Peter Webber’s Emperor is about to hold its world premiere Friday evening at the Toronto International Film Festival, giving TIFF audiences its first look at Tommy Lee Jones in the role of General Douglas MacArthur in a post-WWII drama. But if you aren’t in Toronto, you aren’t out of luck. MacArthur and his trademark corncob pipe are heavily featured in this first official clip from the movie, which we’re happy to share with you below.
MacArthur’s pipe should get its own Oscar nomination.
“Now, let’s show them some good old fashioned American swagger,” the general (Jones) says in the clip, and you get the impression that Webber’s historical effort will be brimming with hoo-hah and patriotism. Which is great. But there’s a second angle at play here which isn’t hinted at in the clip. As we reported earlier, Webber’s film will follow a military official (Matthew Fox of Lost) who is trying to determine if Japan’s Emperor Hirohito is guilty of war crimes from WWII. And in a parallel subplot, Fox’s character, General Bonner Fellers, is trying to reconnect with an exchange student he met years earlier while they were in the United States.
As Webber Tweeted earlier in the day, we’ll know a lot more about Emperor after its Roy Thomson Hall Gala screening Friday evening. Could it be an Oscar contender? A thrilling recreation of an historic global event? Or will Jones be competing against another historical role he has coming up in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln? We’ll know more in a few hours. Let’s see how Emperor plays.
