesting continuities between the old and the new Chinas - veneration of the Emperor becomes veneration of Mao. We see Mao's images carried by a Red Guard procession towards the end of the film. The former Prison Governor, himself now a 'counter-revolutionary', is made to 'kow-tow to Mao'. Mao's Little Red Book replaces the writings of Confucius. The Communist Party, with its privileges, replaces the Civil Service. Both systems demand unquestioned loyalty. Both want social harmony. Both are utopian, believing that the good life can be achieved. Compare the flag-dance we see on P'u Yi's wedding night with the flag-dance during the Red Guard parade.
In the Prison, we witness Prisoner 981's slow transformation. Prisoner 895, his former valet, is for three years a fellow prisoner. For most of this time, until P'u Yi is moved to another cell, they are roommates; Prisoner 895, Lee, still ties P'u Yi's boots, hands him his toothbrush and generally looks after him. P'u Yi obviously takes this for granted. Once deprived of Lee's service, we see a P'u Yi who is incapable of looking after himself. Prisoners complain about the noise that he makes urinating at night; the Governor tells him how to do so without causing annoyance. Lee is torn between his old loyalty and the concept of the 'New Man' taught him in the Prison. Eventually, after trying to hide the truth of his own inaction from himself, P'u Yi confesses that he had 'committed crimes'. He is now shocked by the truth of what those around him had done and for which he was in part responsible. 'I let it happen', he says. He annoys the Governor, who appears to be a humane man in a harsh system, by confessing crimes he could not have committed, or even known about. He declares Lee innocent and asks what Lee had been doing in Prison anyway! Although P'u Yi called his servamts 'family' (he had called the eunuchs family, too) he did not know that Lee had a wife and children. 'You know nothing about me', Lee says. Lee is released. Later, we see Lee and P'u Yi together in Peking.
After ten years in Prison, where he eventually finds a useful role for himself in the gardens, the ex Emperor is also released. The real P'u Yi took up gardening during his Russian captivity, where he was well treated. He now becomes a gardener in the Botanical Gardens, Peking. The real P'u Yi was at this stage used as a trophy by the governement, who showed off their ex-Emperor now reformed citizen at various functions. Chairman Mao arranged his marriage to a party member; a Manchu had never married a Chinese girl. This very political arranged marriage in New China is ironic, given remarks we hear on P'u Yi's wedding night about reforming the system by which the Emperor's wife was chosen for him! In the Prison, P'u Yi had told the Prison Guard that he had only 'saved him' because he was of use to him, to which the Governor replied - is that so terrible, to be of use. P'u Yi, the reformed citizen, was of use to China's new rulers.
The real P'u Yi was made to betray his Buddhist convictions by killing mice and flies; in the film, he kills his pet mouse on the day he tried to leave the Forbidden City on a cycle given him by Johnston. During the Cultural Revolution (66 - 77) intellectuals and priests and monks and anyone thought too bourgeoisie were sent to camps for the type of remodeling depicted in the film. Much of China's religious heritage was destroyed. At the end of the film, during the Red Guard procession, we see the Prison Governor in disgrace, accused of 'crimes against the revolution'. This coincides with the start of the Cultural Revolution. P'u Yi tries to defend his former teacher, 'he is a good teacher'. Asked, 'who are you' by the Guard, he replies, 'a gardener'. His remodeling, it seems, is complete. As P'u Yi left the Prison, the Governor had told him that 'I will be living in Prison longer than you'.Finally, he visits the Forbidden City as a tourist. Approaching his old throne, he is rebuked by a little boy-official who lives in the City, where his father works. I used to, said the ex-Emperor, 'I was Emperor'. Asked to prove it, he retrieves a canister containing a cricket from behind the throne, left there as a child. Is this the cricket, we wonder, that was given him as a three-year-old when he first entered the Forbidden City (see opening sequel). When the child turns around, P'u Yi is no longer there! The film closes with a tour guide telling her visitors that the last Emperor of China died in 1967.
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© 2001 Clinton Bennett