A subject like this one deserves a better film. But since Emperor is all we’ve got, let’s make the most of it.
Let’s set aside the question of how accurate Emperor is as a history of the first few weeks of the United States’ occupation of Japan at the end of World War II. Let’s grant that much of what’s depicted is made-up entirely, some of it even an utter distortion of Hirohito’s role in his country’s militaristic expansionism.
Let us judge it purely as a movie, as entertainment, as did members of the Motion Picture Academy recently for Argo, when they gave that film (with its abundant embellishments of fact) their top prize.
So if we set all of that aside, the most glaring weakness of this mediocre effort is its leading man. Despite what the film’s television advertising campaign might have you believe, Tommy Lee Jones (playing showboating Gen. Douglas MacArthur) is not the protagonist. He is but a supporting player to Matthew Fox as Gen. Bonner Fellers. I was a big fan of the TV show Lost and of Fox in that, but the actor lacks the gravitas necessary for a role like this one. I practically had to stifle chuckles the first few times others addressed him as “general.” I often couldn’t take him seriously in the part.
On MacArthur’s orders, Fellers’ job is to determine whether Emperor Hirohito should be arrested and tried, along with other members of the Japanese leadership, as a war criminal. MacArthur makes it plain that he’d like the emperor absolved of any blame for launching the attack on Pearl Harbor that dragged America into the conflict. Having been charged with the task of helping Japan get back on its feet, MacArthur believes that keeping Hirohito in place as a figurehead will help him maintain stability in the country at a time when he’s planning to force radical changes.
Fellers has an affinity for Japanese culture, thanks mostly (we learn through flashbacks) to having fallen in love with a Japanese exchange student, Aya (Eriko Hatsune), in college. She left him abruptly to return to her homeland. He remained obsessed with winning her back even as tensions between their nations grew. He cares just as much about finding Aya again (directing his translator to track her down) as he does fulfilling his mission, even though he’s been given only 10 days to investigate the emperor.
There’s a lot of historical background to cover to orient audiences in a story like this, and the screenplay opts for one of the least elegant delivery systems for this material. The movie overflows with lectures in the form of narration by Fellers. Excess narration is rarely a smart choice in film, and Fox’s naturally flat, emotionless delivery of these history lessons doesn’t help.
Which is a shame because the subject of the guilt or innocence of Hirohito as the main driver of Japan’s war machine is a complex one. (And there are some wonderful scenes between Fox and the Japanese leaders whom he interrogates in order to get to the truth about the emperor’s role.) It’s a matter that continues to be debated among historians today, and the definitive answer is likely unknowable.
A braver film than Emperor would have been comfortable with that ambiguity, not present what was almost certainly a myth useful to the American occupation as if it were the truth.
