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Released in 1987 Bernardo Bertolucci's The last emperor was one of the most acclaimed films in the 80s, winning nine Academy Awards, especially Best image . He did it despite a difficult subject for the Western public - a chronicle of the troubled life of Puyi , the last Emperor of China before the Communist Revolution - and the presence of a single well -known star, Peter O'Toole . But the producers initially requested the participation of a much larger star for this role. Sean Connery was courted, but he refused the opportunity due to Bertolucci's policy, which he would have called "a commander". Continue reading to learn more.

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Producer Jeremy Thomas I first tried to win Connery for the only role in the film to play by a Western, that of Reginald Johnston, the Emperor's tutor. One of Connery's leading film roles was in 1957 Time lock , directed by Gerald Thomas , Jeremy's uncle.

Thomas (the nephew) met Connery in Rome to discuss the project, but it quickly became clear that the star did not intend to play the role. According to his memories, such as shared on THE Hollywood gold podcast , Connery was polite but insistent, saying: "I would like to do that, but Benardo is a commie, you know. I don't think I can do it."

"I had a nice conversation with him, I said" [Bertolucci] very nice, right? "Thomas said on the podcast. He said that Connery replied:" No Jeremy, I can't [make the film]. "

The role ended up going to O'Toole, who, according to Thomas, enjoyed visiting parts of China once during the shooting, including the famous prohibited city.

Connery was not wrong in his hypotheses on the director's policy. Son of a poet, Bertolucci was an Italian filmmaker, and according to The World Socialist website "" "As much or probably more than everywhere else ... Italian cinema has been identified with leftism, in particular with the support of the Communist Party. ""

Bertolucci is best known for The conformist , a 1970 political thriller with Strong anti-fascist and anti -capitalist themes; The New York Times called his radical historical epic 1900 "" Marxist saga of Bertolucci . ""

In addition, he was himself a member of the Italian Communist Party and considered himself a Marxist. Talk to the famous French cinema magazine Cinema notebooks , (as mentioned by Jacobin) he said one day of himself: " I was a Marxist With all love, all the passion and all the despair of a bourgeois who chooses Marxism. ""

While the former James Bond was perhaps reluctant to associate with a self-proclaimed Marxist director, Connery had his own left political affiliations. He was a member of the Center-Gauche International International Party, and throughout his stay in the spotlight, he pleaded for Scotland to become independent of the United Kingdom.

In 2000, he even accused the British government of promulgating legislation prohibiting political gifts by foreign residents specifically to prevent it from financially Support Scottish independence , as he lived in the Bahamas at the time, although he was still a citizen of the United Kingdom.

Connery campaigned for the leftist Labor Party and was Critique towards the Conservative government of the United Kingdom . "There is something fundamentally bad with a system where there was 17 years of a conservative government and that the Scottish people voted the socialist for 17 years," he said, quoted by The National . "It hardly seems democratic."

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Connery may also have been suspicious of playing in a film so closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party. The last emperor I had to walk a little political string throughout production. According to Thomas, as the first Western film to shoot in China, he faced "a very difficult trip" on the way to the screen. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

"We had to go to China, we had to get permission," recalls Thomas on the Hollywood gold podcast. "Another return trip to negotiate and sign agreements with the [Communist Party], so we had to obtain permission to film in the prohibited city."

Thomas, who described the filmmakers as "all pretty left guys," said they were able to find breakthroughs in China thanks to the help of the Italian embassy there, who had "an incredible relationship with China that helped us politically ".

Although the aspects of the film finished crisis certain elements of the cultural revolution, the Chinese government has enthusiastically supported production, said Thomas, offering the use of the army and opening access to the prohibited city, which had been sealed for decades. The history of the emperor was educated in the Maoist way, the post-cultural revolution did not have to submit to a censur, and the government was, in its words, "100% support ... [they] n 'made no comments on anything. "