Pearl Harbor is a classic example of a Hollywood war film, a vehicle which makes the second world war look glorious, virtuous and sexy. While the second world war was nothing like this, an audience can do nothing to change this impression other than demand the production of more historically accurate films, like the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan (1998). This opening sequence is seen by many modern historians as the most historically accurate portrayal of the Normandy Landings.
Pearl Harbor is a 'high concept' film - "instantly memorable and has immediate saleability". People call the film industry 'show business' for a reason - it is a business and their first and foremost aim is to make money - they are not going to 'green light' a film that is not going to bring in money. This means if a film is historically inaccurate, but has the saleability of a high concept film, the film will take precedence over the 'low concept', historically accurate film. "We tried to be as accurate as we could, but this is just a movie. It's not a history lesson. It's a romance. A fiction. The real story would take nine hours to show."
A high concept film will reach a large audience, promote specific values, entertain the audiences and make money for the production company. High concept films need to be something radical and different, they have to be original, but still stick to the generic conventions that people know and expect. Couple this with the knowledge that, because of its genre, people will go see the film and the studio has a hit. Pearl Harbor does this by taking a historical event and adding a love story. Because Pearl Harbor involves a tale of lost love it is easy to relate to. With this ability to relate to the film, it is possible to reach a large audience and make a higher profit. Pearl Harbor also combines two generic conventions in the one film (typical of most high concept films). Pearl Harbor is a combination of both a war film and a romance. With this combination, the film makers were able to promote the American social values and morals of the 21st century as well as address attitudes not only toward war, but toward topics closely associated with war, for example the morality of fighting, the causes for which it is moral and just to fight and the definition of heroism.
One of the key elements of the film is its broad appeal, using the attractive physique and attitude of Kate Beckinsale, coupled with the stunningly realistic and effective action scenes and special effects to appeal to the male audiences. Then using the boyish good looks and the love element of the film to appeal to the female audience. The film also has the values of friendship and romance to appeal to the young and the added sense of seriousness about ?the heart of the men and women, military and civilian, who lived through this period? that appeals to the older audience.
Pearl Harbor is an epic love story set in the days when America was brought right into the middle of World War Two. The story follows two daring pilots who grew up like brothers and first learned to fly in the dangerous aviation practice of crop-dusting. Now they are both pilots in the U.S Army Air Corp. Rafe has fallen in love with Evelyn Stewart, a beautiful and courageous nurse serving in the U.S Navy. Their love has only just begun to bloom when their personal destiny ? and that of a world on the brink of war ? intervenes.
Pearl Harbor is the fifth film made using the events of December 7th 1941 as a backdrop: From Here to Eternity (1953), In Harm's Way (1965), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), and The Final Countdown (1980). There have also been a number of television mini-series? Pearl (1978), From Here to Eternity (1979) and The Winds of War (1983). Each of these films portray the event in a different way. In the 1950?s and 60?s American films were usually very jingoistic and patriotic, it was the height of the Cold War and this influenced cinema in a major way. The 1990?s brought about the return of the patriotic films. This is because of America's
changing attitude towards war that came with the 1991 Gulf War. Previously, American films like Platoon (1986) have been very defeatist, showing that America doesn't always win. Producers realized that people didn't want to see films where America lost, they wanted to see realistic films that created an atmosphere of 'just war' - struggles against unjust rulers.
When Pearl Harbor was released, in May 2001, it was the most expensive film to be given the go-ahead by a studio - costing around $152.75 million to produce. Most of this cost was down to the work put into the mise-en-scene and the special effects of the film to make it as visually realistic as possible. The costume and props department spent months creating the thousands of props and costumes that help bring the period to life.
The film is extremely advanced in the way it uses special effects and camera angles. Many of the angles and shots are straight on and close up making the audience feel part of the action. By doing this the producers are drawing the audience further into the film, making them feel almost part of it.
We are moving into a generation where technology is no longer a limitation to bringing magic onto the screen. Only imagination is. The creators of Special Effects bring dreams, fantasies, and mysteries to the big screen, and mostly to our eyes. What emerges on the story board, finally lands on celluloid. When The Matrix (1999) was first storyboarded the producers wanted a way to show the agility of the characters dodging bullets. To do this a whole new technique was created - that of 'bullet time'.
Since the release of the first film using Computer Generated Image effects (Toy Story 1995), realism in action films has increased massively. Film makers are able to use effects that would otherwise be too expensive or dangerous to produce in real life. These effects were used with great success in Pearl Harbor - making an airforce of nine planes into over three hundred, a few hundred men into thousands. Even though special effects have improved over the years, the need for more accurately portraying historical events seems to have been forgotten or at least given a backseat in many recent films. Although this is now the norm, it hasn't always been this way. Films like The Dam Busters (1954), although made as entertainment, do show the event for what it was, not in a way that will sell seats.
