104 ENEMY AT THE GATES
growth on perpetual hold. Thus, we’re doomed to watching (or hearing) their end-
less perspectives on the ways of childhood” (Howe, 1987).Reel History Versus Real History
The film mostly follows its source material, J. G. Ballard’s novel, quite faithfully,
but Ballard himself had already strayed far from the actual facts of his own biog-
raphy in writing Empire of the Sun. In book and movie the Ballard figure, Jamie
Graham, is separated from his parents in the chaos that ensues after the Japa nese
takeover of Shanghai’s International Settlement. The settlement was indeed occu-
pied by the Japa nese the day after Pearl Harbor, but the Ballard family continued
to live in their home at 31A Amherst Ave nue in the British Concession for another
16 months after 8 December 1941, and young James Graham (“J. G.”) Ballard was
never separated from his family during the war. In March 1943 Ballard, his par-
ents, and his four- year- old sister were interned with other foreign civilians at the
Lunghua Camp in the south of the city (now Shanghai Zhongxue). They lived
together in a small room in G Block and remained at Lunghua with 2,000 other
internees until the end of the war in late August 1945: a period of two and a half
years that Ballard would later remember as “largely happy” ( J.G. Ballard, 2009).
The movie’s depiction of Jim’s scuffling time alone in Shanghai, his entanglement
with Basie, his later interment at Suzhou Creek Camp, his evacuation to Nantao,
the killing of the young kamikaze pilot— all these events are pure fiction that lend
the narrative greater drama and provide a basis for Jim’s maturation pro cess. As
depicted in the movie, however, there were American air raids on Japa nese posi-
tions near the camp, and at the end of the war a B-29 dropped relief supplies by
canisters attached to parachutes for the hungry internees.Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Synopsis
Enemy at the Gates is a French- American war film written and directed by Jean-
Jacques Annaud and based on William Craig’s Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for
Sta lin grad (1973): a history of the World War II battle in the winter of 1942–1943.
The film’s main character (played by Jude Law) is a fictionalized version of Soviet
sniper Vassili Zaitsev, who engages in a snipers’ duel with Major Erwin König, a
crack Wehrmacht sniper (played by Ed Harris).Background
Rus sian snipers played an impor tant role in World War II, especially during the
decisive Battle of Sta lin grad (23 August 1942–2 February 1943), where they picked
off over 1,200 German officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The most
celebrated of these snipers was Chief Master Sergeant Vassili Grigoryevich Zaitsev
(1915–1991), aka “Zayats” (“The Hare”), 2nd Battalion, 1047th Rifle Regiment,
284th Tomsk Rifle Division. In a 38- day period (10 November–17 December 1942)
Zaitsev, a Siberian hunter from the Urals using a standard- issue Mosin- Nagant rifle