Empire of the Sun (w/ Jean-Pierre Boudreaux)

Eli Price (00:03.427)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies I am your host Eli Price joining you here today for episode 54 of the podcast we are rolling in our early Spielberg series covering his movies from the 70s and 80s and And we are nearing the end With Empire of the Sun today

and yeah, I'm excited. This was a blind spot for me. I'm excited to, I was excited to watch it and I'm excited to dig into it with our guest today. I believe. Let me think this is, is this your fourth? Man, I think you're the first four, four time guests. So congratulations.

Jean-Pierre (00:47.948)
I think it's fours, yeah.

Hey, I'm trying to come for that five timer club like SNL.

Eli Price (00:56.835)
Yeah, yeah. But we're we have Jean Pierre Bidreau. I said Bidreau. Boudreau. That was yeah. Jean Pierre Boudreau on the show with us today. Some some column by his full Christian name. I usually call him JP. Only when he's in trouble. But but yeah, JP. It's good to have you on with us today. How are you doing? How you feeling?

Jean-Pierre (01:03.834)
I was like, come on, you let him laugh, you should know better.

Jean-Pierre (01:16.346)
Only when I'm in trouble.

Jean-Pierre (01:25.434)
I'm good. I'm good. I just recently had to move. So we're in the new, we're in the new digs, but I'm dialing it in. It's, it's feeling so nice and homely. Yeah. I'm excited to be back. I, I'll say I hadn't seen this movie in a long time. I definitely know I did see it before. I think I rented it from the library. Like when I was in high school, there was like one summer where, you know, we would go to the library every week, like every Saturday and you could rent like 10 movies.

Eli Price (01:55.011)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:55.194)
And so I would rent I would just grab 10 random movies and then I'd watch that throughout the week and then swap them out Fun fact somebody had like donated the their entire Collection of James Bond films like like there was like this I guess this old like box set where it was like all these like these like slim MGM like black Covers and because you like you know like sometimes when it's a box set that like the DVDs would be like those slim cases It's like a bunch of those and so that summer I watched

Eli Price (02:14.371)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20.643)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:24.698)
Pretty much every James Bond movie, I think. So it was a good time. And yeah, it was. It was at some point, Empire of the Sun was one of those movies I think I remember the cover. I think I definitely grabbed it. But excited to get into it.

Eli Price (02:29.667)
Yeah, that's a good summer.

Eli Price (02:41.363)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jean Pierre is you do some videography work. If you haven't, if you haven't listened to a show with JP on before, he, he does a lot of work in videography. I think, I think I remember seeing that you did some, like, I don't know what exactly you did, but you were on set for Lisa Frankenstein that came out this year.

Jean-Pierre (03:09.21)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I do some freelance video work when I can. I do all the video stuff from my church primarily. You know, got to work in the music industry. Got to go on tour last year with some friends of mine in a band. I actually shout out Meadows. Those are my boys. And that was like a dream come true, honestly. But yeah, and then I also, if and when I can, work on set in the film industry, which unfortunately is really struggling.

Eli Price (03:13.379)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (03:18.339)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (03:39.13)
right now. So this is a movie podcast where we get to celebrate what we love, which is watching movies. And I also love taking part in making movies. It's rough. It's rough because firstly, it's really reliable work. Usually you got a couple of weeks to a couple of months. But also, I just know a lot of people are struggling as well. So it's definitely sad. But yes, I did in the past year or two, two of the most fun

Eli Price (03:39.395)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (03:57.827)
Mm -mm.

Eli Price (04:01.891)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (04:08.666)
sets I was on is I was on Daisy Jones and the Six, which was a show that came out last year and it was on Prime. Worked on that show for like three and a half months. And then, yeah, I was on Lisa Frankenstein for a few weeks, helping out with locations. And let me tell you, that was three very, very muddy, sweaty, wet weeks. It was like every other day, torrential downpour. It was rough. It was rough. But we got it done. And...

Eli Price (04:15.715)
Yeah, okay.

Eli Price (04:35.075)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (04:38.522)
You know, in my limited interactions with Zelda, she was a joy to work with. She seems like she really had a passion for it and just treated everyone with kindness. So it's always nice. Yeah, yeah. I think it was exactly what it was trying to be. I remember a lot of the gags we kind of did two versions of because they still didn't know if they were going to go for like a PG -13 or an R rating.

Eli Price (04:44.003)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (04:49.507)
Yeah, I thought it was a fun movie. I checked it out.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (05:07.491)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (05:07.642)
And I think they made the right choice. I think it was a good, kind of like slightly edgy, peachy 13. And I think it was exactly what it was supposed to be. It was intentionally cheesy, and just all around a good time. It was also very surreal for me growing up watching like Sweet Life of Zack and Cody and then What's His Face is like on set every day, just like chain smoking cigarettes every time he's on camera. I mean, he...

Eli Price (05:14.531)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (05:21.091)
yeah.

Eli Price (05:28.963)
Yeah. -huh, yeah.

Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (05:36.538)
And he's just like, what's up, dude? I'm just like, hey, this is so weird. But no, he was cool. He was cool. He was chill.

Eli Price (05:39.903)
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. yeah, that's, that's really cool. So yeah, JP has some, he has some experience on set. So I always like having people that have done, done some work in the, the industry, given some of that insight. but yeah, we, we are in a Spielberg, series and I'll always love to ask my guests.

what their first memory of our director is. Do you remember, do you have any like first memories of watching a Spielberg movie?

Jean-Pierre (06:17.626)
I gotta say, I feel like I feel like I might have said this for Christopher Nolan as well, but I just feel like Spielberg's just always been there in my life. You know, I grew up in a household where we had a lot of DVDs, like, you know, I mean, we, so we always had movies around and, you know, both my parents, born in the seventies, they're products of the eighties, you know, growing up. And so I gotta say, I feel like my first...

Eli Price (06:25.443)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (06:39.779)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (06:46.906)
kind of introduction to Spielberg had to have been either Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park because I was a dinosaur kid. So I remember I used to have some Jurassic Park like action figures and I thought it was so cool they said JP on them because I was like, that's my name. You know, I want to say it would probably was Indiana Jones because I think.

Eli Price (06:51.907)
Mm.

Yeah.

yeah.

Eli Price (07:07.843)
Very nice. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (07:14.042)
you know, Jurassic Park for like a little kid can probably be a little intense in some parts, but it was one of those two. But I just, you know, I've always grown up with Spielberg being part of like being who he is, right? Where he's, he's, he's, he's one of the greatest to ever do it. And, and just, just always seems to, or at least I would argue for a long time, seemed to always bring a sense of awe. I'm sure we can get into a little bit of maybe modern.

Eli Price (07:17.635)
Sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (07:25.955)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (07:43.354)
Spielberg sensibilities at some point in the conversation. But definitely 70s, 80s Spielberg and I would argue through the 90s. Definitely just a really magical touch when it comes to producing a spectacle like any other.

Eli Price (07:44.995)
huh.

Yeah.

Eli Price (07:55.171)
yeah.

Eli Price (07:59.331)
yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, and we'll, we'll definitely talk about the progression of Spielberg. I feel like this movie kind of as a set with the color purple, like our pretty big point in his career. But, so yeah, we'll definitely touch on that as we kind of get to the end of our talk, but yeah, let's jump into empire of the sun. So.

one thing, if you've been listening through the series, you probably remember that Spielberg is a huge David Lean fan. you know, as probably anyone should be, the, the, the few David film, David Lean films I've seen, Lawrence of Arabia probably stands out to me as a phenomenal movie. and I, and I'm pretty sure.

Jean-Pierre (08:49.274)
yeah, I mean it's phenomenal. Right.

Eli Price (08:55.171)
It was that movie that Spielberg saw when he was maybe in high school or something like that. He was wanting to go into film. He said in like interviews or whatever, he said like he went to that movie and he came out of the movie and was like, well, that's it. You know, like that might as well quit film because you can't make a movie any better than that. And so, you know, he's done it. It's it's.

It's been done. There's nothing else I can add to, to film, which, you know, obviously he was wrong, because, you know, we have Spielberg who he is today, but, but yeah, obviously a huge David Lean fan. he invited him on, the sets of amazing stories. he had kind of interacted with them some here and there, and yeah, definitely connected with him.

And, David Lean was coming off of a passage to India in 1984, which I have not seen. but he was, he did that after like a 13 year break. he had a, he had a movie that was a big flop that I can't think of the name of off the top of my head. took a 13 year break, came back with a passage to India and really like wanting to kind of get rolling back in, in making stuff. he was approaching 80 years old. So.

Jean-Pierre (10:06.522)
No, I'm not.

Eli Price (10:24.451)
I'm sure he was like, well, if I'm going to make some more stuff, better go ahead and make it. and lean was really interested in adapting this, novel, the empire of the sun by JG Ballard. WB, Warner brothers owned the rights to adapt that book at the time. And so, lean went to lean went to WB with Spielberg.

as you know, kind of like I'm going to direct spillworks going to produce. and wanting to, you know, adapt the film. So it was, there was a plan in place for it to be adapted by this guy named Harold Becker, who had directed a movie named taps in 1981. I don't, I don't know that guy or that movie. So can't speak.

Jean-Pierre (11:13.05)
Is that a reference to like the military trumpet song? Okay.

Eli Price (11:16.067)
Yes. Yeah. It was a, it was a military film. so he, you know, he at least had experience making, making war movies. I don't know if taps is any good or not, cause I haven't seen it and don't know anything about it. Yeah. So, but yeah, he was working on a screenplay with, really, accomplished playwright named Tom Stoppard. so they had something in the works, but when David Lien and Steven Spielberg,

Jean-Pierre (11:24.602)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

I think we've even heard of it, so...

Eli Price (11:45.763)
come to you, it's kind of like, well, maybe we should go ahead and give it to those guys. And so pretty convincing for Warner Brothers. So yes, and it probably helped that Steven Spielberg had a growing relationship with Warner Brothers CEO, Steve Ross. They were getting to be pretty buddy -buddy. So yeah.

Jean-Pierre (11:56.282)
Absolutely, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (12:09.21)
I mean, David Zaslav would have just been like, nah, you guys can leave because that man can apparently not make a good financial decision or a good decision in general. I don't know. But at least somebody with a good head on their shoulders was in charge back then.

Eli Price (12:17.955)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Eli Price (12:21.731)
Yeah, yes.

Eli Price (12:27.315)
yeah. Yeah. yeah, for sure. Well, so yeah, they get, they get the, the movie. but David Lean eventually drops off as director, and recommends that Spielberg direct it. he, I think he decided to pursue a different project. he, he felt like the, the story wasn't kind of unraveling as he was like hoping and, it just wasn't like.

I guess it was one of those things where as a director, he started to feel like, okay, I thought I wanted to direct this, but maybe I'm not the best person to direct it as he started working on, on it. and, and he also was like approaching 80 and thinking, well, shooting in China is going to be pretty strenuous. better let the young guy do it. So yeah. And, Spielberg in the, in a interview said from.

Jean-Pierre (13:15.386)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:21.187)
He said, from the moment I read the novel, I secretly wanted to do it myself. So Spielberg was happy to take it on.

Jean-Pierre (13:28.026)
I can't imagine being in that position though, like you have like this idol of yours who's like, hey, I kind of want to make this movie and I'd like you to maybe produce it for me. And you're just like, I really want to do this, but okay, yeah. Like put it to him, it's the guy, you know? It's a, yeah, I can definitely imagine that was a bit of a difficult, you know, big slice of humble pie he probably had to eat before.

Eli Price (13:32.227)
Yeah.

Eli Price (13:38.499)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (13:43.619)
But it's David Lean. Yeah, it's my hero.

Eli Price (13:54.243)
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get the feeling he was happy to just be working with lean and so yeah. but yeah, so J. G. Ballard's novel, written in 1984, it was semi autobiographical. it's kind of based on his memories of his kind of privileged childhood in the British enclave of Singapore and, the subsequent in

Jean-Pierre (14:01.818)
Just happy to be included, just happy to be involved.

Eli Price (14:24.227)
internment in the POW camp by the Japanese in world war II. he said, this is a quote from Ballard. He said, many of the ventures Jim goes through are invented, but I think his psychology is very true to mine. yeah. So, it's kind of this fictional. It's all it's almost like he wrote the novel as a fictional expression of.

Jean-Pierre (14:41.466)
interesting.

Eli Price (14:53.059)
kind of his how he remembers feeling, I guess maybe is kind of how I kind of take that. If I understand correctly, Ballard was not separated from his parents quite like Jim was in the movie. I think he ended up being interned with his parents. So yeah.

Jean-Pierre (15:15.194)
yeah, that's crazy. That's like a completely different story in that case. I mean.

Eli Price (15:19.523)
Yeah, yeah, different and not, I guess, too, because you're still like, imprisoned in a camp. And even if your parents are there, it's kind of like, you know, it's still like, basically like law of the jungle. I mean, but yeah, he, he also said, it took him 20 years to forget this experience, and then 20 more years to remember it. Which makes sense, because he's, he's writing this.

novel about right around 40 years from the the events so

Jean-Pierre (15:55.066)
Well, it's especially interesting that WB had the rights to this book so soon, like so close to when it came out.

Eli Price (16:00.003)
Mm -hmm.

That's pretty tip. I'm starting to find that that's pretty typical. Whenever a book comes out, I'm pretty sure like there's people that work in Hollywood that just like there's I'm sure Warner Brothers and Paramount and everyone, they just have people that are like snagging these like popular books and telling them who they need to buy, what books they need to buy the rights to.

Jean-Pierre (16:05.978)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (16:22.65)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (16:26.49)
Do you know if it was pretty popular when it came out? Was it a bestseller or anything?

Eli Price (16:32.757)
I didn't really do, I didn't really see anything in my research about that. But it must have been, I mean, like WB has the rights to it. David Lean has read it and wants to make the movie. So I would imagine just going off of that, that it was, I mean, I don't know if it was like huge, but it was obviously like popular enough for it to be, you know,

Jean-Pierre (16:37.85)
Mm -hmm. Okay.

Jean-Pierre (17:00.154)
Well, it feels like David Lean might have been, well, not close to the same age as Ballard at the time, but a book like that might have intrigued him because he lived through it himself.

Eli Price (17:11.715)
Yeah, yeah. And he was British too. So, that probably there's that connection too. but yeah, so I don't know. It was, it was at least like mildly well known, for, for it to be already Warner Brothers having the rights and all that. So, but yeah, yeah. So Spielberg is kind of, he reads the book obviously wants to make it.

Jean-Pierre (17:18.842)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (17:32.122)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (17:39.427)
He's kind of drawn to the horrors of war seen through this like impartial, at times helpless, and mesmerized eyes of a young boy, which makes a lot of sense for Spielberg. And, and as we'll talk about kind of makes sense for where he is in his career too, like kind of like a stepping stone, a transition point. So.

But yeah, so I mean, Jim in the movie, the main character experiences death and famine, illness, solitude, cruelty, and violence at the hands of men. He's kind of experiencing all the horrors of war and death. And so at the same time though, he's excited by like these air raids, by the bravery of the Japanese and Americans both.

So it's kind of like this weird mix of like horror and admiration, which fits right in line with pretty typical Spielberg themes of the time, which are kind of fear and like awe or wonder. So it really like is hitting on all cylinders for a Spielberg movie.

Jean-Pierre (18:36.442)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (19:01.146)
Yeah, I don't know how much you really wanted to dive into the plot, but I definitely feel like there's an attempt to try and humanize the Japanese in this movie, which part of me can really understand, because obviously they're human beings. Not every single person that was a part of the Japanese army was there by choice, necessarily, or was someone.

But also, like, if you know even just a little bit about the history of the Chinese invasion of China, and how horrific they were, in fact, there's actually another movie that Christian Bale's in called Flowers, The Flowers of War, I think, which I don't, I can't remember if I've seen it or not, I may have, but I definitely seen like, the cover for it around. That's, that's like during, like,

Eli Price (19:36.162)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (19:57.946)
I think it's like to set the 20s during the invasion of the issues that went on like named King, you know, when the Japanese kind of got involved. And so I feel like there's, I don't really know if he really finds a balance there when he, when he talked about, you know, I do love that kind of like, it's basically the opening of the movie where, you know, Jamie's like, I kind of want to join the Japanese air force. Like they have better pilots than we do.

Eli Price (20:13.475)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (20:23.971)
huh. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (20:26.17)
You know, and it's really interesting to see him with his like fascination of planes all throughout. Which reminds me of myself, you know, as a younger guy, like I went through an airplane phase myself. And so, but I don't really know if he really gets a payoff for that as well, you know, like there's almost, and I wonder if you picked up on this, but I didn't notice it when I originally saw it, but I just watched it today.

Eli Price (20:31.971)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (20:38.594)
Yeah.

Eli Price (20:45.155)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (20:55.258)
again. And I almost saw some Phantom Menace Anakin Skywalker in this character. And I wonder if George Lucas was inspired by the portrayal of Jamie in this movie, because I feel like I don't know, I just, I just I kept watching it. I just I feel like I'm watching Jake Lloyd's Anakin Skywalker right now, in some parts.

Eli Price (21:17.635)
Yeah. I mean, I can see some of that. And, you know, as we, as we dig more like into the themes of the movie, I think we'll probably like dig into this deeper. But yeah, I mean, you, you have a, you have a kid who's very like in almost every sense is kind of displaced. Like he's not where he's not in his country of origin. Wasn't even born there. Like he, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (21:43.898)
Yeah, he says he's literally been in China his whole life. He's never been to England.

Eli Price (21:47.459)
Yes, he's never been to England. He's then he's like, he's in this weird period where everywhere around him, he's starting to see the effects of war on the Chinese, but he's kind of isolated from it at first. it, and then like, when they finally like start imprisoning the Westerners, it's just like, it's this, these eyes of a

through this perspective of a kid who just like doesn't have any sense of like who should I be for? Where do I belong? Like, yeah, it's super, it's pretty unique perspective wise, I think. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (22:15.834)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (22:30.362)
Yeah, I think we'll get into some of the cinematography a little bit later, but can we talk about the shot where it's like they're all leaving for the Halloween party and they have to go through that checkpoint and you see all the Chinese crowds. There's literally this prolonged shot of one of the families all dressed as clowns. And I thought that shot was so funny because it's like so representative of like you have these snobby uptight British socialites.

Eli Price (22:39.683)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

Eli Price (22:48.355)
Yeah.

Eli Price (22:52.387)
You

Jean-Pierre (22:58.906)
you know, driving from one side of town to another for this Halloween party. Well, I'm assuming it's Halloween because they're all dressed in costume. And they're having to drive through all these crowds of Chinese. They have like the guards getting on the outside of the like the officers or soldiers, whatever they are, are on the outside of the cars with sticks beating off the crowd. And you just have you just have this whole entire family dressed as 1940s clowns. One of those like has like a little

Eli Price (23:02.467)
-huh. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Eli Price (23:19.299)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (23:25.722)
outside the door or something. And it's like, he almost like holds that shot. And I just, I felt like he was saying so much with that in that moment. It was, it was, it was quite humorous.

