AIC, 1988 - AIC Associazione Italiana Autori della Fotografia ...

AIC
avanti e indietro, come a
sommare l'immagine del grande
schermo con l'immagine del
grande pubblico, mi scoprii a
pensare, che forse quella sarebbe
stata l'ultima proiezione del Film
a cui avrei potuto assistere.
Proprio in quel tempo, il periodo
normale di distribuzione nelle
sale stava esaurendosi, e proprio
in quei giorni ci stavamo già
occupando di trascrivere tutti
quei concetti, tutte quelle
ideologie che avevano decretato
il successo del film, su un'altra
matrice: il nastro magnetico.
In breve tempo, videocassette
del film avrebbero invaso il
mercato mondiale, portando
questa storia ovunque sia
reperibile un videoregistratore.
Cambierà così il formato,
cambierà così il mezzo tecnico di
trasmissione, cambierà così il
luogo in cui ci si porrà di fronte
a "l'ultimo Imperatore", ma
non cambierà certo la struttura
narrativa della storia, non
cambierà certo l'ideologia
fotografica originalmente
concepita, scritta, indelebile,
nell' immagine stessa del film; che
sia proiettata otticamente o
elettronicamente, un'ideologia
riuscirà sempre a trasmettere un
sentimento, un pensiero, una
emozione: un concetto visivo.
1) BIRTH:
It was, 1 remember, in February '85,
when he first appeared before me
Naturally, dressed in yellow.
1 was in Moscow for the shooting of
"Peter the Great". One day a parcel
Bernardo Bertolucci arrived, and there
inside, with its yellow cover, was Aisin
Gioro Pu Yi's autobiography: "From
emperor to Citizen", which he wanted
me to read.
Generally, 1 make it a rule never to
read a new "project" while I am still
involved on another. I do this out of
respect for the film on which I am
working, and also because I don't want
to start visualizing the new project in
my mind, I don't want to be distracted
by it or have my concentration lessened
in any way.
So, gazing somewhat distractedly out
of the window of my room which
looked onto Red Square, 1 placed the
two volumes of the last Emperor of
China's autobiography in a comer of
the bookcase. Almost even evening,
when I returned from shooting, I would
notice that splash of yellow, which
seemed to be waiting for me, seemed to
speak to me. And every time I would
glance at the photograph on the cover,
then continue with my already
well-established evening rountine in
Moscow.
Many ideas came to me from all those
words I read in those two volumes one
of which stood out in my mind more
than any of the others: that of
representing the Emperor's journey
through Life as a journey through the
colour spectrum, through Light itself.
«MAGWB GLI AUTORI 131
It actually would be possible, 1
thought, to illustrate the analytical
Journey that Pu Yi undertook as he
went back over the various stages of
his life, the various emotional phases
he had passed through, with a journey
through colour, through the different
wavelengths that comprise the
spectrum of visible Energy.
As White could symbolize the end of
the journey, so the various Ages of Pu
Yi could be represented by the
corresponding Ages of colour.
His having lived his boyhood in the
Forbidden City, which no one was
allowed to enter and he was not
permitted to leave, and which hid the
truth that lay outside its walls from
him, gave me the idea of visualizing
that life inside, which imparted only a
limited amount of knowledge to him,
with a limited number of colours of the
spectrum, leaving out the Forbidden
Colours.
The boy Emperor was constantly
deprived of a part of truth, a part of
knowledge, a part of Light, and had to
live in the Half-Light. The rays of
visible Energy, knowledge itself, should
, never strike him directly, but create, as
did his restricted Awareness and
slumbering Unconscious, an Entperor
without Shadow.
I returned to Rome during one of the
scheduled pauses in shooting, hardly
able to wait to communicate the
concept, which was constantly buzzing
around my brain, to Bertolucci. I can
actually see him now, as he sat on the
sofa in my living room, meditating on
the concept of the little boy whc had
Shadow, who was forced to live a life in
which only certain colours were present
and which was incomplete because of
the absence of the Forbidden Colours,
and I remember how the idea seemed
to fascinate him.
He did beg me, though, before
developing the initial concpet further,
to visit China and become more
familiar with her culture, traditions
and ways of expressing herself visually
which are so different from our western
ways of seeing, feeling and imagining.
However, the seed had been planted
and it continued to grow without my
consciously "tending" it; day by day,
the photographic structure began to
take shape in my mind.
It was during the final phase of
shooting in Russia, on one of the
numerous visits we made to the
different museums, that I was very
much attracted by the iconography of
the period between 1945-65, and in
particular that of Alexander Deineka,
in which the colours are further
emphasized by small areas painted in
bold primary colours like Red, Green
and Blue. I felt that this particular
figurative effect would represent, in a
very stimulating way, the part of Pu
Yi's life that he spent "looking for
himself' during those years the was
undergoing thought reform in pr ison. It
actually came as no surprise to discover
that Russia had had a great cultural
influence on Chirui during that same
period.
The photographic structure that
seemed most adapted to Writing the
story of "The Last Emperor" with
Light, steadily continued to take shape
in my mind: a figurative journey, which