One of the things I got for Christmas but only got to watch now is The Last Emperor (special edition DVD, with the theatrical release, the director's cut and some documentary material). Which, despite loving it and seeing it repeatedly in the cinema, I somehow had not had in my possession before. Like Gladiator a decade later, this was one of those films critics predicted would bring back the historical epic, and which somehow failed to do so. But that's where the things the movies have in common end. If we're talking epics, Bertolucci's take on the last Emperor of China has more in common with David Lean's films and their tortured, neurotic main characters - or maybe with any given film by Orson Welles - than with Scott's good versus evil vengeance tale.

( Citizen Pu )