This story about Sam Mendes and “Empire of Light” first appeared in editing awards preview from TheWrap Awards Magazine.
Sam Mendes’ sequel to his World War I epic “1917” is a softer film set in a dilapidated movie palace on the south coast of England in 1981, as middle-aged Hilary (Olivia Colman) battles mentally ill and finds unexpected romance with Stephen (Micheal Ward), a young black man whose world is being rocked by the rise of the racist, anti-immigrant National Front.
It feels like a lot of the movies coming out this year came straight out of directors’ isolation experiences during the pandemic, from sitting at home thinking, “What do I really want to do now?”
Yes. I can’t talk to the other guys, but I felt compelled to do this. I started writing something completely different, bigger and more visually ambitious. And then this came to me, I think partly because I spent a lot of time with my young children.
As always with children, when you spend a lot of time with them, you reflect on your own parents and your life when you were their age. And I felt the heroism of my mother struggling to raise me on her own as a single mother working under the darkness of mental illness. It was something that I felt had been sitting there waiting for it to be written for a long time. So it wasn’t a strategic choice to make this movie. (laughs) It was a compulsion.
What does it take to get to the point where you can make a film about something so personal and, I’m sure, in some ways so painful?
I guess it takes a little courage. I was used to revealing myself in the cracks of other people’s words, and obviously a lot of the movies I’ve made are very personal, but they don’t come directly from me. I guess age and having been through this process before has given me the courage to do something warts and all. It’s like rummaging through the attic of your brain, and these strange things that were locked in boxes suddenly become interesting to you.
youThere is no character in “Empire of Light” that represents you.
I made the decision to get out of the story as a character. I didn’t want the story to be directly autobiographical. Margo Jefferson has a great line: “How do you reveal yourself without asking for love or pity?” I didn’t want to ask for love or pity. I think if you put a child in the movie, you immediately feel sorry for him. And by inference, you think, “Oh, poor Sam.” I was less interested in it and more interested in studying (Hilary’s character).
For me, there were two fights in the movie. There is an internal struggle, which is Hilary’s struggle with mental illness. And there is an external struggle, which is Stephen’s struggle with racism and with the politics and social upheaval of the time. I wanted to tell those two stories in parallel. And then there’s a moment when one breaks into the other, which is when the riot happens and you can’t keep the outside fight at bay. And the cinema became the magnet that attracted everything. I was aware that I was assuming quite a bit in that package: mental illness on the one hand and racism on the other, and the possibility that movies and music and literature can heal you if you’re broken or if you’re an outsider, if you’re an outcast. .
Were movies and music healing for your mother in the same way that they are for Hilary?
No, I don’t think I can argue that they were. I don’t think they have helped her particularly. But I was being healed at the time as a child. I’m romantic about these things, probably, but I think they can help heal you, and we forget that sometimes.
Towards the end of the film, Hilary turns to the projectionist played by Toby Jones and says, “Show me a movie.” As he was choosing the movie, I was thinking, “This had better be a good choice.” And then she puts on Hal Ashby’s “Being There,” which was perfect. It’s kind of sublime to watch Olivia Colman look at Peter Sellers.
(laughs) Thanks for saying that. I totally agree. I needed to find a movie that felt like it spoke to Hilary. And for me, “Being There” is about how you can be broken or you can be an incomplete person and still somehow survive in the world and change other people’s lives and have meaning. I needed to find a movie that I loved, but more importantly, that I felt she would love or speak to.
But it’s hard, right? You just think, “Oh, Christ, what better way to end your movie than to confront the audience with someone else’s masterpiece? (laughs) Maybe I want something that isn’t so obviously a brilliant movie.” But it made sense that it would move her, and in the end it seemed like the obvious choice.
Read more of the awards preview here.