The history of special effects begins even before the invention of the camera itself. During the 1700s, magicians utilized many techniques to perform optical illusions and astound their audiences. These techniques formed the foundations of special effects. The greatest changes in the revolution of Special Effects happened in the 20th century, with computers. Computers helped revolutionized the world of Special Effects in movies. Now with computers they are able to create scenes we would never think possible. With the help of computers they can create people, buildings, animals, monsters, aliens, and many other creations which can come to life with the touch of a button. Special Effects have gone to the extreme with the use of computers. Film makers could even build and re-sink the Titanic with modern software programmes. Special Effects have revolutionized the way people are entertained, they have made movies almost seem so real.
When film's like All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) were released they were made to show the harsh realities of war and to educate the generations that were lucky enough to have avoided the wars that war was not something we should want to happen again. The fact that World War I was seen by many to be a pointless waste of human life widely influenced films in the years between the two world wars. Even though directors didn't have the plethora of special effects that they have today, films were still made more historically accurate than most directors make these days. Modern films like Black Hawk Down (2001), Pearl Harbor, Rambo (1987) and many others only serve to entertain and glorify the horrors and brutality of war. All these films were made with obvious American values and ideologies of jingoism and patriotic duty to the state.
Films like U-571 (2000) completely change history to make movies people will want to see. After the Vietnam war, many American citizens were angry at the fact America carried on fighting a war they were going to lose, so film makers started to make films glorifying the American victories, no matter how small. It is films like Hamburger Hill (1987) that rewrite history and make America look like the do-good liberators and the Vietnamese look like the evil and unforgiving occupiers, when in fact it was often the Americans that were the evil and blood thirsty army, raping and pillaging many Vietnamese villages. Some of the only American film's about the Vietnamese war that actually accept the Americans as cruel and blood thirsty - Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Platoon (1986) - give a very realistic and historically accurate portrayal of the Vietnamese war, even if it is from the eyes of the Americans.
The whole of Pearl Harbor could almost be on par with the opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, for visual accuracy. The actual mise en scene of the film is highly detailed and visually realistic right down to the way a character moves. For instance, when the character played by Ben Afflek beckoning the rest of his group to follow him it is highlighting the gung-ho and heroic attitude of American youth in the 1940's. Everything that goes on in the film happens for a reason, whether it is to highlight an ideal or just to fill the audience in on the story, nothing is said or done without their being a connotation.
From the first time the films trailer was shown in cinemas and homes across the globe, historians were pointing out the errors in the film. The foreign trailer shows twin engine Japanese bombers attacking Pearl Harbor, when in fact in December 1941, the Japanese only had single engine aircraft. This may only be minor inaccuracy but inaccuracies often extend from minor points. The raid took place at 7.55am but the film shows kids playing baseball in a park in full afternoon sun. This just highlights the lack of historical research and the desire to entertain an audience rather than represent historical events accurately.
The characters played by Ben Afflek and Josh Harnett are an amalgamation of real people and real events from the attacks. Everything that happens to the characters happened to someone in the attack. Two men named Welsh and Taylor did actually succeed in getting airborne and destroyed six aircraft, even though they were vastly outnumbered. The film represents all the idealism, hope, youthfulness, naivety and innocence that was shattered on the 7th of December 1941. It represents the all American ideal of the gung-ho American youth in the 1940's and quite possibly the 21st century, this is highlighted in the film when the British Squadron Leader asks Rafe "are all yanks as anxious to die?". This is the way that Hollywood represent American's. They want to be seen as 'anxious to make a difference'. No film has effectively captured the scope of the Japanese offensive as well as the 1970's epic Tora! Tora! Tora! Pearl Harbor does though present a credible, digitally-enhanced recreation of the event. Pearl Harbor has been described by many film critics ("[o]bviously modelled on James Cameron's Titanic...." ) as a Titanic (1997) 'wannabe' that falls short of the mark. While both films suffer drastically from historical inaccuracies, Titanic manages to overcome its factual discrepancies by presenting an absorbing spectacle, but "Pearl Harbor sinks beneath the weigh of its own split personality: ponderous and self-important on one hand, pandering to an uneducated audience on another." Pearl Harbor was made as entertainment for those who knew little or nothing about the history surrounding the attacks on Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941.
