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Section 4: The Pinnacle of the Tilm-spettacolo'
L 'ultimo imperatore/The Last Emperor (1987); // te nel deserto/The Sheltering Sky (1990); //
piccolo Budda/Little Buddha (1993).
The negative response to The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981) marked the definitive
breakdown in relations between Bertolucci and the Italian critics, and led to the director
abandoning Italy.(l) The fact that the first subsequent film to be shot abroad was The Last
Emperor suggests that the director had returned to his idea of making film-spectacles,
(Bachman, 1973: 96) and that the experience of 1900 had nevertheless convinced producers
of Bertolucci's ability to plan and deliver ambitious projects. In terms of links with 1900, the
film embeds a historical theme in an enchanting evocation of a world long gone, that of the
millenary culture of the Qing dynasty. With a larger number of extras than in 1900, almost
the same number of red flags, and a lesson learned about film length, Tlie Last Emperor was
a work which did make an impact on America. The fact that a fifty year period similar to the
one depicted in 1900 was represented, this time, within a 'safer' duration of one hour and
fifty-eight minutes, might be connected to the influence of Mark Peploe who co-wrote the
screenplay with Bertolucci. According to the director, Peploe managed to change
Bertolucci's attitude towards screenplays, which he did not always follow during shooting as
he was convinced that creativity should be linked to instinctiveness. For The Last Emperor,
Peploe made him accept a strict adherence to the screenplay, by showing him that it was
possible to be rational without jeopardizing creativity (Ranvaud 1987: 264). Therefore Mark
Peploe and Franco Arcalli - who changed Bertolucci's rapport with editing - might be
considered the collaborators who most influenced Bertolucci's mode of film-making after the
experiences of the 1960s.
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