SOURCE: Zaller, Robert. “After the Revolution: Bertolucci's The Last Emperor.” Michigan Quarterly Review 28, no. 1 (winter 1989): 79–93.

In the following essay, Zaller discusses the importance of The Last Emperor and praises Bertolucci for his combination of the tragic and the ridiculous in the film.

The theme of this movie is change. Can a man change? The story of Pu Yi is a story of metamorphosis. From emperor to citizen … from caterpillar to butterfly. The extraordinary thing is that the film's story coincides completely with China today. China is changing, a big mutation is in progress. … The movie is somehow in synch with that.

—Bernardo Bertolucci¹

It is axiomatic that an artist's own words are the best guide to his intentions. It is not necessarily the case with his results. In The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci has succeeded in making a movie not about change but about immobility—the immobility of...