The Emperor: Above the Clouds of Petty Protocol

In complex social arrangements, such as exist in governments, business firms, and religious organizations, a person must climb through many levels before reaching persons of sufficient height and occupational breadth that what had been said to be binding requirements suddenly become as though unfettered butterflies. Astoundingly, the mid-level subordinates may even object as the rules are relegated back to their true status as guidelines. Beyond the element of greater authority, a greater perspective in terms of what truly matters is profoundly important in this regard. Having many decades of lived experience, plus a certain maturity in place of pettiness, is also in the mix. A Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, for example, may be more likely to pick up on a sincere heart of the sort Jesus would praise than run through a laundry list of doctrinal requirements. 

In the film Emperor (2012), religion and government are intertwined in the Japanese emperor, who was until shortly after World War II also officially a living god. Although his aides attempt to put General MacArthur into a straightjacket of protocol for the meeting with the emperor at the end of the film, both the general and the emperor are off sufficient maturity and perspective to disabuse themselves of the protocols and focus on the truly important stuff. To discern the petty from the profoundly important is a key feature of upper-echelon leadership.

In the film, Teizaburo Sekiya forewarns General MacArthur before the meeting with the emperor. “there are certain proprieties I’d better make you aware of. You may not shake His Majesty’s hand or touch him. You must never look His Majesty directly in the eyes. You may not step on his shadow. When you sit down with His Majesty, you have to sit on his left. You must never call His Majesty by his name.”

Upon greeting the emperor, General Bonner Fellers obeys the protocol, assiduously avoiding eye contact with the shorter man. General MacArthur begins likewise, looking above the emperor, and says, “It is indeed a pleasure to welcome you here, Your Majesty.” The emperor thanks the general, to which MacArthur thanks the emperor, making eye-contact with a warm-hearted expression and outstretching his hand. The emperor wears a confused look at first, but then gently shakes the general’s hand.

As if the general had not broken enough with protocol, he announces that he has arranged for a picture. The emperor motions to his aide not to object, and moves into position for the picture—the general standing on the emperor’s right.

After the picture is taken, the general announces that the translator is to stay but everyone else in the room is to go to the library while the general and emperor talk. Being excluded, and thus unable to enforce the protocol, Sekiya blurts out, “But that was not part of the plan.” The emperor says “Sekiya” in a way that lets his compatriot know that he is to comply with the general’s wishes. Only the general and the emperor appear aware of the political reality: the general rather than the emperor is running Japan. To the victor goes the task of rebuilding the foe.

The emperor takes his seat, with the general already seated to the left. The emperor then rises, and offers himself as solely responsible and as willing, therefore, to take all the punishment. “This has nothing to do with punishment,” the general replies. Even among two leaders in high places, one can lose sight of the truly important. The general had cut through the morass of thou shalt nots, which the lower and mid-level functionaries hold onto so tightly, to establish a sort of collegial intimacy that renders the two men much more alike than either to his respective subordinates.  Only at that high level can the sun shine above the clouds of minutia, such that eve the gods on Mount Olympus might be jealous of what man can accomplish. “I need your help,” the general beseeches with heart-felt concern for the emperor’s subjects as he looks directly into the man’s eyes. “So let’s see what we can do to get Japan back on its feet.” Both men doubtlessly know that this task lying before them is vitally important, as many Japanese are starving at the time.

The movie thus provides a good snapshot of organizational life being appreciably freer on the top floor and unnecessarily petty on the floors below. How to convince the narrow-minded gate-keepers that their levers are not so vitally important after all is a question in need of an answer. It is telling that Sekiya is so greatly disturbed by the general’s change of plan. MacArthur has used his experience wisely in not having argued with Sekiya as he promulgated the forbidden conduct; the general undoubtedly knew the true pecking order in Japan then, and that he could appeal directly to the emperor as both were unique having responsibility for the whole of Japan and thus would undoubtedly relate.

