422 The Last Emperor

[DonShye]

I posted this in another forum but I have to agree that the colors look a lot less drab and washed out (at least in the theatrical version) than they do in Beaver's caps. I think it may be some sort of an optical illusion since we are seeing these alongside the Gaumont caps which are a little too colorful (and definitely not accurate).

The cropping is also not too objectionable unless again you compare the cropped frame to the full 2.35:1 frame in the Beaver caps. While the framing differs from the original theatrical exhibition, this doesn't ruin the composition as significantly as regular pan-and-scan.

There was also some discussion about whether the cropping is different for the theatrical version vs. the TV version. In this case the cap in question (the lake scene) is taken from a scene that has a quick pan. It is possible that Beaver was off by a few frames and that explains why the cropping seems different between the two versions.

-D

[denti alligator]

I think it may be some sort of an optical illusion since we are seeing these alongside the Gaumont caps which are a little too colorful (and definitely not accurate).

That may be part of it, but I pulled up Gary's caps on my laptop and paused the DVD to compare: big difference.

Given Gary's stated meticulousness in regards to faithfully rendering what's on the disc, it must be my system, however I find that hard to believe entirely, since the most sophisticated calibration tools are telling me that my display's colors are spot-on.

[Gigi M.]

No problem, Denti. Did you read what I wrote about the massive presence of grain and digital noise? Do you see them in your setup?

I saw some digital noise, yes, but not any more than with your average Criterion release--usually in darker shadows it's most visible. Grain didn't jump out at me as being excessive: but I'm only watching this on a 46" display.

Probably Denti, size always matters. But I was so shock that I decided to test the disc on two other displays. I project on a 84" 16:9 screen, sitting just 9.5' away from the screen. I also ran the disc on a 46" lcd and the grain was still there at 5' away. Then ran the disc again on a 24" old crt to same results.

Try watching the scenes at the beginning of the film when Puyi walks out for the first time at the Forbidden City to see what I'm talking about.

Look at the sky around the palace and tell me if doesn't look nasty during playback.

[denti alligator]

I think I've figured out why the discrepancy. Again, Gary, I'm sorry if I was too aggressive in my first post.

Part of it indeed has to do with how those Criterion caps look next to the (gaudy, oversaturated) Gaumont. More importantly: I was comparing the paused image on my carefully calibrated display with Gary's cap on my laptop. My laptop makes the image look less vibrant than it really it.

Second: I was looking at the Television version cap, which is, again, less vibrant.

These two factors make an marked difference. I pulled up Gary's caps on my large, calibrated display and compared them to the DVD and they look just about the same.

However, I think they look fantastic. The first cap, for example, may seem a tad grey, but the very next shot shows the young emperor in sunlight, and this makes a marked difference. Mind you, I didn't set out to compare and denigrate Gary's work. I was watching the film and was thinking: 'this isn't at all what Gary's caps made me think the colors would look like. These are vibrant and alive.'

Look at the sky around the palace and tell me if doesn't look nasty during playback.

Yeah, I see what you mean, but size does matter, and it doesn't stand out that much on my display.

[domino harvey]

So we now know Criterion sold at least two of these sets, well exceeding expectations!

[denti alligator]

So we now know Criterion sold at least two of these sets, well exceeding expectations!

Um, actually, three. Had I not found mine for $22, I wouldn't have purchased it.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure--despite its price--this will sell very well. It's a film your average joe (but not really cinephile) will recognize by name (and image).

[domino harvey]

Though I don't know how we'd settle the bet, I would wager this will end up being one of Criterion's worst-selling boxed set titles-- I'm not sure the average joe movie goer is going to pick up a four disc single title set, and the "cinephiles" are largely up in arms over the 2:1 issue

[Gary Tooze]

No problem Denti
***
Although it's early in the year - I can tell you its the 5th largest boxset seller from Amazon for us. Beaten by (in order):
TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)
Silent Ozu-Three Family Comedies
Jean-Luc Godard Box Set
Eclipse Series 8 - Lubitsch Musicals
I think it has sold just fine - this is a popular film and our page has almost 10,000 hits now - a decent gauge of interest.
Cheers,
Gary

[Cosmic Bus]

It has been featured at the front of Borders' media sections for the past couple of weeks and marked on sale -- for, obviously, more than you'll pay online, but it's significant that a Criterion is sale priced at all in a retail shop -- so this one is receiving more "corporate" attention than most of their releases. I think it'll do fairly well for them in the long run.