Eli Price (23:29.443)
Yeah.

Eli Price (23:32.835)
Yes. yeah. Yes. Yeah. I guess like I didn't, I do now that you're saying that I do remember that and like thinking back, I'm like, yes, like I guess they are clowns. but yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, we'll, we'll get into some of those. Like there's a lot going on visually here that I think is really well done that we'll, we'll get into as we,

Jean-Pierre (23:45.466)
that really stuck out to me. You know?

Eli Price (24:01.347)
dig into the production and all that. But I do want to touch on Spielberg. So some other ways that Spielberg's connected, I guess, to this movie. Like you were saying, your fascination with planes as a kid. And planes are just cool. So I think, yes, planes are cool. It's a big hunk of metal that flies. It's pretty cool.

Jean-Pierre (24:21.882)
They are. Even now, planes are cool. You know?

Eli Price (24:30.275)
but yeah, Spielberg was fascinated with aviation at the time, had always been probably, and also with World War II. you know, his father, Arnold Spielberg served, in the air force. and so he, he kind of had this fascination with World War II because of that and aviation and, you know, wanting, being interested in something that is connected to your father makes, makes sense.

so yeah.

Jean-Pierre (25:00.058)
Yeah, my dad was, he always wanted to be a pilot, but he didn't go to college. And he also, he always told me he was like too tall to be a pilot because he's like six, two. I don't know how true that is. I think it's more of the fact that he just never went to college. He only had a high school education when he joined the military. So the closest he could get was he was a mechanic on Huey helicopters when he was in the Navy, I believe. So, so I think, I think part of that was for me as well as it like,

Eli Price (25:10.539)
Yeah.

Eli Price (25:23.691)
Okay, cool. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (25:30.234)
you know, when I was like five or six, you know, really in the planes, it was, it was part of it was like, it was a way for me to connect with my dad because my dad, he like, he's always loved aviation. Like, you know, he could tell you when he was a kid, all he wanted to be was a.

Eli Price (25:36.867)
Yeah.

Eli Price (25:40.707)
Yeah.

Yeah, my dad's dad, my grandpa, he worked for, he was a mechanic for Delta for years until he retired. So, you know, I always remember thinking that was like pretty cool when I was a kid that my grandpa like was a plane, basically like a plane mechanic, which is cool doing welding and whatnot. yeah. Yeah. That's what my dad was. My dad took the step down. My dad was a car mechanic.

Jean-Pierre (26:00.794)
Yeah, literally.

It's cooler than being a car mechanic. I mean, no offense to all the car mechanics out there, but.

Jean-Pierre (26:12.762)
They're important too, they're important too, but playing mechanics is a little bit more up there for sure.

Eli Price (26:14.819)
See ya.

man. The other connection that I did found in my research for Spielberg, Spielberg actually had some ancestors that fled Jewish persecution out of Russia, Ukraine area. He has some ancestry there. They actually fled persecution and went to Shanghai. So, yeah, I just thought that was like, that's pretty cool. Like there's another like little small connection.

there, but yeah, so Spielberg is doing the movie. He brings on, Mino Meas who worked with him. he worked with him on amazing stories series. and he also did, the color purple, the script for that. so it brings him back. I guess he enjoyed working with him. He reworked the script a little bit and then they brought back in, Tom Stoppard to put finishing touches on it.

Doctor it up that sort of thing And what's funny is like so Tom swap stoppard, I guess wrote the original screenplay minnow Reworked it and then stoppard finish it up. Well when you look at the credits Like in the movie, it's stoppard who gets the writing credit. There's not a writing credit for for me is You really only see I don't even think on letterbox. It is I think I think he's you can see me as in

Jean-Pierre (27:37.018)
interesting.

Eli Price (27:46.531)
IMDB. But yeah, he definitely, yeah, it's a weird thing. Yeah. But yeah, they both worked on it. yeah. They both worked on it. Stoppard, I guess, Stoppard probably did the most work on it, having written like the original script. So I guess that makes sense. Stoppard had his own little connections to the story. He was the son of a Jewish family.

Jean-Pierre (27:48.986)
Yeah, credit, credit served. It's a weird thing. It's, it's all about the unions. Yeah.

Eli Price (28:13.155)
who had fled Czechoslovakia from the Nazis and spent some of his youth in Singapore. So he had a little connection there himself. And him and Spielberg kind of became really buddy -buddy working on this together. Stoppard had a more cerebral sensibility that meshed well with Spielberg's more sentimental sensibility. So they were kind of a perfect storytelling match, I guess.

and Stoppard went on to kind of become Amblin, entertainment's, designated script doctor. Like they would bring him in to kind of doctor up scripts a lot. which I think is cool. You, you find your, that's how, that's how the industry works. You find your guys that you work well with and you stick with them. but, but yeah, the, the biggest challenge that they had with, when writing this, you know,

Jean-Pierre (28:50.202)
Hello.

Jean-Pierre (29:04.474)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (29:12.803)
moving it from book to film, was condensing the, the second half of the book where they're at the Lune Wa, Lune Wa. It's hard to print. I don't know exactly how to pronounce it. I listened to the book on audio book. and he pronounced it Lune Wa, Lune Wa, I think is the best I can do. So, but yeah, they, they trying to condense that, they decided to focus on the Jim Basie relationship. There's, there's some more.

There's more relationships Jim has with other people in the book. You get some of his relationship with Dr. Rollins in the movie. There's a bit more of that in the book. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (29:56.122)
I'm gonna be honest, they could have done a lot more condensing. That is the one thing rewatching this movie today when I was like, man, this movie is long. Like.

Eli Price (30:01.251)
Maybe so, yeah.

Eli Price (30:06.371)
Yeah, it was a challenge for him. Yeah.

Well, it gets going like the first about hour or so is like, I mean, it's moving and it does slow down a good bit once they get to the camp for sure.

Jean-Pierre (30:23.29)
I just, I really felt like I was like, man, like, not that it felt...

Not that it, I don't know. It just felt very amateurish for like, I feel like it could have been a much tighter film overall, but I understand, especially realizing that the author of the book was like, it's more of a mythological version of what he went through, not necessarily a directly realistic version of what he went through that I kind of understand.

Eli Price (30:38.659)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (30:51.811)
Right.

Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (30:59.034)
why because because it almost is like a mythological journey of sorts that jim you know jamie goes on almost where he yeah a very very realistic fantasy but a fantasy nonetheless

Eli Price (31:05.347)
Yeah, it's a bit of a fantasy in a way. Yeah. kind of fantasy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It it's yeah. They, they, it very much admit that that was a challenge condensing that, that part. And yeah, maybe it could have used some more condensing, but, but they did decide to focus on that relationship. another, David Lean influence, here.

David Lean adapted some Charles Dickens. He did Great Expectations in 46 and Oliver Twist in 48, which I haven't seen those, but I kind of want to go watch those now because, yeah, that sounds like, it seems like I would enjoy those. But yeah, they kind of accentuate the Dickensian characteristics of Basie. Kind of this, yeah, he's...

Jean-Pierre (31:58.074)
Definitely see that. The King of the Street Rats kind of vibe, you know?

Eli Price (32:01.923)
Right. Yeah. And he is to Jim, what, Fagan is to Oliver Twist, kind of this crooked mentor exploiting, exploiting him and corrupting him, but also like at the same time, like kind of teaching them how to like follow the law of the jungle, how to survive, how to make it, you know, so.

Jean-Pierre (32:08.57)
see that for sure.

Jean-Pierre (32:18.97)
I will say, and you know, it's been a while since I've like read or seen any versions of Oliver Twist, but I will say, which interesting, we haven't had like a modern take on Oliver Twist or really any Charles Dickens. That's a kind of interesting thing. But I will say, I feel like if I remember correctly that Fagin at least like had a little bit of some kind of care for Oliver Twist, like in his own twisted way. And we can definitely.

Eli Price (32:30.691)
Yep. Yeah.

Eli Price (32:42.115)
Yeah.

Eli Price (32:45.539)
Yeah, I think basically does too, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (32:47.418)
We could definitely get into it, but there are so many times where I feel like Basie showed him that he only cares about him as long as he's useful. You know? And which, you know, like we could talk more about, but yeah, there's a lot of very interesting characters in this movie for sure.

Eli Price (32:58.915)
yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (33:09.315)
yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll dig into the characters in a minute. First, I'm going to roll through the crew here, the main players. Of course, you've got the trio of Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall producing the Amblin crew. We already talked about J .G. Ballard as the original story. And then the screenplay.

from Tom Stoppard and Mino Meas. Stoppard has some really good work too. He worked on the movie Brazil, which I haven't seen, but is pretty well respected. Shakespeare in Love was one of his later ones, and he came back and worked on Last Crusade with Spielberg. And then, yeah, we talked about Mino Meas having worked on The Color Purple with him.

Jean-Pierre (33:48.57)
It's a weird one, but it's pretty good, yeah.

Eli Price (34:03.683)
the director of photography is Alan, Daviao who is, recurring. I think this might be his last go with Spielberg actually. he did, ET with them, the Twilight Zone movie and the color purple. and so, yeah, I think this might be his last movie with Daviao. but yeah, I, I kind of like, his, his cinematography work in those movies and this one included. So.

We'll talk about some about that. Michael Kahn, his two most faithful and true collaborators are his editor, Michael Kahn, and John Williams for the music. Those two guys are basically Spielberg. They basically do every Spielberg movie for most of his career. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (34:54.65)
It's like, yeah, I mean, for me, it's like Nolan and Zimmer, you know, like, yeah.

Eli Price (34:58.307)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah, we got some sound guys coming back. Charles L. Campbell from ET along with some other guys. Production design Norman Reynolds who did Raiders of the Lost Ark with them coming back for this. Which makes sense. You know, it's the sets here are you have some pretty like elaborate outdoor sets that feel like they have a

a small connection with, I guess, Raiders.

Jean-Pierre (35:34.106)
Well, I mean, even though Raiders is the 30s and this is the 40s, like the architectural styles and things like that didn't really didn't really change too, too terribly much. So I could definitely see why, you know, he'd go with somebody that already kind of had experience in that general time period. Definitely would have been able to kind of come in and like make sure things were as accurate as they can get.

Eli Price (35:37.827)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, the period. Yeah.

Eli Price (35:50.347)
Yeah, yeah

Eli Price (35:57.635)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the Charles Bishop does the art direction, you know, art direction and production design. They work pretty hand in hand. Kit West does the special effects, which I didn't see anything else that this that Kit West was on. There are very few things like Kit West. Good job. Well done. Yeah. P .I.

Jean-Pierre (36:17.466)
Hey, shout out Kit. He got his one in.

Eli Price (36:24.131)
I did find this wasn't in like IMDB or anything. It was in one of my books. Peter Aston was like the main guy in charge of the model aircrafts. So shout out to Mr. Aston. The lead stunt man, Vic Armstrong, big Vic. He's, if you're listening to this and you're like, who's, why is he making a big deal out of Vic Armstrong? It's because Vic Armstrong is basically like,

All the coolest things you see Indiana Jones do that's really Vic Armstrong and not Harrison Ford. So Harrison Ford does a lot of stunts. Shout out, you know, give him his respect. Yeah. But Vic Armstrong is the one that does like the coolest stunts for Indy. So yeah. And then casting there's a, there's a, there's this team, Mike Fenton, Jane Feinberg, Julie Taylor. They, they were.

Jean-Pierre (37:00.026)
He also crashes a lot of aircraft.

Eli Price (37:19.939)
his like go to for a while for his casting. They cast the indie movies, ET, Goonies, Back to the Future, Poltergeist. So those, those few, those few out there show like they were, yeah, they were big for getting those kid actors. which I think is a big deal, you know, which we'll talk about Christian Bale in a second, but, they also had a Eurico Matubara who I am almost, I didn't.

Jean-Pierre (37:31.674)
All the heavy hitters.

Eli Price (37:48.515)
see exactly who he casted, but I'm almost positive he was casting the Japanese and Chinese actors for the movie. So yeah, which is smart, you know, get a Japanese guy to help cast the Japanese characters. Makes sense to me. But yeah, speaking of the cast, we have Christian Bell as Jim or Jamie or James, whatever you want to call him, I guess.

Jean-Pierre (37:54.426)
I would assume so, most likely.

Eli Price (38:17.763)
Mostly Jim, I think, in the movie. But yeah, it took nine months to find this kid. He was 13 year old at the time. There was like 4 ,000 auditions and he stood out. He had done some acting. He was in a few things before this. He had worked with Rowan Atkinson, Mr. Bean himself in 1984 as the nerd.

He had done a mini series called Anastasia in 1986 with Spielberg's wife, Amy Irving. So there was, there was a connection point there and Omar Sharif was in that series too. So, yeah, so he had some experience coming in. And yeah, I think Christian Bell is really great in this. J .G. Ballard even said like he was surprised how similar.

Bell was physically to him at that age, which was cool. One of my favorite things that, and there's like a little on the Blu -ray disc, there's a making of documentary that kind of talks about the history around the movie. And then also kind of like some behind the scenes making of stuff too. And there's this, there's, they're filming the scene where, you know, Bell as Jim is like crawling through the mud.

doing the pheasant traps, setting the pheasant traps, trying to not get caught by Sergeant Nagata and Spilberg like says cut or whatever. And he kind of mumbles to himself, but the camera and the mic for the making of Doc Pick It Up, he says, a little Steve McQueen this kid, which is like pretty, that's pretty high praise. And so yeah, another thing he...

Jean-Pierre (40:01.082)
Hehehehehe

Eli Price (40:10.275)
Another quote I thought was good. This goes back to the those casting directors. He said I get credit for the kids, but I'm just lucky to get great kids in my movies. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (40:19.194)
Yeah, that's kind of an ongoing theme. I think a lot of these Spielberg films, especially like in the eighties into the early nineties, I mean, you know, he did have a lot of movies that had kids as like main, like kind of really big parts of it. I mean, I always think of like, you know, the two kids from Jurassic Park, you know, obviously in a movie like this, like it's a surprise it took nine months to find their gym because the whole movie hinges on this performance, you know.

Eli Price (40:35.619)
Yeah.

Eli Price (40:39.555)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (40:47.907)
Yes, yep.

Jean-Pierre (40:49.242)
And I think that, you know, for the most part, I can't really think of a single Spielberg film that involving, you know, kids in the cast where the kids like, it's always weird when you hear people like crap on like child actors, because like guys are literally kids, like come on. But to an extent, there is definitely, I think especially a lot of family movies when they have like kid actors, like they can be kind of annoying to watch just personality wise, but.

Eli Price (41:04.707)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (41:12.227)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (41:18.842)
you know shout out to his casting team because i mean i feel like like he says he just gets great kids you know he's he's yeah

Eli Price (41:21.955)
Yeah.

They're not going to doubt what these kids for sure. I mean, if going back to that list, I named out ET Goonies back to the future poltergeist. I mean, and then this movie like all like fantastic kid casts, like, just really, I don't know if, I don't know how old Michael J Fox was and back to the future. So maybe that doesn't really count, but, yeah. Yeah. He's playing a high schooler.

Jean-Pierre (41:48.25)
I think he was probably in his 20s, but he was relatively kind of young. I mean, or think of like Josh Brolin and Goonies, you know, which it's like crazy to think that that's him.

Eli Price (41:56.995)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and even,

man,

Eli Price (42:09.827)
Sean Astin, and Goonies like, yeah, great. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. when you know it, you can see it, but yeah, if you didn't know that you wouldn't be like, yeah, that's Sean Astin as a kid. yeah, I mean, just really great. and Bell, the Christian Bell here is, I think he's really, really good. He works really well with Spielberg and like watching the making of doc and watching like him.

Jean-Pierre (42:11.898)
Yeah.

Unrecognizable.

Eli Price (42:38.691)
interact with Spielberg, you can tell that this kid knows what he's doing. He's totally tuned in. He's taking Spielberg's notes and running with it. He just seems like even this early on, he had a strong knack for acting.

Jean-Pierre (43:05.818)
Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, that's why nowadays he's known as definitely one of the greatest actors of his kind of generation, if not in general. I mean, so many iconic roles over the years.

Eli Price (43:10.819)
Yeah.

Eli Price (43:14.651)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like Spielberg's given him notes, like, like in the scene where, you know, he loses his mom and it's reaching for the plane, like Spielberg's coaching him through. He's like, okay, like in this scene, you know, there, there's this big choice you have to make. you drop your airplane and you have your, your mom's hand and you have to decide between your mom and the airplane. And like, they'll like takes that thought process and like runs with it in his performance. And I think it's.

It like he captures that he he like really actually as a 13 year old captures that moment just visually, you know.

Jean-Pierre (43:58.682)
Yeah, I mean, this movie really takes Jim... There's definitely an element of coming of age story to this film. And I think that Bale really sells Jamie's transition from this super spoiled bratty kid that just could not be bothered to be decent to someone who...

Eli Price (44:06.243)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli Price (44:25.827)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (44:29.274)
you know, actually learns how to be a survivor, you know, and there's that scene when he first gets back to the house after being separated from his parents and he sees two of the Chinese maids, I guess, and he's like, what do you guys think you're doing? And she walks over and slaps him. And I'm like, he kind of deserved it. Like, he was being a massive dick.

Eli Price (44:35.107)
Right.

Eli Price (44:47.331)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (44:51.267)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like two, two scenes ago, he was like, wait, my biscuits. man. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, he's great. and obviously his, his career, has shown, has proved that to be true, that he was a great actor all along. and, I have this book it's up here.

Jean-Pierre (44:58.682)
to her specifically. You have to do what I say.

Eli Price (45:21.603)
mentioned it before on the podcast, Steven Spielberg, all the films, it's actually came out, I think at the end of last year. So fairly new book. But it has like a little, it goes through every film, but then it'll have like, kind of in between articles sometimes. And it had like a really fun article that was like, basically, where are his child actors now. And so it like went through all of his child actors and his movies, like the main ones, you know.

and where they are now. So it was cool to see like a wide range of like, like the kid from Close Encounters just like works in finance now. like all the way to like Christian Bell, who's I would say is probably the most acclaimed actors that were a Spielberg child actor. Drew Barrymore is, is pretty high up there, I think. you know, playing Gertie and ET, but.

Jean-Pierre (46:00.602)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (46:21.315)
Christian Bell? Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (46:21.434)
I don't know. Maybe it's maybe at one point, but not anymore. I feel like I can't tell you last time I saw her in a movie. I think she has like her talk show. She does that.