Organizational Bureaucracy at Odds with Creativity in Film

Art through corporate bureaucracy can be likened to oil and water. The rise of the studio system to produce film as an art form thus evinces a necessary evil. To be sure, organization is necessary to literally organize the various facets involved in the production of a film. However, needless managerial levels have gone beyond what is needed for coordination, particularly in television, and have stifled good narrative in the process.

Ken Loach, a feature and television film director, declared, “Television kills creativity; work is produced beneath a pyramid of producers, executive producers, commissioning editors, heads of department, assistant heads of department, and so on, that sit on top of the group of people doing the work, and stifle the life out of them.”[1] These suits are told to control the creativity even though the latter cannot be controlled without dying out in the process. According to Loach, “if you’ve got ten people sitting on your shoulder you can’t be good, you can’t be creative.”[2] For example, directors say they are told that they are not allowed to work with the writers. Instead, the directors work with managers, who somehow view themselves as qualified to write narrative because they are oriented to business factors. The result has been artificially-constructed television programing akin to politicians running solely off polls. Although financial concerns have a legitimate place, they are of such import to the layers of managers that cheap reality shows have trumped serious drama with a coherent, thought-out plot.

According to Loach, television, which “began with such high hopes,” has become “a grotesque reality show.”[3] To be sure, Loach admits that “some good work gets through.”[4] Even so, it is much too hard for it to survive the inevitable onslaught of the bureaucratic knives unscathed. The editing done by managers is fundamentally different than that which writers would do—and not for the better.

Perhaps rather than tearing up scripts that have been accepted, managers could have confidence in their own decisions in accepting the scripts by letting the writers themselves work out any changes with the directors. In other words, in putting an accepted script through the meat-grinder, are not executives and their staff undercutting their own decision to accept the script?  Of course, a particular acceptance could be to say that a script is only “good enough to get through the door.”  In other words, it would be understood that the script is to be considered as only partially done when it arrives. I would caution against such an “acceptance” because managers oriented to business matters are not likely to function as surrogate writers in finishing the job. A writer is a writer whereas a manager is a manager. Business expertise does not proffer the ability to tell a story.

Therefore, I contend that scripts ought to be accepted that can stand on their own as scripts. That is to say, the accepting executive ought to believe that the scripts he or she pays for are good already, and thus that the respective writers can be trusted to accommodate changes that the director believes are necessary.  

A producer ought to be on the look-out for the following: “What writers need to write are original stories, original characters, plot, conflict, things that dig into our current experience. Things that really show us how we’re living, give us a perspective on what is happening”[5] (p. 41). Sometimes in watching a movie, I can sense what will come next because the formula has already become hackneyed.  I have even thought that nearly a century of films has perhaps exhausted good narrative.

The screenplay’s structure is so “scripted” that the exactitude of the uniform structure may itself willow away originality and creativity. It is perhaps like trying to fit lots of different shapes through a very small hole.  The defining structure, such as there being three acts—the first running twelve to fifteen pages and ending in a triggering event that in turn leads in act two to a critical event that is seen to be resolved in the last act—seems needlessly confining. Are there not other possible structures compossible with film narrative? 

On the other hand, I suspect that creativity can still be applied through the existing structure if there are original stories and characters out there in someone’s imagination. However, the standard structure ought not be allowed to exclude any stories that are original yet not conducive to that particular structure. Perhaps a new structure could naturally come out of such an original story. I suspect that the specificity of the formatting and length is primarily a means of standardizing incoming scripts so they can be more easily compared. While convenient, the guidelines may be contributing to movie-goers viewing the films as too formulaic.  For example, boy meets girl, girl pushes boy away, boy wins back girl, and the two embrace. Girl goes with other boy is scarcely off the formula.

In any case, creativity is urgently needed among screenwriters, and the protection (and respect) of creativity is urgently needed among managers having control over the art. Just because a person can control something doesn’t mean they should hold it so tightly—squeezing the air out of it.

1. Ken Loach, “Between Commodity and Communication: Has Film Fulfilled Its Potential?” International Socialist Review, 76 (March-April 2011), 28-44, p. 40.

2. Ibid., p. 41.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.