[domino harvey]

My conjecture and speculation far outweigh the empirical evidence any of you have brought or will bring into play. Now if you need me, I'll be in my treehouse, kicking the wall with both feet

[cdnchris]

So we now know Criterion sold at least two of these sets, well exceeding expectations!

Three.

[klee13]

I watched this, and I was wondering whether anyone else had as much trouble getting past the English speaking Chinese cast as I did. It wasn't even a authenticity issue so much as some of the actors seemed to be really laboring over their dialogue. English spoken with a heavy Chinese accent is often not too pretty, (and vice-versa as I can personally attest to) so I'm surprised they didn't just go with subtitled Mandarin dialogue.

(Though the movie probably would not have won half as many oscars as it did if they had.)

[Dylan]

The film (which I like very much) would've been unquestionably better had the cast spoken in Mandarin (with, of course, most of O'Toole's scenes being the only passages in English), and I'm positive the decision to film it in English largely had to do with the fact that the script was written in English, the financers were English and that most of the crew was Italian and spoke English better than Mandarin (if they spoke Mandarin at all). The accents are a tad difficult to get past in a few scenes, but John Lone does a good job.

Still, the rough accents here are easier to get past than the screwiness of 1900's dubs (where, and it doesn't matter if you watch it in French, English or Italian, half of the dubbing is highly questionable).

[SheriffAmbrose]

I'm with both of you here. I found the English completely jarring but I thought of the 1900-dubbing style alternative and was happy with the dialogue the way it is.

By the way, I bought the set and love the movie.

[kevyip1]

The colors in Gary's caps (DVD Beaver) seem to me to be totally inaccurate.

On my carefully calibrated system the colors in the film look nothing like the washed-out grey-tone of Gary's caps. They look much closer to the colors in the region 2 Gaumont, bright and full. The difference between imperial yellow and ordinary yellow is very clear, not a greyish yellow to ordinary yellow. The reds and greens are rich and powerful.

I've never had a problem with Gary's pics. His Last Emperor caps match mine, and his Gaumont caps match the Optimum disc (no caps for it on his page but I own the Optimum disc and can attest to this).

I've worked long and hard on my system, and I have adjusted every color control very, very carefully and precisely, using both DVE and Avia calibration tools.

When Gary said he used PowerDVD's "original profile", that meant ZERO calibration: brightness/contrast/hue/saturation all set to zero in PowerDVD. After you calibrated with DVE and Avia, who knows what the B/C/H/S would be. Everyone's setup and viewing environment are different so B/C/H/S would be different for everyone. Hence, Gary set them all to zero (default setting), and so should you if you really want to compare your caps to his.

To calibrate for a Criterion disc, I don't use DVE or Avia, but the built-in color-bar screen on the Criterion disc. "The Last Emperor" happens to look a lot brighter than what my Avia calibration gave me, so I had to recalibrate with the color bars. But that was just for my viewing environment and setup. With yours or others', the Avia calibration may be good enough.

[PNeski]

After changing the color on my TV, I found the French Pal version simply the better version, and doubt I will watch the Criterion version much. I noticed that a lot of Storaro's cropping lets him cut out distortions cause buy the lens. This might be his main reason. Many curved walls and windows are cropped off. In some scenes this is an improvement. But overall he does more harm, once you have many actors in a scene on screen at the same time, someone gets cropped in half, or is totally missing. All these transfers aren't anywhere as nice as the best Storaro transfers out there: Reds, Agatha, Tucker. I know they had to shoot with no lights at all for some of the scenes,

[Dylan]

All these transfers aren't anywhere as nice as the best Storaro transfers out there: Reds, Agatha, Tucker. I know they had to shoot with no lights at all for some of the scenes,

Agatha isn't available on DVD yet, but I really want to see it. It's one of the very few Storaro-shot films I haven't seen, and it has Dustin Hoffman in his prime. I haven't heard too much about the actual film, but it's apparently one of Storaro's most gorgeous works. Warner owns it, but is sitting on it at the moment.