Eli Price (46:25.571)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. But, but I just mean having a career where you're like Drew Barrymore and people are like, yeah, Drew Barrymore, you know, you know, it's a pretty like she, she's pretty, she's a known name in, in, in Hollywood pop culture. but yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think Christian Bell probably by far has had the most like successful career amongst the, those child actors for sure. and yeah.

I just think it really comes out here. going through the, we'll, we'll dig into the character of Jim a little bit more, but just kind of going through the rest of the cast. Of course you have John Malkovich pop up as a Basie. Malkovich was still relatively unknown. Like he had some, like, so he had, he had a, a supporting actor nomination from places in the heart from 84. but like.

Jean-Pierre (47:18.778)
It's kind of wild to think about.

Eli Price (47:28.451)
But we all know how that goes. Like supporting actor nominations. Sometimes those guys are like, who's that guy? and that's kind of how Malkovich still was at the time. It was still a year before, his kind of, turning point role in dangerous liaisons. but yeah, you know,

Jean-Pierre (47:48.506)
It's crazy because he's such an iconic name, iconic face, like his voice, his delivery. It's hard to imagine him as a relatively unknown actor. But I guess there is a point to say that a lot of his most famous over -the -top roles definitely come up in the 90s and 2000s for sure.

Eli Price (47:53.003)
Yeah.

Eli Price (48:04.643)
Yeah.

Eli Price (48:16.035)
Yeah. I mean, Con Air, I think is one of them for sure. and then, and then, yeah, I mean, being John Malkovich is just like another level of, have you seen being with John Malkovich?

Jean-Pierre (48:19.002)
Yeah.

Put the bunny down.

Jean-Pierre (48:37.05)
It's on my list. It's one of those movies I've always wanted to see and just never gotten around to it, but I'm sure I'd enjoy it.

Eli Price (48:38.979)
man, you've, you've got to see, you've got to see being John Malkovich. It is. Yes, it is bizarre.

Jean-Pierre (48:45.05)
Is that Charlie Kaufman, right?

Yeah, I mean, I saw I had to watch his film, said, joking New York for a class in college and that film was extremely trippy.

Eli Price (48:57.123)
That film is depressing. Yeah, that film is really depressing. This one isn't like uplifting at all. It's got it. It's not as depressing as Synecdoin E New York, but it's still depressing being John Malkovich. But yeah, how he convinced John Malkovich to be in that and make it his namesake like is impressive. But yeah, it's a...

It's a wild movie. Anyway, yeah, John Malkovich, I think is, you know, doing his best scummy sailor kind of guy in this movie. Yeah, he, and you can tell too from the making of that he was like, he was pretty tuned into what he was doing. There was a point where he's like learning a Chinese phrase and it's like taking notes and

Jean-Pierre (49:35.962)
Mm.

Eli Price (49:54.531)
It's just kind of like funny. Like you have, you have like two lines you have to say in Chinese or Japanese. And he's like really tuned in, like trying to get it right, which I respect. I respect that. but it is funny. other, we'll, we'll, we'll dig into it. Like I'm saying, like I said, we'll dig into characters a little bit later. but yeah, everyone else is pretty mild as far as characters go. You have, Miranda Richardson playing Mrs. Victor.

Jean-Pierre (50:02.074)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (50:23.834)
Okay, I couldn't tell, for some reason I thought it was Michelle Pfeiffer. But yes, yes, I always remember her as, my gosh, the lady, she's in Fan of the Opera. She's like the lady who's like over all the dancers or whatever. That's the role I always remember her as.

Eli Price (50:29.059)
No, Miranda Richardson. Yeah.

Eli Price (50:39.247)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I put it in my notes. She was, she would, went on to be in the crying game in 92 was probably one of her biggest roles. Nigel Havers plays Dr. Rollins. I think he does a good job. He was Lord Andrew Lindsay in Chariots of Fire earlier in the eighties. So that was kind of his, his bit. I think that was probably his biggest role. And then this,

Jean-Pierre (50:49.53)
Okay.

Eli Price (51:07.971)
I seem to remember hearing that he was more of like a British TV actor maybe, but I might be wrong on remembering that. But yeah, Joe, you got a really early Joey Pants role. Yeah, Joe Pantoliano as Frank, Basie's kind of sidekick in the movie.

Jean-Pierre (51:24.634)
Yeah.

Eli Price (51:32.483)
Yeah, and he's got some very Joey pants line deliveries in this movie, which I appreciated.

Jean-Pierre (51:39.418)
Yeah, I mean, again, I think just like with John, I feel like he's just one of those people that just has a very iconic voice, like mannerisms.

Eli Price (51:48.867)
He's like the classic that guy in a movie.

Jean-Pierre (51:55.482)
I wouldn't have, yeah, I've never thought about categorizing him as a that guy. I hear that guy, I always think of like James Cromwell is like a that guy or William Fincher is a that guy. But I guess he could be. I guess maybe.

Eli Price (52:00.771)
He is though, he is.

Eli Price (52:05.827)
Yeah. No, I really think he is. Yeah. He just pops up in movies and you're like, wait, hey, it's that guy that was in that movie. Yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (52:12.794)
It's him, it's that guy. Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. I mean, well, I think, you know, obviously his most iconic role is probably like Cypher in the Matrix, the first film.

Eli Price (52:25.347)
Yeah, yes, I friend the matrix. He's, he's popped up before in in the on the podcast for Memento. Great Memento.

Jean-Pierre (52:29.786)
Ignorance is bliss.

Jean-Pierre (52:34.714)
Yeah. I also like him in Daredevil. He's like a reporter who's trying to figure out who this Daredevil guy is, you know?

Eli Price (52:40.067)
Okay.

Eli Price (52:45.475)
Yeah, I think I've seen the movie. But I just don't remember much about it. So yeah.

Jean-Pierre (52:52.922)
It's, you know what? It's a lot better than a lot of people give a credit for. It's a good time. It's a good time, man. I'll give it that. The soundtrack slaps, especially.

Eli Price (52:58.135)
Hey, that's all you need out of it Yeah, right, yeah rolling through the rest of the cast real quick you have Masato Ibu playing sergeant Agata and then Taka Taka Taro Kataoka I'm probably butchering these names, but that's okay I mean, it's not okay, but it's it's what we've got

best I can do. He plays the kamikaze pilot boy that kind of, that Jim, yeah that Jim kind of connects with. A few others, Leslie Phillips plays Maxton, Emily Richard, and Rupert Frazier play Jim's mom and dad. Peter Gale plays Mr. Victor. And then you have an early Ben Stiller.

Jean-Pierre (53:32.41)
RIP.

Eli Price (53:54.147)
playing dainty.

Jean-Pierre (53:54.49)
Dude, the guy, and he popped up and I laughed because I was like, I totally forgot. I literally, I texted you earlier today. I was like, I totally forgot Ben Stiller is in this movie. And he is, you know, I mean, I think he did, you know, just kind of going on the kind of production design slash, really I just want to talk about the makeup real quick. Like the makeup crew in this job did a great job of.

Eli Price (54:01.795)
Yeah, yeah, you did.

Eli Price (54:20.067)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (54:20.986)
of it's a really interesting juxtaposition between like the British like prisoners in the camp, like who's still trying to maintain that, you know, Britishness, sophistication. And then like every time we're in the American bunker, like everyone's just dirty. They're slimy. Their teeth are gritty. They are having a good time, but him especially like...

Eli Price (54:26.979)
Sure.

Eli Price (54:33.187)
Yeah, sophistication, yeah.

Eli Price (54:39.267)
Yeah, there's dirty there's like, they're having a good time. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (54:49.146)
Ben Stiller, it's funny that his name is Dainty because the couple times he's on screen, he is just a greasy looking dude. I mean, yeah, it's interesting.

Eli Price (54:51.491)
Yeah, because he's not.

Eli Price (54:56.611)
Yeah, yeah, I Think I did skip the the hair and makeup costume people when I was going through the crew But but yeah Vera Mitchell did the hair Paul England did the makeup and Bob Ringwood did the costumes Shout out to those guys for sure. Yeah

Jean-Pierre (55:12.25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a great job all around. I mean, like, you know, everything felt very imperative, but especially like, I guess during the internment camp, they just did a really good job of, and Jamie wants to be nothing, nothing more than another dirty American, just like the rest.

Eli Price (55:18.435)
yeah.

Those dirty Americans.

Eli Price (55:28.643)
yeah. Which I love. I love the scene where he finally like gets the end and is able to, they allow them to move into the American dorm and Christian Bell gets, gets to do his American accent. He kind of does a line delivery and I can't remember what he says, but, but he, he like puts on an American accent and I'm like, yeah, he's already working on his, his accents back then. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (55:52.762)
Which is crazy because I feel like when I was younger, I feel like it was probably like the Batman, like Batman Begins was probably my first time seeing Christian Bale in anything. And I remember like my mind being blown when I figured out he was British. Pardon me, pardon me, British Isles. Right, right, right, right.

Eli Price (56:01.411)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (56:07.235)
He's Welsh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which, which is still British, but, but I just think just to emphasize, like the Welsh accent is like sometimes even like stronger. Yeah. Then, then kind of like the more typical British act like English accents, I guess.

Jean-Pierre (56:21.818)
Very broke for sure, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (56:29.882)
But for a long time I thought he, because his American accent is so good, for a long time I thought he was American, then when I found out he's actually British.

Eli Price (56:33.187)
It is. Yeah. And he can do, yeah, he can do different American accents too, which, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (56:41.914)
I feel like he's one of the actors, I've heard him, I know Gary Oldman kind of has said this before, that Gary Oldman has done so many interesting accents over the years that he actually had to relearn his native accent. And I feel like I've kind of heard something similar from Christian Bale, but I can't remember for sure. But yeah, he's great. He's definitely good at what he does.

Eli Price (57:01.227)
Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, the only other cast I was going to point out that was like it was this is more of just a fun fact but jg ballard himself plays a guest at the that costume party that we were talking about early on in the movie so that's a fun little I guess easter egg which I didn't notice obviously when I was watching because I didn't know what he was what he looked like when I when I watched but but yeah

Jean-Pierre (57:33.146)
Which guess was he? Would I recognize him?

Eli Price (57:35.619)
I don't remember. I don't remember. I know they showed him.

Jean-Pierre (57:40.218)
I was wondering if he's the guy who like, like, is that scene where they first walk in, there's that kind of chunky guy at the door who just kind of like laughs like, boy. You know, that'd be, yeah. Because I'm like, that's the only party guest that really sticks out in like a little moment that's not like a character having an actual conversation. You know what I mean?

Eli Price (57:49.347)
I think that is him because he's a little bit heavier set guy. And so I think that might be him now that he said that. Yeah.

Eli Price (58:03.267)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, I think that probably was him. But yeah, honestly, just don't they showed it in the dock, but I just don't remember. Yeah, let's jump into the production. They talking about locations, they couldn't find a good alternative to Shanghai. And at the time, it was

you couldn't really go just go to China and film. And so I mean, you still can't just go somewhere and film, you still have to get the okay, but it's, it's, it's easier now. But at the at the time, China was still pretty closed off to the West. And so they, they went to the Chinese authority, and they had some intense negotiations is what I read. It didn't say what that entailed, but

intense negotiations leading to an agreement for them to shoot in Shanghai. It's probably a little bit thanks to Spielberg being on the on there. And also just like the movie covering something that probably they thought was important for people to see, I guess maybe helped. But yeah, it was marketed as the first Western production filmed in the people's

Jean-Pierre (59:20.41)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (59:27.715)
Republic of China, but it actually wasn't. Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor was filmed there several months before, which is kind of ironic. We'll touch on it again when we get to the Oscar nominations, but The Last Emperor shows up again when we talk about that. But yeah, they started production at the beginning of March.

Jean-Pierre (59:29.37)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (59:49.594)
Hehehe.

Eli Price (59:57.059)
It was, I guess like a four month production, I guess March to June is kind of when they shot, but they started with three weeks in Shanghai. they had local extras and police security provided by the China film corporation. and, and really like they, they took advantage of, so Shanghai.

But we'll, we'll talk a, we'll, we'll touch a little bit on once we get through production and stuff, we'll talk a little bit about the history, the actual history, cause to give a little bit more context for the themes and stuff. But, but yeah, they, Shanghai was, had very strong Western influence. And, you know, before the war. And so they, there was a lot of Europe, very European architecture and this historic riverfront district called the Bund.

Jean-Pierre (01:00:42.746)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:00:53.411)
or the boond and they took advantage of just those visuals for the movie and really drew massive crowds when they were filming. And even in the making of doc it was cool too, they interviewed a few people in the crowd, just Chinese people showing up to watch them shoot and they were just talking about how...

There was one guy that was saying like he was there, you know, during the event, during the actual events. And he was like watching this and like kind of reliving it. And he was like, it's, you know, it's pretty similar to how it, how it felt back then. So, I think that's, I guess, credit to some of the authenticity of what they're, they're displaying for that stuff. but I thought that was pretty cool.

Jean-Pierre (01:01:51.226)
Well, I mean, if you think of, you know, Temple of Doom, the opening of that movie is in Shanghai as well. So, you know, Spielberg definitely was was likely from, well, my bad.

Eli Price (01:01:59.491)
Yeah, it wasn't shot there though. Yeah. Yeah, it was shot in, I'm blanking now. We talked about it on the episode. It was shot in a territory that at the time was maybe Portuguese. It was shot in a territory like near Hong Kong in China, but it wasn't.

Jean-Pierre (01:02:17.946)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:02:26.499)
It wasn't like Chinese, it was still like a territory of Portugal or somewhere, some other European country, I think, at the time. So yeah, they couldn't even shoot that in Shanghai, which they didn't shoot in India either for that. It was in Sri Lanka. So they're faking us out on all accounts on Temple of Doom. But yeah, Spielberg.

They did the three weeks in Shanghai, which we'll go back to Shanghai in a second. But before the next phase of shooting, Spielberg made his way to the Oscars. Just to touch on this, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which was basically for producers that had like put out consistent high quality stuff. And so it seems like kind of like an honorary award for.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:18.714)
Good.

Eli Price (01:03:25.219)
people that are just like putting out a bunch of good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Not just like, yeah, it's not just directing, but just like he's producing so much during this period.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:28.122)
I mean if anyone deserved it, especially at the time, definitely him.

Jean-Pierre (01:03:38.202)
Yeah, I was going to say, I was like, I feel like, you know, in my mind, like he's almost as iconic of a producer as he is a director. I mean, there's, there's quite a few, there's quite a, there's quite a few directors nowadays that got their start from, I mean, I think it was someone like J .J. Abrams, like some of his early films were produced by Spielberg. And it's like having, having someone who I'm sure J .J. looks up to Spielberg. So having someone like that put their, their stamp of approval.

Eli Price (01:03:47.907)
Yeah, at this point, yeah.

Eli Price (01:03:56.099)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:04:06.042)
on your work and help you get your name out there. I can imagine that. Which definitely, I feel like Robert Zemeckis definitely has done stuff very similar to the dramatic side of Spielberg. Not always necessarily.

Eli Price (01:04:07.651)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Robert Zemeckis was a big one back in the 80s.

Eli Price (01:04:25.411)
Yeah, yeah, he he's very like he feels I guess thematically and storytelling very like similar to spillberg which Yeah, and it makes sense. They they worked on a world war two film together in 1941 but I don't want to talk about 1941 because it's Is spillberg's first attempt at a world war two movie that went terribly wrong in my opinion, but

Yeah, have you ever seen 1941?

Jean-Pierre (01:04:59.93)
I don't believe so. I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure. Somewhere in the back of my mind, maybe I've seen some clips from it, I think.

Eli Price (01:05:03.043)
I would, I would, I would. Yeah. Yeah. I would recommend maybe watching some clips and then just go listen to our episode and, and don't, and instead of watching the movie, it'll probably have a better time, listening to us talk about it than watching it. I think it is. There's people that like it. but, I think they're pretty far between them.

Jean-Pierre (01:05:16.218)
Hahaha!

Jean-Pierre (01:05:20.634)
Is that bad, huh?

Jean-Pierre (01:05:27.642)
I don't know, I'm a sucker for a very ridiculous, over -the -top humor. That's always been my humor.

Eli Price (01:05:33.507)
Well, it's, it's ridiculous. I don't, I didn't, I don't remember laughing in the movie at all, but it is ridiculous. I'll, I'll say that. but yeah, they, they went back to, after Shanghai, they went to Elstree studios in London, his faithful tried and true, studio for shooting. It seems like he's just been shooting there nonstop for all of his movies.

maybe not, not for the color purple. They were in America for that, but everything.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:07.194)
Sounds like Star Wars and Pinewood Studios also in England.

Eli Price (01:06:10.659)
Yeah, no Star Wars. Star Wars is, was L street. That's, that's how he got. yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:15.818)
well, I'm talking about now, I guess more modern Star Wars. I mean, I always hear them associated with Pinewood Studios, which is also...

Eli Price (01:06:20.707)
Yeah. So he got connected with Elstree starting with Raiders because that's where Lucas shot Star Wars. And so he was familiar with it and went back there. Like he was like, let's go shoot at Elstree. And then, so yeah, now the Spielberg just like, just wants to keep shooting at Elstree, I guess. but yeah, they, they did, all the indoor scenes of Jim's home, some of the outdoor shots of like the British sector or at Elstree.

Jean-Pierre (01:06:33.242)
Get old, George Lucas.

Eli Price (01:06:47.587)
The final bombardment of the city is at Elstree. so they did a good bit of stuff there. and then they moved on to, I think they wrapped up in Spain, near a place called Trebuena. Probably pronounced that wrong. I'm usually pretty good with Spanish, but that one is tricky. yeah, Norman Reynolds, the, production designer had a, internment camp built.

on some land bordering some marshes. So all of the last part of the movie at the internment camp was shot there. They had some torrential rains and a mosquito invasion apparently hold up the construction for five weeks. So it must have been a real bad mosquito invasion. Yeah, it was near some marshes. So.

Jean-Pierre (01:07:34.202)
my gosh. Sounds like Louisiana.

Eli Price (01:07:45.123)
Sounds close to home to me. We're surrounded by swamps over here in Louisiana. So yeah, production design as far as that goes. Going back to Shanghai, Rick Shaw's had apparently been banned by Mao Zedong as a symbol of capitalist oppression. So there were no Rick Shaw's in Shanghai at the time.

Jean-Pierre (01:07:47.61)
Now do it.

Eli Price (01:08:13.347)
So they had to make a bunch of them. I think they made about a hundred And then they alongside some tanks and period cars they flew them all over on some 747s Which you know, that's that sounds like a good good little Budget spent they're flying a bunch of stuff over on 740s

Jean-Pierre (01:08:34.426)
Sounds like a little throwback to the Steve Zizzo episode. Sounds like when Wes Anderson was like, why don't we just buy this boat instead of building one? Yeah. It's just easier. Or when Christopher Nolan was like, instead of doing a model plane, what if I crash an actual airplane into an actual airline airplane hanger? You know? It's just.

