Empire of the Sun
It’s kind of remarkable to think that, 13 years after he played Jamie Graham in his debut film, Christian Bale would give us an unforgettable “American Psycho.” No, I’m not a fan of that film, but it’s hard to deny how memorable that performance is. What’s even more remarkable in rewatching “Empire of the Sun” is how there are moments when you get the feeling that, even at that young of an age, Bale was fully-formed as a performer. This might be the best “kid performance” of Steven Spielberg’s directorial career, and also, probably the closest he came to making his “400 Blows.” Rewatching it, I couldn’t help but think that Francois Truffaut’s debut about mischievous youth might have been on Spielberg’s brain when he was working on this film.
I wasn’t a huge fan of this film when I first watched it about 15-20 years ago. Looking back on it, I think I was parroting the basic line many critics had about the film. Now, it was impossible not to get immersed in this adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s story of a British boy living in Shanghai, who gets separated from his parents when the Japanese invade during WWII, and is forced to survive the war on his own, first on the streets, and then, in the internment camps before American bombers win the day. The key is to realize that you’re watching this unfold, essentially, from Jamie’s point-of-view, including the cinematography by Allen Daviau and the music by John Williams. Once you’re clued in to that, the film resonates as a full-bore coming-of-age story, albeit one set against the backdrop of war; maybe Tarkovsky’s “Ivan’s Childhood” was an inspiration, as well.
The key point about Jamie to keep in mind in this film is that he loves fighter pilots and planes; he carries a “Wings” comic book with him, and early on, at a party, he has a model plane he sets into flight before jumping into the wreckage of a downed plane and acting like he’s in a dogfight with that model plane. He loses it to a nearby Japanese army encampment, but one gets the feeling that Jamie wants to fly when he grows up. Throughout the film, his respect for pilots, and love of planes, will be evident in various ways; when he loses a toy plane in a crowd, he’s goes back to get it, causing him to get separated from his parents, setting him on his adventure. In the internment camp, which is next to a Japanese air force base, he has a connection with a young pilot, and shows any pilots he sees respect of saluting at them, even if they are on the side keeping him captive, and why he is separated from his family. He’s enamored by the planes he sees in the sky, regardless of what side they are on, but his excitement late in the movie, when he sees the B-51s that will be part of liberating him, is such a natural blast of energy that Bale sells the emotion so well, even if that excitement might get him killed. I wonder if this is an excitement shared by Spielberg, who’s always talked about how his father’s stories of fighting in WWII inspired “Saving Private Ryan,” some of his shorts as a teenager, and, kind of, “1941”; this feels like him putting those feelings he had as a child on-screen, making it almost as personal a story to him as “E.T.”
As adapted by screenwriter Tom Stoppard, and directed by Spielberg, Jamie’s story is that of a kid who, after living a life of privilege, he has to fend for himself for the first time in his life, along with showing people respect he didn’t necessarily have to before. We see how he is with the house help before the Japanese invade- seeing him with those same people later, after he is on his own, without the status of being “the employer’s son,” we see how they really feel about him, and he kind of deserves it. As he makes his way to the streets, where he will find some opportunistic Americans led by Basie (John Malkovich), he tries to give himself up to the Japanese forces, thinking he’ll surrender and be treated well; that doesn’t go quite as he planned it to, but it leads him to Basie. Basie is a good person for Jamie to have in his life, though; Basie is a survivor, and a quick thinker, and he recognizes some of those same qualities in Jamie that will help him immeasurably when they’re in the camps. I wonder if Oliver Twist was also on Spielberg’s brain, with Basie as the Artful Dodger. Ironically, the scenes in the internment camp are probably the most entertaining of the film, and the ones that show the growth in Jamie that, in the end, when they are finally reunited, will cause his parents to have to do a double take, because they don’t initially recognize him. If Jamie’s eyes don’t get the point across at that moment, the final shot- with Jamie’s bag floating in water- will hammer it home.
I really do get why critics might have been confounded by “Empire of the Sun” from Spielberg in 1987. It’s a WWII film that doesn’t really show the weight of what war can do to someone, something Spielberg would explore more fully in “Saving Private Ryan.” It’s a film about being imprisoned by a conquering force that doesn’t regard your life as important that doesn’t carry the harsh reality of what that must have been like, something Spielberg would hammer home in “Schindler’s List.” It’s a boy’s adventure without the escapist trappings of fantasy like Spielberg gave us “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and a coming-of-age story that isn’t really a family film like “E.T.” was. All of these contradictions in tone and narrative, and yet, the film holds up beautifully now. Maybe Spielberg was on to something, and we just needed to catch up to his thinking. It wouldn’t be the first, or last, time he would do so.