The late afternoon outdoor lighting in Tucker is absolutely breathtaking, as are the Russia scenes in Reds (which are all laden with hazy mist and lit with some of the richest use of blacks I’ve seen from him).

Meanwhile, my main problem with cropping The Last Emperor has to do with the fact that if you watch a 2.35:1 film on a television, it's a little cropped anyway due to overscan, so the damage is significantly worse if it's cropped to 2.00:1 unless you have a widescreen TV (which I imagine most of us don't...or at least I don't). But I agree, the R2 looks a lot better, and far more Bertolucci/Storaro-like to my eyes, than the Criterion.

[ranaing83]

For those of you with Directv and an HDTV, Agatha is playing on HDNet Movies this month in hi-def. Just thought I'd give everyone the heads up.

[Roger_Thornhill]

If I hadn't been so busy lately I probably would've read this thread or any number of cinephile websites that outlined the problems with this set, but sadly I didn't. I saw it for sale on Amazon for $35 US dollars and ordered it. It arrived a few days ago and I finally had time to watch the whole thing tonight, well, the television version since I'd only seen the theatrical version. After about ten minutes of watching it I started thinking to myself, "Wasn't this shot in 2.35:1?" and "I remember the colors being much more vibrant in the Forbidden City sequences." I shrugged my shoulders and just kept watching it since I love the film. After about the fifteenth shot of someone cut in half on either side of the frame I had a feeling that the film was cropped. I popped in the theatrical version thinking that would be in the correct 2.35:1 ratio but it was the same as the television version.

Anyways, I went ahead and finished the television version and while the color scheme and cropped AR were annoying, it's such an interesting film that I still enjoyed it. I much prefer this to 1900 now that I think about it and good God is Pu Yi's first wife amazingly hot. I don't remember that when I saw the film in the theatre, although I was only eight years old in '87 and girls had icky cooties then. [smile]

[cdnchris]

The cropping actually didn't bother me until the scene where Pu Yi and his women are in the car and about 3/4 of Pu Yi's face is cut off. That hoser has obvisouly gone insane.

As for the colours I thought they were fine, though didn't see it theatrically.

Decent set, though a tad disappointed with the supplements.

[denti alligator]

The cropping actually didn't bother me until the scene where Pu Yi and his women are in the car and about 3/4 of Pu Yi's face is cut off.

Chris, that's exactly the same scene when I felt the new AR was wrong. I'm consoled by the fact that that was the only scene that seemed wrong.

[King Prendergast]

The cropping actually didn't bother me until the scene where Pu Yi and his women are in the car and about 3/4 of Pu Yi's face is cut off.

Chris, that's exactly the same scene when I felt the new AR was wrong.

Same here. Only other scene I recalled being obviously hampered by the cropping was the scene of young Pu Yi and his brother when they run in a circle in a courtyard of the Forbidden city and their entire entourage follows. Storaro must've agonized over the cropped transfer of those scenes.

[punkrocker27ka]

overall i think it is a wonderful release, despite a few hiccups. i still have yet to watch the extras. a bad habit on my part, i spend all this money on criterions and never get around to the supplemental features. one of these days.

[colinr0380]

I'm about halfway through the set myself. As usual I much prefer the longer version - to pick a couple of moments early in the film that I think are deepened in the extended version, I thought the digression into the way Ar Mo was chosen as Pu Yi's wetnurse adds a more heartbreaking dimension to her character. It is not necessary for the story of Pu Yi, since he remains unaware of it (which fits in with the idea of the emperor not really fully understanding the people around him, or indeed being expected to understand what is going on), but it is a beautiful moment that humanises someone beyond just being a breast.

