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Bertolucci about the imminent shooting of The Last Emperor contains a discussion about the
film-maker's perceptions of China. The essence of these comments reflect the mixed
sentiments that my study identifies within the film, consisting of Bertolucci's fascination for
China's millenary culture and revolutionary period, and his sense of unease at the 'absence of
the ghost of freedom" in contemporary times (Ranvaud, 1987: 237).
Peter Bondanella's Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (1983) is a
critical overview of Italian cinema from the silent era to the films of the 80s. In line with
other scholarship on Bertolucci, he emphasizes the influence of Pasolini and Godard on the
young film-maker, and focuses on the implications of what he perceives as Marxist and
Freudian perspectives within the director's films. Bondanella also provides information
regarding Bertolucci's involvement in the screenplay of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in
the West, affirming that although it was rejected (together with Dario Argento, Bertolucci
was only credited for the theme or 'treatment') because it was full of references to famous
Hollywood westerns, 'the film remains the most deeply indebted of all Leone's Westerns to
the classic Westerns' (Bondanella, 1997: 261).
The volume Art Politics Cinema: Tlie Cineaste Inten'iews (1984) is a collection of
conversations between film-makers and scholars, which includes two interviews with
Bertolucci on The Conformist and 1900 respectively, to which this study will refer in
subsequent chapters. It also includes an interview with The Times' film critic Vincent Canby,
an interview prompted by Bertolucci's complaint about the 'arrogant' attitude and also the
influence of the newspaper's critics who were unable to appreciate films from foreign lands
which employed non-traditional forms (Georgakas and Rubenstein, 1984: 282). Recognizing
that Bertolucci's statement had a significance beyond that of personal recrimination (La lima
having been 'solidly panned' by the The Times' critics) Cineaste decided to question Canby
about the issue in general (Georgakas and Rubenstein, 1984: 282). After an initial denial,
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