Eli Price (01:08:39.619)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:44.159)
and sell it around Africa to the Mediterranean. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:08:56.675)
actual airplane.

Eli Price (01:09:00.675)
at an airport.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:02.554)
at an airport. It's just cheaper. It's just cheaper.

Eli Price (01:09:05.763)
It's already there, you know.

yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:09.242)
I loved all the jokes from when Oppenheimer was coming out where they were going to be like, when Christopher Nolan explodes an actual atom bomb so he can keep things, you know, like realistic. Yeah. This is...

Eli Price (01:09:17.187)
Yeah.

real yeah yeah yeah well you know see even Spielberg did that too for Crystal Skull so put Harrison Ford in a fridge yeah man

Jean-Pierre (01:09:25.146)
Good times.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:32.794)
They actually put hairs in the fridge. Yeah, that was real. That was 100 % real!

No Victor for that one, all Harrison.

Eli Price (01:09:42.019)
Yes, love it. Yeah. So also in, back to Shanghai, for the post Pearl Harbor invasion sequence, they had a panel. This is what I read. 10 ,000 extras in period dress. It was a heck of a lot of people. I'll tell you that. It was definitely thousands.

Jean-Pierre (01:09:58.298)
I believe it.

Jean-Pierre (01:10:02.458)
This is like one of those things, this is like one of the things where like they don't, like this doesn't happen anymore. Like post CG, like, you know, you might have a couple hundred, like maybe a thousand tops, but then as soon as you kind of get out to the stretches, I mean, movies are just made so much differently. And then on top of that, you had like post COVID, things are just done so much differently now, but there is something.

Eli Price (01:10:08.099)
yeah. Yeah, you don't do this. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:19.363)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:24.195)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:10:31.834)
just so like, it's hard to describe when you're watching a movie like this and you see some of these big wide shots with like all this stuff happening and you know that everything you're seeing is for the most part actually happening in camera. So when you see the shot with like just a sea of people, it's literally a sea of people. Like it's, I don't know, there's something about it.

Eli Price (01:10:33.859)
it's, yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:43.619)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:48.675)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:10:53.923)
Yeah, it's, I heard, I read somewhere, I heard it described as a tidal wave of humanity. And I would add onto that. It's like a tidal wave of like fear and panic. Like it's, it's like, it's, it's really visually like oppressive in a way. That's, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:19.386)
Remind me of the shot from, there's like a really famous shot from like Gone with the Wind, I think, where they do this big crane shot where they pull back and you just see all these soldiers lying everywhere injured on the plantation that Scarlet lives on. It's that kind of vibe where you're just like.

Eli Price (01:11:24.131)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:11:28.931)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:33.955)
Yeah, what you get a.

Jean-Pierre (01:11:38.682)
I don't know. It's like, it's like, it's like one of those things that only Spielberg could have could pull something like this off where you literally have like just a sea of people. You know what I mean?

Eli Price (01:11:38.755)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:42.627)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:11:46.467)
Yeah, yeah, well they they they even closed off like a seven block area which had never been like closed off before to do this in and I looked at in the making of doc they showed like some period footage of that that block and it looks like it's like it hasn't changed it didn't change in the 40 50 years since the actual events which is really cool.

But yeah, they, they use some real Chinese military men, in that, in that scene, one of the crazy things. So like what you're talking about, it's, I mean, it's a sea of people. It is wild. you know, when they're being pushed along by the crowd, kind of carried along, like it's, it really feels like. And they, it seems like they actually were, and they trained, this group of people to like surround them. So like the.

The people immediately surrounding the actors are like trained bodyguards to like, to help protect them through the crowd. So that, that, that, that alone should tell you how like out of control it was.

Jean-Pierre (01:12:59.322)
Well, you know, and on that, you know, having, I can tell you, especially when I worked on Daisy Jones, we had a couple bigger crowd scenes, but what they do a lot of times nowadays is like, maybe they'll have like 300 extras and they'll arrange them, they'll shoot them, and then they'll move them to another section, rearrange them, shoot them, and then they stitch it all together in post if they don't do just straight up CG for massive crowds. But...

Eli Price (01:13:16.355)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:13:23.139)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:27.738)
You know, one of the things I can say, having worked on sets is you'd be surprised when it comes to extras, when it comes to people that are background actors. Some of these people take themselves way too seriously. And I can, so I can only imagine like adding on, like it's a different culture. It's a country that's a little more closed off. There's a language barrier. I can only imagine like how difficult it might've been to try and work with some of the background actors. And in this case, it's...

Eli Price (01:13:41.603)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (01:13:54.851)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:13:56.442)
I wouldn't really put the blame on the background actors necessarily. But definitely from my experience working on sets here in the States, there are some people that just make things way too difficult. And it's like, dude, you're going to be a blurry face in the background if you're lucky. But one of the other things I can also say is on Daisy Jones, there's a shot where they're doing a show at an arena.

Eli Price (01:13:58.883)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:14:07.427)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:22.627)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:14:22.842)
and she like walks to the edge of the stage, she turns around and she falls back and she gets like carried by the crowd. And they did this really cool, like they had a techno crane, so they did this really cool shot, it was like above, like watching her be carried. And the way that they did that is they had maybe 200 extras altogether, but the people who directly handled the actress, for lack of a better term, like the people who were actually responsible for carrying her along, were all stunt people.

Eli Price (01:14:30.275)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:46.883)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:14:52.506)
So they were all, you know, so they did it and they were the only ones that were allowed. They had them all in a pre -determined path. So much like this, you know, it is pretty normal. Like when you have something that's going to be a little more technical to like have, you know, more than just background in the immediate area. So we did like a wide shot with a stunt double for her and she did it first. And then when they did like the closeups with Riley, what's her face? He played Daisy.

Eli Price (01:14:52.611)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:14:58.595)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:15:08.707)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:15:22.426)
There was all stunt people who were the ones who were actually carrying her through the crowd. Just so it was people who had an extra level of responsibility and training. So that's pretty normal. But yeah, it makes total sense that you would have made sure that like immediately around your actors, considering in this case, they're likely just hiring random people off the street to come and be a background actor in a situation like this. So you definitely have to have a level of safety.

Eli Price (01:15:25.891)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:31.043)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:15:35.555)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:15:42.995)
yeah, there's just, it's yeah. Cause I mean, you have thousands of people you can't vet. You can't just vet them all. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:15:50.426)
Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. And plus, plus, like I said, if you're dealing with, you know, at the time, a country that's just kind of starting to reopen to Western influence, there's part there's there's there's that but also the language barrier, there's a lot of levels that like you got to make sure it especially on top of that you're working with a with a kid actor, there's always extra levels of like safety and security got to be concerned about. So that makes total sense. They would.

Eli Price (01:15:58.819)
Right.

Eli Price (01:16:03.715)
Yep. A lot. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:16:09.683)
Yeah. Yeah, Bell. there's a clip of Bell talking about that scene and saying like, at first I felt really claustrophobic. And I'm like, yeah, you don't say, Emily Richard who plays his mom was, was still ended up getting thrown to the ground in one take. So, I mean, even with like the, the special bodyguard, protectors, like they, it was still like, it,

Jean-Pierre (01:16:21.754)
I would have too. Same. Same kid.

Eli Price (01:16:38.211)
Probably more dangerous than you would think just watching the movie. Cause when you're watching the movie, you're like, it's a movie, but yeah, it was wild. They did get a, I love this. They got a $13 .5 thousand fine for pollution. Cause they were burning tires for the smoke in the scene. Smell terrible. I also love this Scorsese was, which, you know, they were, they were part of the movie Bratz crew of.

Jean-Pierre (01:16:54.522)
I know that would have, that probably smelled terrible. I already know.

Eli Price (01:17:07.907)
You know, the seventies and eighties. Yeah. So, so they, you know, they were, I don't know how close he was with Scorsese, but they were friends, acquaintances for sure. but.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:08.442)
New Hollywood, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:17:18.81)
I know him and Coppola were like much closer, right? I think, yeah.

Eli Price (01:17:22.211)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, but so, you know, Scorsese, I don't know, I didn't look at what the source was for this, but it was in one of the books I used for research. Scorsese was talking about this scene and how like Spielberg would like, you know, storyboard it and stuff, but also like when he thinks, when he thinks of something else, like he is able to just like make it happen on the fly. But this is the quote Scorsese said, he told me.

that he had first drawn all the plans and that at the last minute he imagined something else. Who else can do that? And I just, I just love that. It's even Scorsese is like, you know, I can't even, I don't, I can't do that. Like Spielberg can, you know? Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:18:05.242)
I wouldn't even mean even beyond who else can do that. Who else can actually has the fortitude to make it happen? You know, I mean, there's always things that like on the day, you know, there's like little moments of inspiration and things that that happen. But it's it's so that that's one thing. But to be able to kind of change your mind last minute, but also like have have the the crew ready to do what needs to be done to change it. That's that's a real.

Eli Price (01:18:12.035)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:18:24.771)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:18:31.802)
That's the real test of leadership as regards to a film set for sure.

Eli Price (01:18:35.555)
yeah, for sure. Yeah. yeah, some other kind of production design stuff that I thought was fun. maybe not fun, but just like, yeah, that's interesting that the hell they did that. the, so the Chinese, that were in the forest kind of labor outside the camps, in the movie, they're always like covered in white dust. And, Ballard was talking about how he just remembers those.

the Chinese people that were in that forced labor were just always covered in the white dust from like the concrete and all that. And they sprayed the actors with talcum powder for that effect, which I thought was like, yeah, that makes sense. Talcum powder. Obviously, if we're going to talk about production design, we got to talk about the planes. They had two, there's two.

I guess like three main planes. You have the Japanese kamikaze planes, which are Mitsubishi A6Ms, also known as the Zeroes. And so those are like a very famous, well -known plane from World War II. And then you also, yeah, you got, you see the Zeroes, yep. Or a Miyazaki movie.

Jean-Pierre (01:19:49.786)
If you've never seen a World War II movie involving the Japanese, that's probably the plane that you've seen.

Eli Price (01:20:00.611)
and then you have the us, so, I mean, you have the B 29s, which are in the movie some, but then there's the, the USP 51s, the Mustang, which, is also called the Cadillac of the sky, which Christian bell yells at the top of his lungs. Sky.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:09.178)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:17.178)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:23.418)
The Colour of the Sky!

Eli Price (01:20:29.379)
Yeah, so some of these were real planes that they used. That were those actual planes. Apparently they cost around $500 ,000 each. So there's you some budget money there.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:44.474)
That's wow, you think they could have just like rented them. Like, that's insane.

Eli Price (01:20:46.787)
I don't know. Maybe they did. Maybe it's maybe the, what I saw in my research was just saying how much they were worth, but I don't.

Jean-Pierre (01:20:54.714)
That would make more sense. I would imagine there was likely some kind of aerospace museum that was like, wait, Spielberg wants to borrow some planes? yeah, of course.

Eli Price (01:21:00.835)
But if they, yeah, but I guess if they are like, like, protected and stuff, yeah, you have to like rent it, but also ensure it. And I'm sure that costs a lot because I'm sure they really, really wanted to protect those being like period planes, but yeah, most of the planes were remote controlled models. They were about one third scale. we already shouted out, I think.

Jean-Pierre (01:21:07.93)
You probably have to insure them.

Jean-Pierre (01:21:18.874)
course.

Eli Price (01:21:29.187)
Peter Aston, I'm scrolling back up to get his name right. Yeah, Peter Aston, the main model guy. Yeah, they had anywhere from seven to 18 foot wingspans, which I'm sure the B -29s are the ones with the 18 foot wingspans. Yeah. Yes. But yeah, apparently from what I saw, these were the largest plane models used in film up to this point.

Jean-Pierre (01:21:47.674)
So big planes in real life.

Eli Price (01:21:58.883)
which is kind of cool, a cool fun fact. Yeah, I thought the plane work was really well done. They, in the making of docs, the guys were talking about how when you're flying these, so like you'll have three guys down on the ground with remotes and like every once in a while, one of the planes will kind of like veer off and like, but when you're just down on the ground and there's three of you flying planes like right next to each other in a group.

you always assume like, that's not mine. That's fearing off. And so, and so like, you just keep flying it and then you finally realized like, that's mine. which is a fun. Yeah, that was funny to me. makes total sense, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:22:33.978)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:22:39.578)
Yeah, I can imagine that, you know.

Jean-Pierre (01:22:45.466)
It's probably something that's a lot, a lot easier these days with the advances in technology. You know, as far as even if you are still using scale models, but I can definitely imagine it's, it can be, you know, a little bit like disorienting, you know, like I have friends that are like drone operators. And when you're a professional drone operator, like you're on movie sets, like you always have to have two people. So you have one person that's the actual pilot and they have to keep their eyes on the drone at all times. And you have your other.

Eli Price (01:22:50.627)
Right, yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:01.539)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:23:14.49)
your other operator that's operating the actual camera portion. And so you allow each person to focus, but I can imagine like, you know, you got a couple of guys flying RC planes right next to each other. It's really easy to get mixed up, who's is who's.

Eli Price (01:23:17.123)
Yeah, yeah.

That's really cool, yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:28.135)
Yeah. Yeah, especially if you're doing like kind of stunt work with them, you know, mixing them up and whatnot, which yeah, I've heard, I've heard that the Michael Bay's movie Ambulance has some like incredible drone work and I really want to see that. Have you seen it?

Jean-Pierre (01:23:34.362)
Right, right.

Jean-Pierre (01:23:46.106)
FPV, yeah. I've not, but I mean, obviously I saw the trailers, but, and I saw like, I've seen videos of people talking about the team that worked on it and like talking about some of the shots, but yeah, it's all, it's a lot of FPV drone work. So, which is like a...

Eli Price (01:23:52.035)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:23:59.139)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:03.139)
Yeah, I want to see that. If not, if for nothing else, but to see that that drum work, because I've heard it's really, really cool stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, there's a lot of production design stuff we could get into. I think the camp looks really good. Really great work there. Like the window. Yeah. Yeah. The marshy part.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:10.714)
Yeah, yeah, well, it's like a couple other movies where it started to pop up more and more often and a few other movies.

Jean-Pierre (01:24:29.178)
I love the little marshy part. yeah, the window and the American, yeah, the American dormitory window, yeah, for sure. But I think my favorite part of the campsite is definitely the little wetlands area that Jim has to crawl through. It's just a really cool vibe.

Eli Price (01:24:33.059)
The window is so cool, yeah.

Eli Price (01:24:43.235)
huh. Yeah. Yeah. Spielberg definitely does some, I think he, he does some like camera angle magic to make that seem bigger than it, than it is. yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. It looks good. The camp just in general, I think looks really good. you know, shout out to that, that town in Spain, I guess. but yeah, as far as,

Jean-Pierre (01:24:54.426)
Of course.

Eli Price (01:25:12.547)
Cinematography, camera work. I mean, of course you've got tons of tracking shots. You've got cranes galore, crane shots galore. Spielberg is like, I guess the crane shot king at this point. But yeah, I mean, beautiful wide shots throughout the film. I think this movie is like really beautifully shot in general.

Jean-Pierre (01:25:40.89)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:25:41.507)
You're a more camera savvy guy than I am though. What were your thoughts on just like how it looks?

Jean-Pierre (01:25:51.578)
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those movies where I wouldn't really say that it has a style, but it's a very realistic film, right? It's not trying to be a movie, per se. It's trying to tell Jim's story in a very realistic way. And so...

There's definitely some shots that really stick out to me. I kind of talked about the shot of like the family of clowns in the car that I really liked. You know, there's, yeah, there's quite a few, I mean, there are some really impressive wide shots throughout the movie with the massive extras or like, you know, the one I think of is like when they get to the arena where all the, all the possessions are, like all the wealthy house possessions, and they do like a really big wide shot of that. And then you just see.

Eli Price (01:26:21.315)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:26:30.403)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:26:36.323)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:26:45.274)
in all the production design on display. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know. It's not like the most, like if you wanna talk about like movies that I look at and I feel like are cinematic, this probably wouldn't be a movie that I necessarily think of. But at the same time, like I said, like it's not trying to be this like fancy over the top, like, look at how cool we are with this one shot we just set up.

Eli Price (01:27:00.099)
Mm.

Eli Price (01:27:13.699)
Yeah, it's you've got some pretty like typical Spielberg shots in this movie. I do think there are times where the way it shot like I agree that there's a lot that is going for a more like naturalistic look but I do think with so I'm just like making the connection so you have Alan Daviau Who also worked on Goonies with him and the color purple?

Jean-Pierre (01:27:14.202)
You know what I mean? Like...

Jean-Pierre (01:27:18.522)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:27:42.243)
And those movies both have this grounded look that has this like almost at times hazy fantastical look kind of. And I see that some here that kind of adds to that. Yeah. In certain sequences, it's definitely there, I think. And I think it's more like, I think he couldn't do this, do it as much in this.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:54.33)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:27:57.882)
Yeah, there's definitely a little bit of it.

Eli Price (01:28:11.459)
film as he did for the others because there's less like interior shooting which you can work with the smoke and the lighting a little bit to give that effect a little more in the interior but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:28:21.658)
Yeah, I definitely think it's one of those things where if you want to talk about like the Spielberg wonder or that Spielberg magic, I don't think this is the best display of that. But at the same time, you know, because it is a more or less some, some, some version of a true story and it's, it's talking about some very serious subject matter. I think, I think it didn't really need all that fanciness. I think.

Eli Price (01:28:29.411)
Mm -hmm.

Sure, yeah, right.

Eli Price (01:28:50.467)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:28:51.354)
you know, it serves its purpose in being a very, for lack of a better term, very dry, you know, cinematically speaking. But I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just, you know, it is what it is, you know? And I think they do a really good job of centering it around Jamie and like, there's a lot of really good shot. Like, I really love the, it's one of the things that's maybe more of a production costuming thing than a.

Eli Price (01:29:00.387)
Yes.

Jean-Pierre (01:29:20.09)
than him specifically, but I love the juxtaposition between him and that red coat. In some of the scenes, there's a scene where he gets separated from his mom and he's pushing through the crowd and everyone else is in grayish blue and he's in that dark red coat. So you don't lose him in the crowd. So there's a lot of moments like that where I think that they made just really smart decisions. Yeah, you think of Schindler's List as well as like...

Eli Price (01:29:25.731)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:29:30.819)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:29:44.739)
Bill Burke does use red. Yeah. huh. Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:29:50.074)
very infamously. But yeah, there's just, I think the best shots in this movie for me a lot of times are a lot of the really grandiose wide shots, which, you know, with just the sea of people in them, there's a lot of good ones like that, for sure.