The other moment which I think the longer version deepens is the introduction of Johnston, where he runs into a group of student protestors facing off against soldiers in a moment full of potential violence (which is realised through sound a couple of scenes later). The theatrical version seems to play in a different way due to the way it is cut short as Johnston is behind the line of students looking at the soldiers, as if he is being aligned with their cause in a fundamental way. The extended version complicates that by having Johnston break through the students and walk through the 'no man's land' between the two factions to leave the scene - it is small change but changes the tone a lot and maybe prefigures the way Johnston is a kind of opaque figure, sympathetic and wanting to open the emperor's eyes but at the same time in the end only an employed tutor who is able to leave Pu Yi to his fate (and maybe if we are being uncharitable someone who only stays long enough to gather material for his book).

I was interested to hear Mark Peploe talking about the way Pu Yi's life is broken up into three sections which are all prisons in their various ways. I thought it was very interesting that in a way the 50s Communist section while being the most obvious imprisonment might, through it's straight forward bluntness, win Pu Yi over through not hiding its control behind illusions of giving power.

Bertolucci talks about feeling that Chen Kaige's Farewell, My Concubine had some parallels with The Last Emperor. I was wondering whether Zhang Yimou's Raise The Red Lantern similarly has some connection - in the way that getting involved in political machinations distracts from realising you are trapped by the larger system, even if you end up 'winning'?

I also remembered something Nicolas Roeg said in the interview on the Bad Timing disc about the way that if Inspector Netusil had gotten Alex to confess what had actually occured between himself and Milena during the missing period of time that Netusil would never have been able to rid himself of Alex after he unburdens himself, maybe even with Alex wanting to return over and over to confess anything he felt troubled about! That seemed similar to continually writing out life stories and confessing to your actions against the state that can be used - in Pu Yi's case, at least - to purge and rehabilitate but also to create a kind of dependence and need to report about everything you do.

It was quite ironic therefore to see Pu Yi again accept another rule, just not one in which he was being used as a puppet leader, only to see that get swept away by the Red Guard and be told that his rehabilitator was himself an enemy of the state.

There's a wonderful moment in the Red Guard march which seemed to be a call back to an early scene but maybe was unintentional and I'm just making up the connection. I thought the way the crowd was moved back to make way for the man with the flag and then the dancers following could compare to the scene in which Pu Yi and Pu Chieh travel with their retinue through the Forbidden City. The gestures of the men running in front of the emperor and preparing the way, making people stand to the side of the street without looking at the pageantry passing them, but showing that they are completely aware of the emperor's passing, seem comparable to the man in the procession waving the flag with similarly aggressive gestures, only this time in order to attract as much attention as possible to the performance which follows.

It seems a sly parallel of the two regimes, with the Maoist one maybe being worse as instead of just kowtowing to the emperor as he occasionally passes you have to pay attention to only a picture of Mao and treat his followers with as much reverence as the man himself, or you might find yourself in trouble!

I thought it was interesting to see Pu Yi coming to terms with the loss of power and enjoying an anonymous life only to find that even this was going to be threatened by the Cultural Revolution. I get the impression that he was never allowed to develop an individual personality after being taken and used from such a young age - he remained a malleable individual, fitting wherever he was put without much fuss. The final scene seems to show the disappearance into his last refuge - a retreat to his past, then into history, though with the final irony that even in death Pu Yi is used for other's ends.

(Continued 5th April):

I've had a wonderful few days working through the two discs of supplements. No matter what you think of the aspect ratio issue, the extra features on this set are absolutely magnificent and actually manage to make this set an indispensible package.

As usual this is another set that shows just how much care Criterion take with their extra material, combining new features with contemporaneous documentary material. I had seen the Postcards From China VHS footage before on the UK Optimum disc but the Criterion adds a Bertolucci commentary that adds a bit of extra context that helped me appreciate it more (I'd compare it to the way the Criterion disc of In The Mood For Love added a bit of context to the making of the cheong sam rather than leaving it to play on its own, as on the Tartan disc of that film).