Historically, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was one of the key actions of World War Two, because it drew the United States into the war against the Japanese. Pearl Harbor uses this event to draw the audience into the cinemas. Unlike in Tora! Tora! Tora!, history draws the short straw and Michael Bay uses a 'world war two for dummies' approach to historical facts. While he uses the basics of the historical events to base the story on he still only presents a simplistic and inaccurate portrayal of why America joined the war. Michael Bay uses the film to promote and glorify the war with Japan at the expense of politics and an explanation of the event.
When people go and see a film, they, unknowingly, fall into two categories of audience - those that watch the film passively and those that watch actively. The passive audience will accept what the media shows them and allows it to influence their beliefs. This theory of audience type is known as the 'hypodermic' theory. The theory was supported by the Frankfurt School of Sociologists, in particular, Herbert Marcuse. The theory was used as a means of explaining the rise of Adolf Hitler to power, with over 40% of the German electorate voting for him. According to this theory Nazi propaganda put out by Goebbels and his allies "brainwashed" the German people into accepting Hitler.
The passive audience will go and see the film purely for entertainment and come out accepting what the film is showing them as the truth. They are influenced by what the media is 'feeding' them.
'Reception Analysis' suggests that an active audience will influence what the media presents them. The audience is strong in that it influences what is made; the film's are made because we go and watch them.. This theory suggests an audience will see a film and relate it to their own cultural and social circumstances in order to understand the media text. Each person's way of 'decoding' the text is different - "our understanding is affected by our gender, class, social standing, personal circumstances and occupation." This theory is clearly visible in the trailer of the film. The directors chose to highlight the war aspect of the film as this is what market research has shown people want.
The trailers used to attract the audience were using only selected parts of the film, mostly scenes from the attack to draw the male audiences into the supposed action movie. When you see the film it becomes apparent that it is actually a love story set around the events of December 7th 1941. Both historical accuracy and realism take the backseat for most of the film leaving the love story to take the lime light for eighty percent of the film. This rewriting of history is also apparent in the marketing of the film.
The marketing team for Pearl Harbor had to be very careful how they portrayed the film in its early stages - if it was advertised as a war film then it would not go down well in Japan. To get around this, marketing agents decided they would employ two different strategies when advertising the film. In America the films trailers and press releases played on the patriotic elements of the film. In Japan the film was more sensitively promoted as a compelling human drama with big stars and big action. With this slant on it, like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan before, became a huge hit in Japan and brought in nearly twenty percent of the overall taking for the film (£5.1 million in opening weekend) . This is a good example of audiences affecting how a film is marketed. The film was altered because of the audience.
It was decided, to save insulting the Japanese audiences, the 'sneak attack' would be blamed on a small military clique in Tokyo, with the Japanese people and the commander of the attack force shown to be firmly opposed to war. By representing the Japanese as people following orders and not as murderers the film was able to appeal to a world-wide audience. This representation is not historically accurate. The attack on Pearl Harbor embodies the ideals of the Japanese culture - willingness to die for what they believe in. This ideal is very similar to that of the American ideal. While Japanese will deliberately 'sacrifice' themselves, the Americans will only do so as an act of heroism. The Japanese are not shown as the aggressors, but as people acting in self-defence. Because the United States cut off Japan's oil supply, the leaders of that island nation felt their society would collapse in eighteen months without some oil. They bombed Pearl Harbor to preserve the Japanese way of life. This deliberate 'alteration' of history is used by Michael Bay to produce a film that will appeal to a world-wide audience.
Yes the films may be believable and look realistic with all the special effects and computerised scenes. But beyond all these effects is the fact that the films are not historically accurate. The films change history so they can sell the film, they dumb down parts so as not to offend people, thus appealing to a wider audience and bringing in more money. The film companies and studios aren't interested in educating people but in making money out of selling cinema tickets. To make a profit a film must bring in two and a half times what it cost to produce - to do this film makers need to appeal to a wider audience and if they need to change history to make a film that people will want to go and see, then they will carry on doing so.
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Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Ermmm, this isn't really a great review if i'm honest. It's more of a commentary on the history of Hollywood and a complete dissection of the historical events. You need to focus more on plot, character, acting and your own personal experience when reviewing a movie.
MAFARRIMOND 18.09.2004 13:15
Hollywood have a knack of changing history. A great first review. Maureen
torr 18.09.2004 11:51
Back with the E as promised. One point, though: the review would benefit from a bit of editing to remove the misplaced question-marks - some quirk in the software you're running, I expect. Duncan
December 7th 1941 - A Day Which Will Live In InfamyAs the lives and loves of a generation ... more
are tragically swept into the greatest conflict modern man has ever known - World War II - the events at Pearl Harbor become an extreme test for the strength of t...
Advantages: Historically accurate, covers both political and military side of the conflict, no pansy romantics. Disadvantages: Doesn't have the big-budget explosions.
Sep 17th, 2004
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