Eli Price (01:29:52.131)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:30:02.275)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:30:07.907)
yeah. Yep, for sure. Last thing production wise, the score. John Williams, of course, it's a beautiful sweeping score. He's really like similar to ET to me, really like queuing you into the emotional beats in this, but like not, you know, sometimes that can be overbearing.

for movies, like I felt like it was overbearing in the color purple, which wasn't John Williams. But yeah, but when John Williams does it like in ET and in this movie, for some reason I'm okay with it. It just feels right. I don't know if that's just John Williams magic or what, but.

Jean-Pierre (01:30:40.026)
Like it's almost trying to manipulate you, you know what I mean?

Jean-Pierre (01:30:56.154)
That's how I feel about a lot of Hans Zimmer scores I feel like are just, he just perfectly nails the emotional energy of the scene. And I think that, I think for me, John Williams, I think a lot of times does a lot of, a lot of his themes really suit, it's hard to think of John Williams outside of Indiana Jones or Jaws or Star Wars or.

Eli Price (01:31:01.315)
Sure, yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:07.587)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:22.883)
Mm -mm.

Jean-Pierre (01:31:26.526)
I'll say the one thing, it's like Superman, right? Like these, these like very like these heroic themes that I feel like really suit the character really, really well. And I think it's, it's sometimes easy to forget that he also does movies like this where he's doing something a lot more subtle, where he's really just trying to let the music accentuate as opposed to something like Star Wars where it's like almost as much of a character, you know, as, as the...

Eli Price (01:31:29.955)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:31:36.131)
Yep.

Eli Price (01:31:40.707)
Right.

Eli Price (01:31:51.107)
Right. Like the themes get tied to the characters. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:31:56.442)
Right, right, right. And so a movie like this, it's like the music's really just there to complement what's happening. And there were a couple a couple moments, I mean, that I was like, wow, I'm really like, like, I think I think it's towards the beginning, there's like this one, like central theme that kind of pops up that I was like, I need to go look up the score. Yeah, which

Eli Price (01:32:11.331)
There's that Welsh lullaby that it's called Suoguan, Suoguan or some Suogon.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:17.69)
Do you know if that was Christian Bale singing at any point in the movie?

Eli Price (01:32:21.443)
I'm not sure to be honest. I didn't come across that in my research. but, I mean, it might've been, I really don't know. I'm curious now that you asked that. but yeah, it's a, it's a Welsh lullaby and he's Welsh. So maybe, maybe it was him. I don't know. yeah. And it kind of, if I'm remembering right, it kind of bookends the film with that lullaby.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:38.582)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:49.178)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:32:50.723)
So, and it's really beautiful. Like it's beautifully used in the movie.

Jean-Pierre (01:32:56.378)
Well, you know, it's kind of interesting to see.

Eli Price (01:33:01.091)
It feels very different at the beginning than at the end.

Jean-Pierre (01:33:03.61)
Right, well it kind of represents some of his transition, right? I love how he's in church singing with the choir and then there's that scene at the party where he's like, I'm an atheist. And I love how the one guy's like, your boy tells you that he's an atheist, apparently. And the dad's like, I always figured he was. And it's very interesting, I was just very nonchalant. They're just like, yeah, whatever. But anyway, but then at the end of it, which again, kind of getting back into this,

Eli Price (01:33:14.467)
huh.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:21.923)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:27.523)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:33:33.818)
Attempt at trying to like humanize Japanese characters, but I don't know they really do it well Where you see that he's he's got like this reverence and respect specifically for the pilots and so as they're like drinking the tea which if you know anything about history like that's like the Kamikaze ritual like you know that these these men are flying out and they're not supposed to come back, you know and so He he starts to sing it for them

Eli Price (01:33:37.155)
Fair, yeah.

Eli Price (01:33:44.227)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:33:49.859)
Right.

Eli Price (01:33:55.107)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:01.114)
in a very authentic way, like I feel like he, he, he's kind of, I don't know it, you know, it's, it's interesting. And I love the shot of the, of the Sergeant, the, you know, hard ass Sergeant who's like tearing up a little bit. Like, which that, that whole dynamic is very interesting as well. Like at the end where he's like hard boy, and then he just moves on. I don't know. It's, it's weird.

Eli Price (01:34:03.267)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:34:12.963)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (01:34:18.083)
Yeah, it's a really.

Eli Price (01:34:22.947)
Yeah, it's it's a like strangely touching sequence it's weird it like cuz I Was it is that aspect of like his fascination with the Japanese Airmen or is very like strange, you know, but you know when you when you take

When you step out, like it's, it makes sense because of his lack of ties to anything Western really. but, but like that scene is like strangely touching cause it, it does these inserts of different people, like looking on to his kind of, it's almost like his last, bit of innocence, in a, in a way.

Jean-Pierre (01:34:54.874)
That's fair.

Jean-Pierre (01:35:13.658)
Yeah, I was literally about to... yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:35:16.643)
And everyone's watching on and really from that point on, like he's, his innocence kind of goes to the wayside. I feel like to a certain degree.

Jean-Pierre (01:35:27.322)
Yeah.

Which you know, this is kind of on the cult topic of like the cinematography. I really do love the way that they shot the sequence at the end where he's in the reunification tent with all the other kids. Because I couldn't really remember how exactly it happened. I kind of, I thought that maybe he was like, he was sitting, he wasn't even expecting his parents to come. But I like how they're like, they kind of start to pan across the crowd and like you see all the kids and they all just look pretty normal. Like.

Eli Price (01:35:42.143)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:00.378)
Like they all look like normal, sophisticated British children. And then like at first you only see like a little segment of his face. And then as it continues to pan over, you just see these sullen eyes. I mean, this kid has been through hell and back. And he obviously is completely different than all the other kids around him. And I love it. His parents literally pass him up at first. They don't even recognize him, which was crazy.

Eli Price (01:36:08.547)
-huh.

Eli Price (01:36:14.275)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:36:25.923)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:30.106)
But I think there's a lot to be said there. But I really did love the way that that sequence was shot as well, where you just... Also, I think, again, talking about the costuming in that moment as well, everyone else is in kind of like white kind of colors, like very bright colors. And then again, not only is he like dirty with his like, you know, sunken eyes, he's wearing like the black coat, like the leather bomber jacket.

Eli Price (01:36:34.531)
yeah. Great camera work. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:36:46.787)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:36:56.099)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:36:58.746)
And so even that way, he like really stands out for the rest of the crowd as well. And again, I think it's something that they kind of do, you know, throughout the film is they do a good job of making him feel separate, especially when he's in these crowd shots where he would be very easily lost. They do a good job of like kind of keeping your eyes attention on him for sure.

Eli Price (01:37:19.587)
Yeah, it's one of those like, just like expertly like the composition and the way the camera moves through the scene is just like, it's something that Spielberg does so well. Like when he's tuned in, like his scene composition and his like ability to like move the camera like exactly how it should be moved through the scene is just so good. But yeah.

Yeah, so they just wrapping up this, this portion of the show today, the, they finished production slightly ahead of schedule. yeah, always a win. the budget, the, but I don't, I don't know how much it seems like the budget, they were either like really full or like maybe went a little over. I'm not sure, but slightly ahead of schedule is a, is a big deal. Spielberg at this point is pretty good about that.

Jean-Pierre (01:38:00.89)
Always a win.

Eli Price (01:38:19.459)
unlike earlier in his career. But Ballard really loved the movie. He was active in the marketing for the movie. And it released on Christmas Day, 1987, December 25th. I think it had a earlier in December release for New York, Los Angeles. But the wide release was Christmas Day.

Jean-Pierre (01:38:45.882)
which it's kind of crazy to think of a movie, especially one shot on film with such a quick turnaround considering they just shot this. Like, you know, that's especially a movie this long and not that it's a blockbuster, but it's coming from someone like Spielberg. Cause I mean, nowadays the turnaround on a movie is pretty cool. It can usually be about a year is pretty normal. I mean, you think like Lisa Frankenstein we shot in November.

Eli Price (01:38:53.155)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:38:58.787)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:39:06.243)
Yeah, it's fine.

Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:16.122)
2022, I think, and that just came out in February. Now, again, I think with that one, they I think they edited like two versions of it. But but it's usually only the lower budget stuff that is that quick. We're trying to look. I think one of the first movies I worked on was a movie called Black and Blue, which is like a really bad ripoff of Training Day by a guy named Dion Taylor, who Dion Taylor, not he's ever going to listen to this necessarily. But if he does shout to you, he's a cool guy. But.

Eli Price (01:39:17.539)
Mm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (01:39:26.851)
Yes.

Jean-Pierre (01:39:46.97)
That movie I think we shot in February and it came out in October. So even then it's like six months or so. So that clip could have a turnaround is pretty, pretty abnormal.

Eli Price (01:39:51.363)
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like Spielberg was doing that these days because Color Purple was similar. It was shot in like the spring and summer and came out in December.

Jean-Pierre (01:40:06.906)
I mean, I guess at this point, he's probably gotten to a point where he's shooting what he wants to shoot. He doesn't have a lot of extra stuff to go through.

Eli Price (01:40:11.683)
Mm -hmm. Well, also, also he's done every movie since Close Encounters Save ET with Michael Kahn, his editor. And so they're probably just like, they're just tuned in. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:40:23.546)
probably helps too. Yeah, he already kind of, you know, he already kind of knows what Spielberg's like, you know, sensibilities are. So that's obviously, that's definitely super helpful as well, I'm sure. But I don't know.

Eli Price (01:40:31.139)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, he's.

Eli Price (01:40:37.186)
Yeah. Editing is huge for putting these. I mean, like I've said it before on the podcast and I'll say it again, but like editing, the way a movie is edited together is like almost just as important as how it was directed, you know? And so, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:40:54.554)
Yeah, the movie, they say the, the, I was watching a video essay recently about something and it was like the, the amount of change a movie can go through in the, the script writing, the filming and the editing phase is actually almost exactly the same. Like, like the, the amount of tweaks and the amount of things you can move around in all three portions is almost the same.

Eli Price (01:41:13.027)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:41:21.53)
which is really crazy to think about. But like, you can like, again, you can completely restructure a movie in the edit. And obviously, you know, no one will be the wiser if they didn't know about it. So yeah, that's definitely true.

Eli Price (01:41:27.299)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:41:31.811)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, well, yep, they got it out. Christmas Day, which I don't know that I would want to watch this movie on Christmas Day, but yeah, it...

Jean-Pierre (01:41:45.434)
Yeah, this is not a Christmas Day movie. But that's still a thing that happens nowadays is like award season. Like, didn't the Iron Claw come out on Christmas Day? It was right around Christmas Day.

Eli Price (01:41:52.195)
Yeah, that kind of like prestige drama film.

Hmm.

I'm not sure honestly. Yeah, that was a bummer. Bummer as a movie. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:02.906)
I'm pretty sure it was, it was pretty cool. It was a phenomenal movie, depressing as hell, but phenomenal though. I was so mad that it didn't get a, it should have gotten a best picture nom or Zac Efron should have got a best actor, but that's a.

Eli Price (01:42:10.403)
Well made but I was like I walked out and I was like, man

Eli Price (01:42:17.475)
Yeah, I think I shouted him out in my, I did an episode where I did my own like, kind of my own nominations and I don't, he made an honorable mention. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:26.842)
Yeah. All I can say, there's always gotta be at least one, like, depressing holiday season movie.

Eli Price (01:42:31.939)
Yes. Yeah. So they had, I think around a $25 million budget on this. I've been getting like different numbers for box office. So like, for some reason, the book I'm using, is always like a decent amount higher than what I'm finding on box office mojo. but also like, I saw the same number from a different source as in the book. That's so I saw 66 million.

Jean-Pierre (01:42:59.802)
I feel like the book would probably be pretty reliable, I would assume.

Eli Price (01:43:03.363)
66 million is what the book says. And I saw that somewhere else too, just when you Google it, but box office mojo said 22 million domestic. So I don't know.

Jean-Pierre (01:43:16.506)
Well, maybe 66 was like during its entire run, like domestic and international, like the total box off.

Eli Price (01:43:20.515)
Yeah, yeah, and it said it didn't really have much for international on boxes. So maybe they just don't have those numbers for box office mojo. But yeah, 66 million.

Jean-Pierre (01:43:31.354)
Yeah, so I would just assume the 66 is like total box office, like, regardless of domestic or not.

Eli Price (01:43:34.435)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:43:37.795)
Yeah, so I mean, technically, like this is financially like a pretty decent movie, but like for Spielberg. Yeah, yeah, I mean, for Spielberg, this is like, not a not a very big success. Like for for a lot of people 66 million on a $25 million budget, like pretty good, but for Spielberg, not so much, I would say. And.

Jean-Pierre (01:43:45.05)
I'm surprised it was only $25 million. Like you think the budget would have been higher.

Jean-Pierre (01:44:04.474)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:44:06.211)
The reception was similar. The press was pretty lukewarm. The critics actually preferred John Borman's Hope and Glory released at a similar time. That also had a kid perspective of war. I've never seen that one.

Jean-Pierre (01:44:21.626)
Mmm. Have to watch that one.

So I'm gonna be honest, the press ain't the only one that's lukewarm about it.

Eli Price (01:44:29.603)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get, we'll get there. some lead critics saw it as a major leap forward for Spielberg. Janet Maslin of the New York Times said it was unforgettable. Andrew Sars of the village voice said it was, he said it was the best of the year. but then like the, the results from the re like the audience reception just wasn't as good. It seems like.

It seems like it might've been something to do with going to a Spielberg movie and expecting one thing, but getting something different. Cause the Spielberg has a reputation at this point and this movie is not like the uplifting sentimental. It has its moments of that, but like overall just the story doesn't allow for you to go down that route.

Jean-Pierre (01:45:20.346)
I'm just trying to think, this seems like it's kind of his first non -genre slash blockbuster film. It's his first time trying to do...

Eli Price (01:45:29.571)
Yeah. I mean, you have the color purple was definitely like a prestige drama. That was like, it was based on a book too. Yeah. The play came around, the Broadway play musical came around in 2005. So, yeah. Yeah. So he did the color purple and then followed it up with this. So they're two kind of like more prestige drama, the color purple being,

Jean-Pierre (01:45:36.442)
That was based on a play though, right? Or, okay, okay, okay. I thought there was a stage play or something. Maybe that was after.

Jean-Pierre (01:45:48.858)
Okay.

Eli Price (01:45:59.811)
a very different story, obviously, but this is kind of a prestige war drama film. So it just like has a different tone than people are used to from Spielberg movies. And Myra Forsberg, a critic of the said about on that note, she said, quote, a movie with grown up themes and values, although spoken through a voice that hadn't changed through puberty yet. That was interesting.

I, Roger Ebert, I know it felt similarly lukewarm about it, which I love Roger Ebert. I always like to see what he says. I also always like to see, see what Pauline Kale says. she was a big critic for the New Yorker, back then. And, she, she, the reason I like her is because her takes are always like,

very strong. Like she just, if she doesn't like it, she digs into it. If she loves it, she like praises it. And there's a little bit of in -between, but she takes a side, which I love it. But I wrote down a long quote from her because I thought it was very interesting. This is a quote.

Jean-Pierre (01:47:10.49)
Chaz, how it is?

Eli Price (01:47:25.923)
Empire of the sun begins majestically and stays strong for perhaps 45 minutes. It's so gorgeously big, you want to laugh in pleasure. Steven Spielberg takes over Shanghai and makes it his city. It's swarming with people all doing his bidding as the camera moves around the tops of stately buildings up to the streets below. And then first in brief patches and then in longer ones, his directing goes terribly wrong. Working on an enormous scale and with a large theme.

He throws himself into bravura passages, lingers over them, trying to give them a poetic obsessiveness and loses his grasp of the narrative. For the sake of emotion, to have something to say, to give the picture meaning, he pumps it full of false emotion. That's what his poetry is." It's like, dang. Polling kale going in on Empire of the Sun. Yeah, it sounds similar to...

Jean-Pierre (01:48:19.194)
I don't necessarily disagree with anything she said.

Eli Price (01:48:23.811)
what you, your, your take is. I, I, I feel a little differently. I guess I'm more, I'm, I'm more warm than lukewarm on this movie. So we'll, we'll get into that. but just wrapping up awards wise, it got six Oscar nominations, for cinematography, art direction, costume design, sound, editing, and the score by John Williams. Six nominations and guests.

who ironically it lost all six of those two, none other than the last emperor who technically did beat them to shooting in the People's Republic of China.

Jean-Pierre (01:48:58.074)
the arch nemesis.

Jean-Pierre (01:49:05.242)
Yeah. Can you imagine the audacity of like that movie shooting in China before this movie? They tried to market this movie as like the first Western film shot in the People's Republic of China only for the last emperor to sweep them at the Oscars. I mean, I, yeah. Just lots of, lots of egg on the face in that one for sure.

Eli Price (01:49:16.355)
Yep.

Eli Price (01:49:20.931)
Yes. Just man. Yeah. yeah. Yes. you know, I didn't look at, the full list of like acting nominations, but I was like, man, honestly, like the Christian bell performance in this, like feels worthy of like a nomination. it feels like something that Academy would typically like recognize. but.

But they also like probably weren't at a point where they were doing a whole lot of like child actor nominations back then. Yeah, they still don't, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:49:58.01)
It's still the loan. I mean, it's pretty rare for anyone like underage to get nominated no matter how good their performance is. Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:06.467)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:50:09.859)
Yeah, but yeah, to me it's it's his performance is worthy of like at least consideration like it's it's a really good performance and it's in the and it's a performance in a movie that the Academy the the type of movie the Academy would typically go for you know, so But yeah that that's like the production the results of the movie

Let's dig more into some key aspects of the movie. I did want to talk briefly about the history. We've touched on a little bit of this, but like kind of like high level view of it. So Shanghai had tons of Western influence before the war. It was called the Paris of the East. And Westerners really like took advantage of, there was pretty like loose government regulation and oversight.

Jean-Pierre (01:50:58.01)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:51:06.275)
In China at the time, there wasn't a strong state presence, which probably has a lot to do with how the Japanese so easily took occupation there. And then after the war, the Westerners just vanished along with their influence. So that's why you have a lot of...

Jean-Pierre (01:51:22.362)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:51:32.195)
I mean, like, so you have like those shots of like the huge Gone with the Wind poster in the movie. And that's like very true to what it was like in, in Shanghai. You got the European architecture that we talked about. It's just very much like, it was kind of like the capitalist center of the East at the time. And then, I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then, so I think the Japanese started.

Jean-Pierre (01:51:36.954)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:51:50.586)
Mm. Right. That in Hong Kong, for sure.

