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which the narrative represents the opposition between the ingenuous Pu Yi and the villainous
Japanese character Amakasu, in charge of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria which is
facilitated by using Pu Yi as a puppet ruler. The escalating cruelty with which Amakasu
responds to Pu Yi's naive claim that his role is that of a real emperor is portrayed through
forms of dramatization which reflect what Peter Brooks terms 'the melodramatic mode' as
established by Balzac, Henry James and Dostoevsky. Discussing philosophical aspects of
melodrama with regard to the above writers, Brooks observes that their awareness of losing
"any specific religious belief did not prevent them from continuing to believe 'that what is
most important in a man's life is his ethical drama and the ethical implications of his psychic
drama" (Brooks, 1976: 21). In The Last Emperor this is articulated through Pu Yi's denial of
reality, a perspective that increases his responsibility for the war in Manchuria, as well as for
the ill fate of his closest collaborators and his wife, hi this regard, Noel Carroll's examination
of film genres through their principal focuses of emotion is useful in identifying how
Bertolucci deviates from cinematic codes. Carroll discusses the way melodrama is based on
the combined criteria of misfortune and virtue; this often draws a compound emotion
comprising pity and admiration, (Carroll, 1999: 36). However, the form of melodrama used
in The Last Emperor lacks the virtue criterion, which explains why the eliciting of pity is
only occasional at best, with little admiration being cued towards the protagonist.
Regarding style, the film does utilize an important feature of the melodramatic mode,
muteness, which consists of gestures instead of verbal expression; Brooks traces this feature
back to Diderot's 'dramaturgy of gesture', through which he attempted to redevelop French
theatre by developing the use of a tableau vivant to represent emotional reactions (Brooks,
1976: 64-65). Melodramatic muteness is ultimately Diderot's effort to recover on stage [...]
the mythical primal language' (Brooks, 1976: 66) whose importance is stressed by Brooks
when he affirms that 'our very phrases "facial expression" and "bodily expression" suggest
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