I particularly liked The Italian Traveller documentary - it seemed an good example of how to give an internal, essayistic insight into a filmmaker. The film even manages to give an object lesson in staged dissent with Bertolucci playing Verdi outside the composer's house after being refused rights to use his music in a film! He even manages to sum up the whole "activist" trend of documentaries that have only become more prevalent in recent years with the comment "Provocations are like Molotov cocktails. Only one out of ten work."

The only thing I'd add to that is that whether you hit your target or not you always run the risk of injuring innocent bystanders with an unfocused attack!

A great little film, and the focus so much on Bertolucci during that period contrasts extremely well with the Face To Face interview that is more of a career discussion as well as the more straightforward making of documentaries.

When I first started playing The South Bank Show programme I initially thought that it might just be there for completeist purposes and that it would not have much new material to offer. I was very much mistaken as that programme adds lots of fascinating interview material with Pu Chieh and the governor of the prison that Pu Yi was sent to for re-education - as well as a lot of amazing newsreel footage, including some footage of the second coronation.

The interview with David Byrne might be of use to the person who asked on the other thread for music in film course suggestions - I don't read music but there was a lot of very interesting material from Byrne's notes as well as unused cues and a discussion of the way he approached the project.

I still have a few things to get through so I might amend this post further (I'm saving some of the documentaries on the third disc and the history of China documentary on the fourth disc to savour last)!

I liked the deeper insight given into the film in the extras, especially Bertolucci talking about whether someone really changes or just puts forward the illusion of change. As an outsider/educator how do you know the difference, and how do you force change? If given the chance do we actively mould ourselves into different people, or do we really only go through significant changes when forced to by upheavals that occur in the society we are in? Is any amount of ideological teaching nothing compared to the reality and practical experience of your life - of actually leading the life of a gardener rather than just being taught to think as a common man?

When I was thinking about this idea of whether Pu Yi changes I wondered if there is an unsuccessful attempt to recreate the physical and mental nourishment he had as a boy and young man just as he tries to unsuccessfully carve out a powerful position for himself? The physical nourishment of his wetnurse Ar Mo is changed for the similar (but more socially acceptable for his age) attentions of his wives - the mental nourishment brought about and encouraged by Johnston is taken up by the governor of the prisoner re-educating him into a good citizen.

I think the parallels are there especially since the film alternates between these ideas: the wetnurse leaves closing that chapter, Johnston then opens the next section while at the same time Pu Yi gets married, then Johnston leaves and the wives become central, then the wives leave and the governor becomes central. Eventually the governor is removed and Pu Yi seems to find some solace in himself rather than looking for comfort in others.

I get the impression that every character comes from and then retreats back into the fabric of the epic - and in the middle of that approach and retreat (from the audience and from Pu Yi, though in the end this applies as much to the character of Pu Yi as it does to does who surround him), we see a telling glimpse of the 'real' people.

I really like the film - I think it is very heightened, even melodramatic and in an obviously 'epic' style. I think the approach and retreat that the characters do in the film can apply similarly to the way the historical events are treated. The move from imperial China through to the Cultural Revolution seems a tale of two epic, almost inhuman in their scale extremes with the heartbreaking middle moment, when everything was in flux and the possibility of a republic with re-education and rehabilitation being used for good purposes being lost in a mass of wrongful and spiteful denouncements and petty score-settling (and re-education that 2+2 really does equal 5 if you think about it hard enough in the right way!) as the reigns of power are taken up by another form of dictatorship, though this time political and intrusive rather than regal and detached from the population.

(continued 15th April)

Well, finished the set and was mightily impressed - the historical background from Ian Buruma was an provided a lot of invaluable context on the period for a novice like myself and I'm sure will rank highly on my list of favourite supplements in the end of year poll.

I really liked the Face To Face interview and a number of statements Bertolucci made struck a chord with my own views - that all films, not just those consciously made with that intent are political and that he sees cinema as kind of all encompassing and a continuing process, with individual films sort of being individual, wildly diverse chapters within this ongoing story. I think both of those ideas are extremely good ways of viewing the world of cinema, as well as of course providing much more specific insight into the way Bertolucci approaches his own films.

[Tom Hagen]

Specs are up for the Blu-ray edition.