Eli Price (01:52:02.019)
doing some occupation starting, I think, even back to 1931. But, you know, officially 1937 is when it really like goes into a strong effect. But what was crazy was, and you see this at the beginning of the movie, the inner... I think this is all good to know because when you watch the movie, you don't necessarily like...

It doesn't teach you these things. And so you kind of have to try to figure it out. That might be something that the movie could have done a little bit better of doing. It has like the opening narration crawl. but still you're kind of like, wait, so, you know, what are, what's going on? But basically the, there was an international sediment settlement within Shanghai after the 1937 invasion. So Japan was already occupying the city of Shanghai.

Jean-Pierre (01:52:33.978)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:53:01.091)
and then there was this like basically city within a city within the city where all the international settlements and the Japanese basically just kind of left them alone. they didn't want to aggravate, for like pre, you know, aggravate, any of the European or American people that were there. so they just kind of let them be. So they really were still living their like lush lifestyle.

Jean-Pierre (01:53:05.21)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:53:21.114)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:53:30.243)
all the while, like the Chinese or, you know, the Japanese have already like kind of taken over the rest of Shanghai and the Chinese people outside of that settlement are suffering already. And it was like that for four years because they didn't start imprisoning the Westerners until after Pearl Harbor, which happened in 1941.

Jean-Pierre (01:53:41.978)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:53:58.371)
And so for four years you have, just like you see in the movie, like they're going through checkpoints to go to different parts of Japanese free places. And then, yeah, after Pearl Harbor, thousands of Westerners were imprisoned.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:10.106)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:18.042)
So I guess I got a little confused because there's a scene where he, when they're at the Halloween party, he runs out into the field, he finds the downed Zero, and he comes across the soldiers. Were those Japanese soldiers or Chinese soldiers? Okay.

Eli Price (01:54:26.499)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

Eli Price (01:54:33.827)
Yes, those are Japanese soldiers and it's kind of like indicating, okay, something's coming. They're kind of closing in and getting ready to do the full on invasion of even the international settlement.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:43.034)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:51.29)
Cause I remember seeing, you know, I saw that part and I'm like...

Eli Price (01:54:53.955)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (01:54:55.93)
I thought like they were trying to imply they were Japanese soldiers, but I was like, but no one seems overly concerned. These guys are just camping out. They've built like an entire bunker for themselves, like not that far away from this house.

Eli Price (01:55:03.683)
Yeah, they were, they're kind of, they're kind of fighting.

Well, yeah, well, because it's because like the, the, I think there was this like mutual kind of like, Hey, you know, the Japanese were kind of like, Hey, we know y 'all are Westerners and we don't want to start anything with y 'all. And there was kind of this mutual, like, you know, that's why he's there. They kind of like are calling him back and like, you know, the Japanese kind of.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:24.922)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:32.89)
Don't run.

Eli Price (01:55:35.427)
stay to themselves and they stay to themselves and it's kind of like this mutual like, you know, y 'all do your thing, we'll do our thing. You know, we're not, we're not that worried that you're oppressing the Chinese. we kind of are too.

Jean-Pierre (01:55:44.442)
Yeah, well like you said, the movie doesn't really...

Yeah, the movie doesn't really give you a great, like you said, doesn't really explain that too well, for sure.

Eli Price (01:55:52.867)
Yeah. And then, and some aspects are like accurate and some like aren't quite as accurate. there's a really good, episode of a podcast that I listened to. I'm trying to remember what the name of the podcast is. it is called service on celluloid. but it is a,

It's a podcast that's put on by the World War II, the National World War II Museum, which is actually in New Orleans. They have this podcast called Service on Celluloid. And basically like they look at movies that depict World War II and talk about it from like a history perspective, like what's accurate, what's not, what perspective does the movie give you?

Jean-Pierre (01:56:29.018)
Yeah.

Eli Price (01:56:50.019)
they give you context. It was a, it was a really interesting episode to listen to. So I'll try to link that in the episode notes so that people can go listen to that if they're interested in it. yeah, yeah, for sure. I need to look up this, this podcast in general, cause when I, when I come across other World War II movies, it'd be probably interesting to hear that, like the historical aspect. And I'm scrolling through, I mean, they have like, it seems like

Jean-Pierre (01:57:00.314)
It sounds like something I like those two as well for sure.

Eli Price (01:57:19.747)
maybe over 40 episodes. So yeah, Mrs. Miniver, which is a movie I watched recently, they have episodes. So yeah, I need to go back and I got a Casablanca episode. Yeah, they have a lot of stuff on here. So yeah, that would be really interesting to listen to some of those, the historical context for those. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (01:57:23.418)
wow.

Eli Price (01:57:48.387)
I'll try to remember to link that in the episode notes for everyone. But yeah, you can look it up if I don't forget. But yeah, so I just thought it was like, this feels like a really like interesting, unique perspective of the war. Like it's a part of the war that you don't really hear about a whole lot. Kind of the war, the effects that it had on China. I mean, there's like...

Jean-Pierre (01:57:56.026)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:58:16.355)
I think that the like really conservative number that's probably way off for, for yeah, for Chinese deaths is like 14 million. it's, it was probably way more than that. I think that's like the conservative number, which is wild. just like terrible, but yeah, I mean, I guess moving on.

Jean-Pierre (01:58:22.826)
propagandized.

Jean-Pierre (01:58:27.45)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (01:58:44.707)
Spielberg distinctives were, I have a few written down in the notes, but was there anything that was like, when you watched it, you were like, yeah, that's Spielberg. This is.

Jean-Pierre (01:58:56.378)
I mean, yeah, just those kind of really nice tracking shots, the wide shots, you know. Yeah, those are all very distinctive to this stuff.

Eli Price (01:59:01.415)
That we already talked about yeah, you know The silhouettes is what gets me I'm starting to I'm starting to realize that like the silhouette shot is like the Spielberg shot at this point like That man cannot have a movie without a silhouette shot or multiple silhouette shots He just he loves them and Yeah, I am

Another thing that I noticed he likes to do that I really think is an interesting way to have a character come into frame instead of like moving the camera to like onto the character to put them in frame. He has the character like enter the frame like a still frame. He does that a decent amount. And sometimes it's like a more medium shot that he does that in, but sometimes it's like a close up.

like a character will step into close -up. And I think it's just a really... It's just an interesting way to do something different with the camera. And usually it's to add something to the character too. It's not just to have a cool shot, but I think there's a point where...

Jean-Pierre (02:00:21.114)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:00:29.411)
Jim like Jim steps into frame and it's like a low angle and it's looking up at him in the sky and like there's there's this like I can't remember exactly what's going on but I remember having the feeling that like the there's purpose there was purpose behind him having it like a low angle looking at up at him and having the sky as the background as he's like stepping into frame. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:54.202)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:00:58.234)
Yeah, maybe not so much a Spielberg distinctive. I think some of his BBC does this, but there's a lot of really good usage of insert shots in this film. You know?

Eli Price (02:01:07.907)
Yeah, mm -hmm. Yeah, I agree. The standout to me, I think, is the stadium, like with all the stuff. Like he does a lot of inserts throughout that. Like...

Jean-Pierre (02:01:21.082)
yeah, whenever, you know, talking about like a Spielberg, a very Spielbergian shot is where the camera kind of focuses on the little decal on the top of the car and it focuses on that and then like you kind of see Jamie come into frame and it kind of shifts to him realizing that's his family's car, you know. That's like a really good moment.

Eli Price (02:01:36.899)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:01:42.691)
Yep. Mm -hmm. Yep, yep. Mm -hmm. Or at least like, or at least like the same type of car that his family had, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah, really good.

Jean-Pierre (02:01:52.698)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:01:57.786)
I think there's also a lot to be said about like, that, you know, they bring all the, the British socialites to that stadium and like, it's all there. It's all the things that represent their copious wealth just sitting out rotting, so to speak.

Eli Price (02:02:04.963)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:02:11.395)
Yeah, it's visually, it's a very like strong point in the film, I think a very like striking visual. And that's in the book too. I don't know if that's like a thing that, you know, it's one of those things where you, it's hard to like know like what's fact and what's fiction. Cause it's, you know, Ballard talks about how like, it's just based on experiences, not really like necessarily true. But,

Jean-Pierre (02:02:31.834)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:02:40.035)
But yeah, that's in the book too. He spends some time there. It seems like in the movie, it might be like a little bit more like, there might be a little bit more to it. Then it seems like in the book, there's maybe less, there's a lot of stuff there and a lot of furniture and cars and stuff. But in the movie, it seems like it's like jam packed full of stuff. And I didn't really get that sense in the book. But.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:05.786)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:03:09.987)
But yeah, it's interesting. The other Spielberg distinctive, it's just one sequence that I think it stands out in is tension building, a specific type of tension building, which is very little is happening, but there's so much tension. And it's the march scene that we've talked about a couple of times where Sergeant Agata is looking.

Jean-Pierre (02:03:30.33)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:03:39.299)
you know, sees the shoes and he's like looking in the marshes and, Jim is, you know, hiding behind the reeds and stuff. And there's like, yeah, taking bets. -huh. And, yeah, it's, it's just like very, very strong tension building that Spielberg is really good at. you know, that you kind of see, like even in a movie like the color purple, you get that as, Celia is like,

Jean-Pierre (02:03:47.418)
Then it cuts to all the Americans taking bets on if he's gonna live or die.

Eli Price (02:04:09.635)
going to shave Mr's neck and like there's this like tension building with if she's you can see that she's thinking about doing something else with the razor. But yeah, he just he just knows how to work that. It's like it's it's like with the camera, he's building the tension even though there's not a whole lot going on in the frame somehow. It's just really, really impressive. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:04:21.402)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:04:35.866)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:04:39.514)
Can we press pause real quick and take a quick restroom break? All right, one second.

Eli Price (02:04:42.499)
Yeah, sure.

Jean-Pierre (02:06:29.562)
All right Sorry about that is like Well over two hours and I was like, all right, let me get up and use the bathroom stretch real quick. Okay

Eli Price (02:06:38.499)
Yeah, no worries. Yeah, I think we're in the home stretch for this one. Sweet. All right, I'm going to give a short pause and then jump back in.

Jean-Pierre (02:06:43.61)
Yeah, they were making good time here.

Eli Price (02:06:56.163)
Yeah, we we've talked a little bit about like some standout images sequences. But yeah, what you know, you've mentioned the clowns in the car. What what are some other like really stand out, like whether it's like an image or maybe even like a whole sequence that just like really stood out to you, maybe like something that was good or maybe even something that you thought was like not.

very well done, just like that stood out to you.

Jean-Pierre (02:07:29.21)
Yeah, I mean...

I like the sequence, I'll tell you in my head, a couple scenes that I really like. I like the scene where they're kind of in the first camp and that hanger of some sort. And James just having a really bad time of it. He gets knocked over, the lady throws the water in his face. But the scene in that moment that really stuck out to me is whenever...

Eli Price (02:07:43.715)
Mmm.

Eli Price (02:07:47.267)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:07:55.907)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:08:02.81)
is it Bassey's name, right? Bassey. Bassey's trying to take a lady's shoes. He's like, what are you doing? He's like, well, they're about your size. And he's like, no, no, I don't want her shoes. Like leave her alone. You know, that seems really interesting. I love, you know, of course the March sequence where the sergeants like hunting, we just talked about is great. almost gives me like, it's almost like a brief little, little flash to like Vietnam reminds me of like the predator.

Eli Price (02:08:04.483)
Basie, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:08:12.259)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:21.603)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:08:30.659)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:08:31.962)
with Arnold like, you know, crawling through the mud and everything. Like it's, it's interesting. I, I do think the, the relationship he has with the, with like the little, the young boy, you know, I guess soldier who worked with the pilots is interesting. The sequence kind of when he shows back up at the airfield, which I think one of the things that gets a little confusing about the movie is like,

Eli Price (02:08:34.403)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:08:45.859)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:08:58.522)
the passage of time. There's a couple of really good subtle ways that they do it though. Like I like towards the beginning, he gets back to his house and like when he first gets to the house, there's a shot of the pool and you see it like pretty full and it's covered in leaves. And then the next time we see the shot, the pool is like halfway full, which is a really good way of showing the passage of time. And then we see it again and it's almost empty, you know?

Eli Price (02:09:00.483)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:09:08.547)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:09:17.539)
Right. It's slowly draining. Yeah. And that's in the book too. Like he, he's really using. So like there's a, I listened to the book and what I noticed when I was listening to, I was about halfway through the book when I watched the movie. and what I noticed when I was listening to the book is I would hear him describe something and I was like, that's a very strong visual representation. I can't wait to see, you know, what Spielberg does with that. That.

visual representation of something. And that was one of the things that I had already listened to in the book. And when I saw it in the movie, I was like, there we go. A good example of taking something that in the book is described that you can picture and using it in a meaningful way visually in the movie. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:48.474)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:09:57.306)
Thanks. That's cool.

Jean-Pierre (02:10:11.578)
Yeah, I mean, and again, like another really good example of this is like, you know, this movie almost has like three acts, like very distinctively, like most movies have three acts, but, but okay, that makes sense. And so I love, I love kind of the end of the first part. And then when we do the pan over to hit to like our new and improved Jamie with like the really bad haircut and he's no longer wearing like his British schoolboy.

Eli Price (02:10:18.883)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's three parts in the book, so... Yep.

Eli Price (02:10:36.259)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:10:40.931)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:10:41.466)
Outfit like he's you know, he's a little more a little more frazzled and again They kind of almost do the same thing another a second time. But this time we see him all decked out and his like American clothes he starts walking through the camp while smoking a cigar of some of some sort and just very very interesting but yeah, I think there's just a lot of really good of those really good individual Moments like there's some really good passage of time

Eli Price (02:10:56.835)
Yeah, with his aviators.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:10.298)
scenes. But also, like I was saying with the, you know, the, the, the kamikaze kid, so to speak, like the sequence where he shows back up at the airfield, which it was a little confusing as far as like how much time had passed in this instance, because it's like, okay, so we got brought to the field or to the arena, and then he's been wandering around for at least a couple of days at least. And I guess it's like, they don't really do a good job of explaining like how far he was moved. I guess he was close enough to where he was able to like,

Eli Price (02:11:22.915)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:31.299)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:11:39.994)
drag a parachute full of food back over to the internment camp, finds his buddy, and then the scene where that kid gets shot, because they think he's about to slice him with the sword, that, man, that's rough. And I love how he's, the guy starts running towards him. He's like, you bastard! And he like throws him in the water and he's, I mean, he's getting rough. This guy's like, this kid's about to drown this man. And like, this really shows you.

Eli Price (02:11:43.043)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:52.067)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Eli Price (02:12:03.523)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:12:06.202)
how much he's had to grow into a fighter and a survivor as opposed to when we first meet him where you're just like, man, this is like the most stuck up kid I've ever met in my entire life.

Eli Price (02:12:08.163)
Eli Price (02:12:16.323)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, and we can we can jump into Jim before we get back to like some other really great sequences, you know, since we're talking about him. I noted some some things about Jim like so. I mean, you have. One of the things I wrote down is survival like you start off with Jim and like his first instinct is to surrender, which I think is.

It's kind of comical, but, very like innocent, you know, it shows his innocence. He's just like, I'm supposed to surrender. I need to just go ahead and surrender. I don't need to be alone. let me go ahead and surrender to the Japanese. And then he's like, man, surrendering is really hard. which I thought was, you know, he's, he kind of talks about that in the book, which is funny, to me. but the Japanese just kind of like laugh at him. There's like, you know,

I get it get away. And I guess it's probably it's probably like, why would we take this kid? Like he's going to be more of hassle to us than anything. But, but yeah, he, but then it gets to the point where he's just kind of like the middle man, like of the camp. He's like, he, he grows to a point where like, like you were talking about in the warehouse or hangar or whatever. He's like, no, don't take her shoes. He's getting water thrown in his face.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:15.578)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:23.546)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:13:45.187)
And then like we jumped to later in the movie and the, in the camp and he's like running, he's basically like running everything. He's making all the trades.

Jean-Pierre (02:13:52.858)
They have a really good insert shot of the golf shoes when he walks to the hospital. And I like how he's really subtle about, he grabs the glass bottle and pops the cork off and kind of pushes it back over. He does it in a way in which the doctor doesn't really notice, but they also kind of have that insert shot where it's like, from his perspective, looking at the fancy golf shoes and he's just become a very different person already. You know, one thing I did, I was just thinking of,

Eli Price (02:13:56.931)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:14:14.531)
Yep. Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:22.714)
that I wonder if it was possibly a mistake of some sort because it's not really addressed is between the hanger and the internment camp where they have the whole sequence at the truck where Basie gets picked to get to the truck. And he immediately starts trying to befriend the other kids and like is basically just trying to, and it's really weird how like he's, he, he intentionally ignores Jamie.

Eli Price (02:14:35.363)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:14:49.475)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:14:49.914)
But then literally like two seconds later, he like tells the other British people, I'm taking care of this kid for his dad. So Jamie basically forces himself into it by trying to tell the guy where to go. But there's a shot where he gets like picked up and like kind of kicked around. And then he gets into the back of the truck and he's like pointing the way and like his forehead is like bleeding. Like, like just for like two seconds, but like no one says anything. He doesn't seem to be overly injured, but I guess it's implied that he, he hit him on the head hard enough to like.

Eli Price (02:14:54.563)
-huh.

Eli Price (02:14:59.171)
-huh.

Eli Price (02:15:09.251)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:19.546)
break this, like, you know, maybe break the skin a little bit and bleed, but I was like, it was that was there something missing there that I didn't catch it out? I didn't understand.

Eli Price (02:15:25.731)
I think he like knocked him back with like the butt of his gun maybe in his forehead. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:15:30.522)
Yeah. I don't know. It was just one of those things where it's like, you know, it felt like it was almost like maybe an editing mistake or something that like, like, cause no one really addresses it, but that it was something I noticed.

Eli Price (02:15:38.819)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:15:42.947)
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. What I do know is that the way Ballard puts Jim's survival is that he had a very unsentimental education, which makes totally sense. But Ballard also said he talks about how people would ask him like about his memory of being in the camp, and he would kind of tell people like, I actually like remember being quite happy.

for the most part in the camp. And he kind of talks about how children like can survive quite cheerfully, in situations like that. which is very interesting. like psychologically, like probably very interesting to dig into that deeper. I'm not a psychologist though. So.

Jean-Pierre (02:16:30.842)
Well, I mean, they're there firstly, you know, it's a civilian camp. It's not a combatant camp. So you're going to treat those kinds of prisoners very, very differently because you're not expecting them to have the the skill set to fight back because they most likely just want to survive. They just want to live as normal of a life as possible. And you also don't have the same element of like ethnic cleansing, as you saw with like the Nazi.

Eli Price (02:16:36.419)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:16:48.131)
Mm -hmm. Right. Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:17:00.122)
camps for the Jewish people and things like that. So it's interesting to hear him say that, children can survive quite happily in situations like this, because I think the same could not be said for the Nazi concentration camps where children were killed.

Eli Price (02:17:16.963)
Yeah. And I think, I think even the adults in this camp, one of the things like the adults in the film are largely like fleeting presences. They're almost like walking dead, you know, they're, like gym is pretty full of life and a lot of the adults just, yeah, yeah, they,

Jean-Pierre (02:17:26.682)
Much love.

Jean-Pierre (02:17:30.938)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:17:39.834)
I can't stand them.

Eli Price (02:17:41.635)
They can't stand him and I think it's because of that. I think it's because they see how full of life he is and they're very like just depressed and defeated by the situation.

Jean-Pierre (02:17:51.514)
There's that one scene where we get with him and the victors and he's like asking all these questions. She's like, strange child. And it shuts him up real quick.

Eli Price (02:17:58.659)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. His childlike understanding of war, we've touched on some. And I think a lot of it comes down to just like admiring bravery. Like for him as a child, especially like with no ties to being British, there's a point where...

Someone says like, remember you're British. And he's like, I've never been there. but like, especially with that. And then on top of that, just like being a kid, when you see bravery, you're just like, that's a hero. It doesn't matter if they're Japanese or American or what. and, Ballard even said in the documentary, he said, small boys tend to find their heroes where they can. and I think that's, that's true here. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:52.698)
That's a bar. That's a bar right there.

Eli Price (02:18:55.555)
and unfortunately, sometimes they find them in guys like Basie who are scum, scumbags, but you know, yeah. And, you know, Basie kind of acts as like his surrogate father in a way, even though he doesn't want to be, like Jim still sees him in that way. And, you know, it's hard because like, he's very cold towards Jim.

Jean-Pierre (02:18:56.954)
Put that on shirt.

Jean-Pierre (02:19:01.402)
Hehehehehe

Jean-Pierre (02:19:12.538)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:19:25.251)
They do have like one moment where This is the reason I can't totally write off the basic character because like he does Reassure Jim in ways that like he doesn't have to In certain moments like giving him hope for his parents finding his parents giving him hope, you know for them surviving

Like he doesn't have to be that for Jim, but he is. and so, you know, it's for the most part, he's kind of a scumbag, but then there's a few moments that are like, okay, this dude isn't totally a hundred percent like just bad and terrible, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:20:11.29)
I mean, sure, but he also tries to cut Jim loose at every opportunity. I love what Jim goes to visit him in the hospital. And they're having this heart to heart. And then all of a sudden, Bassey's like, wait, why are you here? You're supposed to be watching my stuff. And he's like, well, they were all bigger than me. And he gets out of the hospital. He goes. He finds all the stuff gone. And then, of course, Jim is just absolutely heartbroken when.

Eli Price (02:20:16.387)
yeah, no, I'm totally, I totally get that, but yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:30.947)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:38.947)
yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:20:40.442)
he realizes that Basie and, or Basie and Dainty left without him. He's like, he promised, he promised. And I'm just like, dude, I mean, like you said, like Ballard said, little boys tend to find their heroes where they can. And sometimes your hero is someone like Basie as much as they will continuously let you down.

Eli Price (02:20:44.771)
Yep. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:20:56.355)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:21:01.091)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. yeah. go back to image, like intriguing, like images or sequences. The, the opening of this movie is very interesting. It's like, it's just like water and then you see some flowers and then you see some coffins. and it's just like, what other Spielberg film up to this point has.

opened with such a like strange, horrifying and beautiful juxtaposition. Like this is, this is very different as an opening for Spielberg. So that really, that opening shot really stood out to me. it, because it's something very, like, I guess, especially for me, like going through this series, you know, we're nearing the end of the eighties, you've got two more movies.

basically after this in the 80s. And this is a very unique opening shot for a Spielberg film. Like there hasn't been one like this up to this point. So it just really stood out to me.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:15.098)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:20.506)
especially because it's like you see the flowers, you see the coffins, one of them is like open, you see like some kind of, you know, corpse that's, you know, pretty, pretty decomposed for the most part. And then you see like a military boat just, I think I looked like I'm pretty sure it was the British Navy look like it was just sailing on through, could care less about trying to avoid hitting them just right over it, you know, and so it's, it's definitely meant to kind of,

Eli Price (02:22:26.979)
Corpse or, yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:22:39.395)
Mm -hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:22:50.01)
draw the viewer in as far as like, what could this mean, you know?

Eli Price (02:22:51.075)
Yeah.

yeah, for sure. Yeah. another thing I really, there's a couple of things earlier on that I thought were great. One of them is leading up to his plane landing in the bunker with the Japanese that you talked about at the party. but before that he's like throwing it up in the sky and this like toy glider plane is like flying around in the wind and he's found this downed plane and is like pretending to shoot at it and stuff.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:23.322)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:23:23.427)
And that whole sequence is just like really incredibly shot and fan. It's a, it's a, it's one of the like leaning towards fantastical sides of the movie because like the way that the, the glider toy plane like flies around is like so unrealistic. Yeah. It's like perfectly like fighting with him, you know, and his, and his.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:38.682)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:45.274)
A little too perfect, yeah.

Eli Price (02:23:52.035)
in the cockpit of this downed plane. But yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:23:55.034)
But I love that that's a reoccurring motif as well though, like the glider, because then later on, that's how he first befriends the Japanese boy as well, is the glider.

Eli Price (02:23:59.499)
Yeah Yeah Yeah, so I thought that was really cool one of the most powerful visual moments in the film to me was when he goes back to the house and he goes in his parents room and There's insert shots of like at first he sees so there's all the powder everywhere. I guess it's like a makeup powder maybe and at first he sees

like a footprint that looks like, it's his mom's footprint. And you can see that he's like reassured at first, but then he keeps scanning along the room and he starts to see boot prints and kind of like finger marks that look like, you know, scratching, like trying to cling to something from the, like in the powder marks. Yeah. And it, it doesn't explain anything. You're seeing, you're putting the pieces together.

Jean-Pierre (02:24:50.842)
So I was being dragged away, yeah.

Eli Price (02:24:58.179)
with Jim as he's looking at it. And I thought that was like just incredibly well done. Just -huh and it yeah blows it away. -huh. yeah just.

Jean-Pierre (02:25:05.69)
Then he just opens the window to let the wind, he's like, I don't want to look at it anymore. Yeah, no, that, that sequence was great. And just the way it was edited where it kind of keeps stacking the inserts. And like you said, like it's, it's literally, pretty much directly from his perspective is he's kind of realizing what he's seeing as well. And then he's like, I don't want to look at it anymore. You know, which I, yeah, it was great.

Eli Price (02:25:15.555)
Yes.

right.

Eli Price (02:25:23.395)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:25:27.683)
Yeah, yeah, really great. There's Jim saluting to the Japanese airman. I think it's really like beautiful shot with the sparks flying and they salute him back. I think that's really beautiful shot. There is the atom bomb flash, which is really interesting. You know, it's a moment where

Mrs. Victor's is dying and you know, he you can tell he thinks that it's like maybe her soul leaving her body, which they've kind of discussed some. Yeah, yeah, I think he does. And then realizes that it was the atom bomb flash, which yeah. Yeah, yeah, moments like that where they reiterate, I guess something.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:09.018)
Yeah, I think he kind of says that later in the movie too.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:16.474)
I learned a new word today.

Eli Price (02:26:27.299)
with dialogue that you kind of already figured out that he thought just visually watching him experience it. I'm like, well, you didn't have to like go and reiterate it with dialogue, but hey, you know, at the same time, I'm like, a kid probably would say that, you know, so I guess it's kind of true to a kid, but.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:41.05)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:26:47.958)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:26:54.531)
Yeah, the American air raid at towards the end is really good. There's the moment where it like slows down and the pilots like waving at Jim. And Spielberg was talking about that and he said it's a kid's dream to have a soldier in combat like acknowledge their existence. And so that was like, that was like the most incredible thing that could have happened to him is that pilot waving at him.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:15.002)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:21.626)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:27:23.139)
Which I think feels very true to that kid's perspective.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:30.33)
Well, again, like you said, like, like kids are very drawn towards perceived bravery. And so there's nothing braver than seeing someone, you know, fighting essentially for your freedom and for them to take a moment to recognize you. I mean, it kind of reminds you of the same thing of like a lot of superhero movies. We had the moment where it's like, you know, the superhero, you know, catches the woman falling off the bridge and she's just like, my gosh, thank you.

Eli Price (02:27:36.675)
yeah.

Eli Price (02:27:47.459)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:27:56.419)
Sure, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:27:59.418)
You know, like I love, I love that classic, there's a really good family guy bit where Peter gets rescued by Spider -Man and he's like, thank you so much, Spider -Man. We've got to do it again sometime. Spider -Man just like, everybody gets one kid, you know, and it just swings away like, you know, but I think that's kind of, that's probably a very similar to where like that, that kind of sequence is inspired by is, you know, just wanting, wanting recognition, like.

Eli Price (02:28:14.147)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:28:27.482)
you know, sometimes you want to be saved too, you know what I mean?

Eli Price (02:28:29.315)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think at this point is Now it's the Americans that are the the bravest and the strongest so now they're his new heroes, you know Which is interesting. But yeah that that whole set set piece was Really good. They you know Obviously you have to like do a lot of planning to line up all the special effects and stuff they because they're dropping dummy bombs out of the planes and they have to like set the

Jean-Pierre (02:28:40.378)
Mmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:28:53.818)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:28:58.339)
explosives off down below like just right to time it up. And in the making of Doc, it was funny because you know, like Christian Bell is like aware that he really needs to nail his performance, but then like he does it and Spielberg's like, no, like that's not, you didn't quite do what I wanted you to do. And so they had to like do some extra shooting really quickly to still get like flames and smoke in the background before it died down.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:03.194)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:25.242)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:29:28.259)
Cause it was kind of like a one take thing, you know, it's, you can't really do it again.

Jean-Pierre (02:29:33.754)
Yeah, that's the kind of stuff you do at the end of shooting. You know, it's kind of like, like one of the crazy stories I've heard. So I don't know if you're a big fan of like the apes trilogy, like the most recent one. So in Don and the Planet of the Apes, they have a sequence where they shot like the apes camp in Camp Mc is on fire. And I think I've heard they filmed some of that around Louisiana, like,

Eli Price (02:29:36.003)
huh.

Eli Price (02:29:46.243)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:03.834)
That was like pre getting rid of the tax credits before the tax credits came back. So like the, the late thousands, early 2010s, like there was a lot of stuff being filmed around here. And, I've, I've, I've heard that like the very last thing they did was basically that sequence and they just actually set the set on fire. so, so that is, that is something that people do sometimes. So like, yeah, so definitely when you have all this stuff getting blown up.

Eli Price (02:30:25.955)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:30.01)
And a big sequence like that. That's like one of the last things you do and you definitely want to try and just do it once and be done with it for sure.

Eli Price (02:30:34.403)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the other recent one that was great was the, the bridge, collapsing in temple of doom at the end. they actually like built that bridge and then they like exploded it and you have to, it's like one of those things where it has to, like, you just have to hope you get the perfect stuff from that one take. Cause you can't rebuild the bridge after that. yeah. But yeah, I thought that was funny.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:53.882)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:30:57.626)
Yeah, like car crashes or stuff too, yeah.

Eli Price (02:31:07.043)
you know, Bill having to be like, I'm sorry, Steven Spielberg. And, you know, I'll do better.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:12.634)
I'm sorry, Steven. Can we do it again?

Eli Price (02:31:15.523)
but right after that, the, I think the most like emotionally affecting part of the movie, to me was like him, like saying, like, I coming to the real, finally like admitting, like, he doesn't even remember what his parents look like.

Jean-Pierre (02:31:35.706)
Yeah, he's almost like he's on a very emotional high. And all of a sudden it just hit, and like the doctor's up there yelling at him like, get off the roof and just... I forget, what does the doctor say to him specifically? He says something to him. He says something like, must you always just be so much or something like that. He's basically just saying like, why do you always have to be like...

Eli Price (02:31:38.659)
Yeah, and it just like.

Eli Price (02:31:50.211)
I don't even remember. Yeah, he does.

Eli Price (02:31:57.603)
Yeah, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:32:03.674)
like the way that you are or something along those lines. And it's just like, it's like, it's like three, four years of, of grief just hits him all at once. And the transition is so good.

Eli Price (02:32:04.707)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:32:13.315)
yeah. And it's the performance. yeah. The performance is like incredible. yeah, I may or may not have like gotten a little bit hazy in the eye for, for that. yeah, yeah, there's cutting some onions somewhere. but yeah, I just sort of really, really good. Like you said,

Jean-Pierre (02:32:29.882)
wife was cutting onions at that same exact point in time, right?

Eli Price (02:32:42.211)
transition like from one emotion to the other for that yeah. Yeah the only the the other standout like images you have or sequences you have like the killing of his Japanese friend yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:32:59.834)
Yeah, that ends the, it's not really an insert shot, but the shot of like, he's holding the mango and you see the blood. Also, I love the shot of when he's crawling through the marshes and they show everyone placing the bets and you have the shot from the outside of the window and you see everyone in the window. That's a really cool shot.

Eli Price (02:33:03.779)
Mango, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, and...

Eli Price (02:33:15.459)
Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I love that window. It's just, it's such a good, like, visually pleasing production design. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:20.51)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:25.978)
Very Millennium Falcon -esque.

Eli Price (02:33:27.747)
Yes, yeah for sure. Yeah, when they killed his friend, it's different than... so like in the book there's not this like recurring kid popping up. So like I think that's a something they add for visual effect in the movie that I think is actually like really well done. It kind of gives a thread that's not there in the book that I think is actually like really good showing like... because I mean it's...

Jean-Pierre (02:33:46.17)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:33:51.77)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:33:57.187)
It's like his counterpart on the other side of things. and yeah, and they, they have like, they have basically the same like little arc. They both like start off more innocent and like grow more and more like hardened and stuff. And yeah, I mean, the kid saves his life and his grief over that is kind of defines like that final act. and yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:34:01.466)
I mean, the kid literally saves his life, essentially.

Jean-Pierre (02:34:24.666)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:34:27.171)
And then like the, the last, the last image that I thought was great was, well, not great. So this is one of those where I'm like, it's a good image. It's a little bit too on the nose. Maybe is the suitcase throwing the suitcase into the water? it's like, yeah, I get it. It's maybe a little too, too on the nose. I don't know. and that's like the last image of the film too, is the suitcase floating there, which I thought was.

Jean-Pierre (02:34:43.098)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:34:57.507)
an odd choice, like, cause you've, you're going back to a visual that you already kind of used earlier. And so I don't really, I didn't care for ending on that image necessarily, but well. let's talk a few major themes before we close things out. this, one of the things like, as far as like for Spielberg goes that I thought was interesting is it's, it's kind of,

Jean-Pierre (02:35:03.098)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:35:10.49)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:35:25.411)
opposite of the typical Spielberg approach. Spielberg is typically trying to like discover childhood and preserve childhood and in this movie it's like the death of his innocence in childhood. And yeah, I thought that was interesting. It's a way that Spielberg is starting to maybe explore some different thematic elements, some different ways of seeing things.

Jean-Pierre (02:35:51.866)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:35:55.427)
You know, bell even like bell commented on the end of the movie. He says he's kind of commenting on being like 15 years old by the end of the movie, you know, the character, obviously not bell, but himself. But, he said, quote, by that point, I've just been through a lot. Life doesn't mean much to me anymore. Unquote. and yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:36:16.57)
Yeah, and they do a really good job of kind of making him feel older, you know, obviously, even though the shooting was only a few months. But just the schoolboy look versus how he looks towards the end of the film, they do a really good job of making him look aged up for sure.

Eli Price (02:36:26.083)
Yeah.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Eli Price (02:36:38.691)
Yeah. Yeah. And we've talked about how like his parents don't even recognize him and he doesn't even recognize them, which, which I thought was funny. I was listening to another, podcast. I was talking about that sequence and they were like, I didn't even recognize the parents at first. I was like, is, are those the parents or is that, is that them? And I felt the same way because you haven't seen them. You haven't seen them for so long that like, I literally actually did forget like,

Jean-Pierre (02:36:44.346)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:00.762)
Well, I like how all the parents are, yeah.

Eli Price (02:37:08.227)
what his parents looked like exactly. When I saw the dad, I was like, that's the dad. But the mom, I was like, is that her?

Jean-Pierre (02:37:12.09)
Yeah, watch.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:17.274)
I wonder if that was an intentional choice, or just so kind of happened to be just a coincidental matching of a theme.

Eli Price (02:37:19.363)
Maybe so, yeah.

Eli Price (02:37:26.243)
I think it, yeah, I think it's just, I think it, I don't know if it was an intentional choice. I think it's just the nature of like, you've spent like, I mean, three quarters of the movie without having seen them.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:40.506)
Mm -hmm.

Like basically almost like an hour and a half of the two and a half hour runtime, if not close to almost two hours. yeah.

Eli Price (02:37:47.235)
Yeah, more than that probably. Yeah, you haven't even seen them. And so you just kind of forget what they look like. Just like Jim has forgotten what they look like. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:37:58.778)
Yeah, no, but that whole sequence is really good. I mean, yeah, I definitely agree. It's definitely...

Like a lot of coming of age movies, it definitely is about the death of innocents in a really real way.

Eli Price (02:38:11.107)
Yeah.

Yeah. And in this movie, it's like, so, I mean, something that children do naturally is they kind of grow beyond their parents is a way to describe it. they don't grow like, I mean, you grow, you could say grow out of, but I think growing beyond is maybe a better way because you grow beyond needing them and depending on them. and, and, but in this situation specifically with him, with.

you know, him going like four years or so in an internment camp, it's like accelerated and it's like, and it's the, it's growing beyond his parents in a more like wrenching and irreversible way. That's like, that you really feel the effects of in that, that sequence. Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:04.634)
Yeah, especially since they look relatively the same. So it's like it almost like starts to it almost starts to beg the question like.

Eli Price (02:39:08.067)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:14.138)
Like what did they have to go through if they even had to go through anything? You know, like there's the implication that, you know, his mother may have been the one that was like drug out of the house, but for them to like not look much different, it's like, man, maybe they had like a much cushier experience, so to speak.

Eli Price (02:39:16.131)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:39:28.195)
or them.

Yeah, either that or maybe they just like had gotten out sooner than he had. It could be that and cleaned already cleaned up and everything. But yeah, I just love all of that and I feel like none of it is feels like force fed. Yeah, which could easily be the case.

Jean-Pierre (02:39:39.578)
But,

Jean-Pierre (02:39:54.298)
I mean, you know, it's kind of the thing where it's like that has to happen, like in order for someone that young to survive without their parents going through a situation like that, like they kind of have to force themselves to grow up exponentially faster and kind of find their own way, you know.

Eli Price (02:40:00.931)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:40:11.555)
Yeah. yeah. For sure. Yeah. And I mean, another like Spielberg aspect, I think too, that kind of goes in hand in hand with this is the idea of a broken family, which he explores a lot in his movies in the seventies and eighties and even like moving forward too. But like this is the first time where he's like really like applying that theme in a totally like.

Jean-Pierre (02:40:26.138)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:40:41.699)
literally foreign setting in something that's like a totally different group of people, a totally different world situation. So I thought that was interesting. The blending of fact and fiction or reality and fantasy is a big part of this. Obviously what attracted him to the movie in the first place, but...

Jean-Pierre (02:40:44.858)
Right.

Eli Price (02:41:12.387)
But yeah, it's, you know, having like adventure kind of injected and invented in this storyline is just really feels like in step with what Spielberg like it's in his wheelhouse. And I think it's, it comes through in this movie and it, it helps it to.

Jean-Pierre (02:41:32.154)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:41:40.323)
I don't know, it helps it to not be a different kind of movie that's much more, that's even more like depressing and sad. Because it, because I don't think it should be that sort of movie because it's from a child's perspective. And I'm just not so sure that a child would have like an utterly despairing perspective. You know what I mean? So.

Jean-Pierre (02:41:50.65)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:09.05)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:11.587)
Yeah. Were there any other like thematic elements that, you know, we've talked about coming of age. I feel like this is more of a coming of age story than a war story, to be honest. Like, so, but yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:12.154)
That's fair, yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:42:22.762)
definitely. Yeah. The war elements are few and far between. And when they are there, I mean, I think, you know, Spielberg has done much better in the war department. I mean, you know, save me Private Ryan, you know, you got War Horse. You have a lot of other movies he's done where he's really tackled that subject much more directly. But yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I think that that's really the strongest theme throughout for sure. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:42:27.523)
Right.

Eli Price (02:42:39.267)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Eli Price (02:42:47.235)
Yeah, we've touched on a lot of stuff. So yeah, I did. Roger Ebert, one of the things he said in his review was he, he just didn't think the movie knew what it wanted to say. And I can see that. I think it's maybe just because the, what it's wanting to say is pretty simple. And it's just, it's because it ends, it doesn't end with like,

Jean-Pierre (02:43:11.834)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:43:16.579)
any sort of reassurance. it's more of just the question of like, well, okay, who's this boy going to be now? And that's just kind of like the point it's not, there's not really necessarily like some strong point other than that question being presented. and I even think that could even be like a stand in like that personal question about Jim and what, what happened, like, what will he be now can even.

Jean-Pierre (02:43:32.25)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:43:46.371)
sort of be a stand -in for the different, like, bigger question of what will the world become now? You know, the war's ended. What, okay, what becomes of this boy that we've spent all this time with? But the bigger application, I guess, would be like, okay, so the war's over now, what does humanity do? Like, what do we do as...

Jean-Pierre (02:43:54.618)
Hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:12.666)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:44:14.307)
you know, just human beings, you know, so I think that's there. So I don't think the movie's trying to do much more than that, to be honest. Like, I think maybe Ebert was trying to look for something deeper than that, but I don't know that it is trying to do anything deeper than that.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:17.466)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:44:36.634)
No, I mean, like you said it, I mean, it's really pretty much directly just a story of a young boy experiencing, you know, death, grief, famine, and chaffing the grove very quickly.

Eli Price (02:44:53.411)
So what.

Yeah, for sure. So would you say like your main problems with the film are just like the pacing of the second half? Is that what you would say?

Jean-Pierre (02:45:09.434)
I think my two biggest things with this movie, well, I'll say three things. Number one, I feel like Spielberg is much more capable. I don't feel like this movie, I don't think this movie is like the best, because he's done other like very intense dramas that are much better showmanship of his particular skill set.

Eli Price (02:45:16.195)
Okay.

Eli Price (02:45:22.467)
That's fair.

Eli Price (02:45:30.851)
Mm -mm.

Jean-Pierre (02:45:38.042)
You know, you think like Chindler's List, you think by Ryan, I think some of these are movies that are a little bit later in his career. And maybe he felt a little more freedom in that. The other thing is like, I do think it is pretty long for what it is. I think there's definitely some sequences that could have been, there's definitely some things that could have been condensed. It could have been cleaned up and a little more focused. But I think the biggest issue I have with a movie is,

Eli Price (02:45:39.587)
Right.

Eli Price (02:45:54.979)
Yeah, that's fair.

Eli Price (02:46:02.819)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:46:07.578)
And maybe this is part of it is because it is from a kid's perspective, so they didn't want to push it too much. But I just don't really feel like it has an edge. I feel like they could have gone... I feel like if this movie was made today, they would have gone a lot darker, really shown you a lot more of the horror of war. Or the horrors of going through what he has to go through.

Eli Price (02:46:17.411)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:27.843)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:46:33.21)
And I think that that would have kind of made a lot of these themes we've been talking about come through a lot stronger. Because at the end of the day, it's like, you know, I feel like you really feel the PG rating, you know, because I was thinking like, this is like pre PG 13. Like, well, no, because like, you know, you have a Temple of Doom was like the first PG 13 movie, you know, Shout Out to Spielberg for.

Eli Price (02:46:37.347)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:46:48.739)
It's not, yeah.

Eli Price (02:46:55.619)
Well, it wasn't PG -13, but it's the movie that started it. Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:00.794)
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Spielberg for developing, you know, PTSD in children for a generation. But, but I feel like, I feel like you really feel, cause like, like all the scenes, like the little bit of warfare scenes we do get are fairly bloodless. Like, I can remember they have the shot where you have like the Chinese are like shooting down at the Japanese soldiers and then it kind of cuts to them.

Eli Price (02:47:18.627)
Yep.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:27.962)
and pans back, you see the guys laying on the ground with like a little tiny bit of red on the ground, they get drug away and it's fairly bloodless. Or even the shot of his friend dying at the end, like you get a little bit of blood on the mango. But not to say that it has to be like this like super gory experience like a movie like Sagan by Reinigan or Black Hawk Down is another one I think of that has like very realistic war violence. But I do think that they...

Eli Price (02:47:34.211)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:47:57.626)
I do think a little bit more of a darker edge would have served the story well and really helped drive home the theme of Jamie's innocence dying and like him really having to mature. And I think it would have really sold the ending where he's like literally unrecognizable to his parents a lot better, you know. But again, like, you know, even the author himself said that like, yeah, I mean, it was.

I had a pretty good time. It was a pretty happy existence in the camp. Maybe that is fairly true to his story, but in general, I think that's my biggest thing. It's not the best example of Spielberg. I don't think it's not necessarily... It is a bit long for the story, and then I just feel like it needs a bit of a harder edge, to be honest. I give it a three stars.

Eli Price (02:48:48.259)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:48:52.314)
I had a three and a half previously, but I think that was when I just like, I like one of the things I did on letterbox like a year or two ago was I just like trying to think of every movie ever I know that I've seen and just gave them random, just gave them random ratings. But now that I actually watched it, like I logged it and I gave it three, three stars. Cause I mean, Bale's performance is really great. I mean, you can't, you can't say that. And there are still some, some great moments of like that Spielbergian, you know, magic so to speak, but.

Eli Price (02:49:01.123)
Mm -hmm. Trying to guess. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:49:11.011)
Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:49:21.338)
For the most part, this is not necessarily one of his movies that I'm gonna go back to time to time again, like some others, you know what I mean?

Eli Price (02:49:26.403)
Yeah. Yeah. Now I think I agree on that aspect. I don't know if this is one that I'll go back to a lot, but I really like, really thought this was good. I feel like it's like a, a, maybe a sleeper Spielberg, to me, I, I wasn't as bothered by, so like, you know, just saying this outright, like you're, you're like,

problems with the film are pretty much like shared by people that do have problems with the film. Like that's, those are the pretty common things like the, the length and the pacing of the end, the kind of like the lack of like, you know, grit, I guess to it, all those sorts of things. that's to me, that stuff bothered me a whole lot. I think, I think there's some,

maybe some pacing issues. I talked about like, okay, there's some really strong visual stuff. And then there's some times where the visual stuff is then reiterated with dialogue. And I'm like, okay, you didn't have to. So my quibbles are more small scale things, like little quibbles, than bigger scale issues that I had with it.

Jean-Pierre (02:50:36.57)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:50:51.235)
that are more like you. So I actually gave this four stars. I really, really enjoyed it. I loved a lot of the imagery. I thought it was shot really well. I thought it really played into Spielberg's strengths as like a director of like, just like, I just think big, like there's so many things in this movie that are just big. And I mean, it's not a...

Jean-Pierre (02:51:17.082)
Hmm.

Eli Price (02:51:19.683)
It's not a shark or a T -Rex, you know, or even like a spaceship or, you know, whatever, but like, it's like, you know, the stadium shot, the, the, like the shots of, you know, the plane, the shots of the city, even that you get, just like really stood out to me and I really enjoyed those. And then like,

The pacing didn't bother me a whole lot. It almost felt like a, like hangout movie with a kid, at times. And, some people like don't really go for hangout movies, but I, I tend to like, like well -made ones. And I kind of enjoyed the hangout feel of seeing what Jim was up to in the internment camp. And so, and then like the performance was great and I really like.

Jean-Pierre (02:51:59.514)
Mm.

Jean-Pierre (02:52:15.13)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:52:20.835)
I really like when emotions catch me off guard like they did with, with the, like, I don't remember what my parents see. I really, really appreciate when that's well executed. So, yeah, I just, I enjoyed this. I gave it four stars. I do think it's like, not one I'll necessarily like, be like, yeah, I can't wait to watch that again. but like,

Jean-Pierre (02:52:47.162)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:52:48.163)
for like a one -time watch sort of movie. I thought it was like, yeah, I'm, I'm was into it. I enjoyed it. but yeah, so I don't think it's like a prime example of like a Spielberg movie necessarily, but, but yeah, but, before we wrap up, I did have one final thought that I thought would be good to close with just talking about Spielberg.

Jean-Pierre (02:53:05.018)
Hehehehe

Eli Price (02:53:16.227)
kind of maturing as a creator, as an artist. This is a quote that he said. He said, quote, hitting 40, I really had to come to terms with what I've been tenaciously clinging to, which was a celebration of a kind of naivete that has been reconfirmed countless times in the amount of people who have gone to see ET, Back to the Futures, Goonies, et cetera. I thought Empire was a great way of performing an

exorcism on that period. and I really feel like this movie, along with the color purple, like kind of become a stepping stone into maybe the next phase of his career. you know, he still has hook like he has hook. he doesn't, you know, he does last crusade, always hook or like the next three movies he makes. but like,

Jean-Pierre (02:54:01.114)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:54:14.051)
always is a drama like, you know, and then he, you know, Schindler's List is, is coming up soon and especially like, right. Yeah. And so, and I think this movie is, is a real step, stepping stone towards Schindler's List. and I just think it's really interesting that he sees this movie as like an exorcism of those like clinging to childhood naivete. I just.

Jean-Pierre (02:54:22.682)
Schindler's List of Jurassic Park in the same year, mind you.

Jean-Pierre (02:54:31.962)
Mm -hmm.

Jean-Pierre (02:54:42.938)
Mm.

Eli Price (02:54:44.515)
because it's like he's doing it along with Jim. And yeah, just found that really interesting.

Jean-Pierre (02:54:49.338)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely something to be said where if you think about his career moving forward, he has a lot more mature work, especially like the later 90s, early 2000s. I mean, even Hook, Jurassic Park isn't necessarily a kids movie, but a lot of kids see it.

Eli Price (02:55:02.947)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Eli Price (02:55:16.547)
Yeah, it's a block. It's a summer blockbuster you kind of movie.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:19.45)
But you do kind of start having a lot more of the more serious, mature Spielberg. I mean, even something like Minority Report is a much more serious, mature movie. Or Munich, which is one of these movies I've never been able to see, but I've always wanted to that I've heard is probably his most mature movie. Or even you got, say, Private Ryan and AI, which I have a soft spot for. I know a lot of people.

Eli Price (02:55:24.227)
Right.

Eli Price (02:55:28.259)
Right.

Eli Price (02:55:42.691)
AI.

Jean-Pierre (02:55:49.21)
don't love that movie, but I think it's fascinating. I don't know, I think with Spielberg, it's interesting because it's like even a quote unquote bad Spielberg flick is like, probably gonna be better than a lot of other movies, you know? And, well, I guess it's kind of like my closing thought is like, kind of trying to think of like,

Eli Price (02:56:02.563)
yeah.

Yes. Except for 1941.

Jean-Pierre (02:56:19.002)
Spielberg at the peak of his powers, you know, in the 80s into the 90s. But I just I wonder if he's lost something at this point, because if I'm if I'm really honest, like, I can't really think of a Spielberg movie in recent memory that I've like, really 100 % been like, wow, that was now I admittedly have not seen the Fable Men's I've heard it's great. I'm sure I would like it. But but.

Eli Price (02:56:23.587)
Mm -hmm.

Eli Price (02:56:44.451)
Yeah, I loved the pain moment. I thought it was.

Jean-Pierre (02:56:48.25)
you know, whether it be some of his more dramatic takes, like, you know, what did he do that movie with Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies. Never saw it. It looks kind of meh, you know, or even like Ready Player One, which I did see in theaters. And I thought it was okay. Like it wasn't, you know, groundbreaking, but.

Eli Price (02:56:59.939)
Bridge of Spies. It's good. It's good. It's pretty good.

Eli Price (02:57:10.275)
Right.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:15.226)
He's definitely someone that as long as he's making movies, I'll still try and see them, but...

Eli Price (02:57:18.179)
Right. Even okay Spielberg movies, like you said, are just like still well worth seeing, you know.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:23.322)
But true, but at the same time, I'm just like, I just, I don't know, man. I sometimes wonder if he's lost a little bit of the magic along the way, you know?

Eli Price (02:57:33.379)
Yeah, I think you should have you seen his West Side story? Yeah.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:37.846)
I did love that. I did love that. But I grew up in a family where we watched musicals a lot. I watched the original West Side Story. I thought it was...

Eli Price (02:57:43.331)
Yeah. I thought his, yeah, his camera work in, in West Side Story is like incredible. I thought, and fablman's, I think fablman's is another like really, really, really great movie. so those back to, yeah, those, those two back to back. Yeah. Maybe in the summer blockbuster, but yeah, but yeah, those two back to back are like, okay. I'm.

Jean-Pierre (02:57:49.53)
Yeah, I thought it was a pretty good modernization.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:00.602)
Maybe he's still hidden in the drama department, but I guess as far as like the summer blockbuster

Eli Price (02:58:10.371)
I think Spielberg's like really hitting the late career run of really good movies. yeah, I do think this is this movie, this, the color purple in this movie, I think do act as like a turning point in his career. He, he still has some, obviously some blockbusters coming up with Jurassic park and, and hook and whatnot, but like these, these, is that your hot take?

Jean-Pierre (02:58:35.418)
Tracit Park to Lost World which is the best one.

Jean-Pierre (02:58:41.178)
I think some people might say it's a hot take. That's my favorite Jurassic Park movie is the second one. Just because I think when they're on the island, it might be a little bit more intriguing than the first movie. I love the first one, obviously, but I don't know. That's my hot take.

Eli Price (02:58:43.715)
Yeah.

Eli Price (02:58:53.219)
Yeah, right. Yeah, that's, that's a good hot take. I like it. but yeah, this is a stepping stone in Spielberg's career. I'll be interested to see kind of like, as I continue through, which I, I'm not sure if I'm going to take a break when I finished the eighties or just keep going with Spielberg. I'll just kind of, I guess I'll decide when I get there. but yeah, I'm interested. I am interested to see like,

what things look like.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:23.962)
If you keep going, you're gonna be doing Spielberg for another like two, three months.

Eli Price (02:59:27.637)
it'll be longer than that. This has been all year I've been in Spielberg, which...

Jean-Pierre (02:59:32.314)
yeah, it might be time to shift it up a little bit. I don't know. Maybe revisit them later.

Eli Price (02:59:34.563)
Yeah, but this will this will end in I'll end with the earth with the 70s and 80s at the end of August and so we'll see we'll see where it goes from there. But yeah, I'm enjoying it so far. I'm glad it's filling in some this was a blind spot for me. So it's filling in all my Spielberg blind spots. So that's the good part. But yeah, that's I think that I think we've done all we can on Empire of the Sun.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:43.738)
Okay.

Jean-Pierre (02:59:55.546)
There you go.

Eli Price (03:00:04.163)
for now, so We're gonna wrap it up We we do have well before I get to that JP why don't you tell the good people? Where they can find? Find you keep an eye out on maybe like some projects you're working on or what you're up to

Jean-Pierre (03:00:25.018)
Yeah, I mean, the easiest way to connect with me is on Instagram. My handle is just my name is Jean Pierre Boudreau. And then as far as what I got cooking, I think this year will be the year that I start my own kind of like variety show. It's called Thanks for Let Me Rumble. So be on the lookout for that. And definitely going to have Eli on at some point for sure.

Eli Price (03:00:44.515)
Yeah.

Eli Price (03:00:48.899)
Yeah, I look forward to it. Repay the favor. Since you're about four times. Yeah. Yeah, so I look forward to that. Maybe by the time this episode releases, you'll have a feed that I can link in the episode notes. So.

Jean-Pierre (03:00:56.122)
At least four times, I'll have to be on it at least four times.

Jean-Pierre (03:01:08.602)
Yeah, I'm hoping so. I'm hoping to try and get like a couple episodes recorded like before I put anything out so I kind of can start, you know, a little bit of life. But we'll see, you know. So.

Eli Price (03:01:15.875)
Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sweet. Yeah. Well, that'll all I'll make sure to link all those things in the episode notes. we, jump, jump here, Boudreau, not Bidro. Like I said, for some ridiculous reason at the beginning of the episode. yeah, JP will be joining us again next week for none other than a Christian bell performances draft. Excited for that.

yes. Tune in. Yeah. Empire of the sun is not, is the, the honorable official honorable mentioned for that. So, which I think, you know, you can make a case that it should be drafted, but, but yeah, we'll see, we'll see what performances we draft of Christian Bell's in honor of this, this movie discussion next week. and then after that, we'll be getting into Indiana Jones and the last crusade.

Jean-Pierre (03:01:45.594)
I mean, you guys got to tune in for that because it's going to be a hard fight for sure.

Eli Price (03:02:14.435)
So wrapping up the original trilogy. So that'll be fun. But yeah, that's all we have for this week. So I've been Eli Price for JP Boudreaux. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.