Pearl Harbor (film)

Pearl Harbor

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Michael Bay
Produced by Michael Bay
Jerry Bruckheimer
Randall Wallace
Written by Randall Wallace
Starring Ben Affleck
Josh Hartnett
Alec Baldwin
Jon Voight
Kate Beckinsale
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Ewen Bremner
Dan Aykroyd
Colm Feore
Mako
Tom Sizemore
Jaime King
Jennifer Garner
Music by Hans Zimmer
Klaus Badelt
Cinematography John Schwartzman
Editing by Roger Barton
Chris Lebenzon
Mark Goldblatt
Steven Rosenblum
Studio Jerry Bruckheimer Films
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s) May 25, 2001 (2001-05-25)
Running time Theatrical cut:
183 minutes
Director's cut:
184 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Japanese
French
Budget $140,000,000[1]
Gross revenue $449,220,945[2]

Pearl Harbor is a 2001 American War Action film directed by Michael Bay and produced by Bay, long-time partner Jerry Bruckheimer and Randall Wallace. It features a large ensemble cast, including Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Colm Feore, Mako, Tom Sizemore, Jaime King and Jennifer Garner.

Pearl Harbor is a dramatic reimagining of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base and the subsequent Doolittle Raid. Some of its scenes were among the last to be filmed in Technicolor. Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, Pearl Harbor became one of the highest-grossing films of 2001.[2]

Contents

Plot

In 1923, two Tennessee boys - Rafe McCawley (Jesse James) and Danny Walker (Reiley McClendon) while pretending to be fighting the Germans, climb into Rafe's father's cropdusting biplane and accidentally start it, giving them their first taste of flying. Soon after, Danny's father (William Fichtner) comes to drag him home, berating him for playing with Rafe and beating him. Rafe attacks Danny's father calling him a "dirty German"; Danny's father counters by explaining that he fought the Germans in World War I and wishes them to never witness the horrors of war.

By 1940, as grown men, Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) are First Lieutenants in the United States Army Air Corps under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle (Alec Baldwin). Rafe meets Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse who passes him for his physical examination even though he has dyslexia, and is instantly smitten. The two soon begin dating and fall in love. However, Rafe has volunteered to serve with the Royal Air Force's Eagle Squadrons. Before Rafe leaves for England, he makes a promise to Evelyn that he will come back for her. Evelyn and Danny are transferred with their respective squadrons to Pearl Harbor. In Japan meanwhile, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto plans an attack on Pearl Harbor after the U.S. freezes its trade.

Rafe is shot down over the English Channel and presumed killed in action. Three months later, Evelyn and Danny bond over their mourning for Rafe and unexpectedly develop feelings for each other. They soon begin their own relationship. On the night of December 6, 1941, Rafe unexpectedly returns, having survived the crash and been stranded in occupied France in the interval. He quickly realizes that Evelyn and Danny are now together, and the two friends soon get into a fight at the local hula bar. The next morning, on December 7, they are interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by Zero fighters, Val dive bombers and Kate torpedo bombers.

The surprise Japanese air raid sinks the battleships USS Arizona (BB-39), USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and many other ships. Back at the hospital, Evelyn helps tend to the dozens of wounded who come in and must help decide who can and cannot be saved. Meanwhile, Rafe and Danny manage to get airborne and shoot down seven Japanese aircraft with P-40s using their reckless tactics. In the aftermath, the survivors attend a memorial service for the fallen victims after the U.S. declaration of war on Japan. Rafe and Danny are both promoted to Captain, awarded the Silver Star and assigned to now-Colonel Doolittle for a dangerous and top-secret mission. Before their departure, Evelyn meets Rafe and reveals that she is pregnant with Danny's child, although she doesn't want Danny to know so he can focus on the upcoming mission. She says that she is going to remain with Danny, but deep down she will always love Rafe just as much.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Jon Voight) wants to send a message that the Japanese homeland is not immune from bombing. Danny, Rafe and others are to fly B-25 Mitchell medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8), bomb Tokyo and some Japanese occupied territory in China. The two men succeed in their bombing but are captured by the Japanese in China when their bombers run out of gas. They crash land into a rice field, where Japanese soldiers run towards the crash site. Just as Rafe is about to be shot, Danny knocks the soldiers over and is instead shot himself while the other American crew mates fight off the remaining soldiers. Rafe holds a dying Danny in his arms, telling him he can't die because he's going to be a father while several National Revolutionary Army soldiers [N 1]that shot the rest of the Japanese soldiers found Rafe and Danny. Danny tells Rafe that he needs to be the father to his child. The film ends a few years later with Rafe and Evelyn, who are together again, and their son, Danny, back at the farm in Tennessee visiting Danny Walker's grave. Rafe then takes his son flying, with the two flying off into the sunset in the old biplane.

Cast

Supporting characters

Production

The proposed budget of $208 million that Bay and Bruckheimer wanted was an area of contention with Disney executives, since a great deal of the budget was to be expended on production aspects. More inflammatory was the effort to change the original film rating from an R to PG-13. Bay wanted to graphically portray the horrors of war and was not interested in primarily marketing the final product to a teen and young adult audience. Budget fights continued throughout the planning of the film with Bay "walking" on several occasions with the final $135 million budget that was "green lighted" still the largest in Hollywood history.[1]

In order to recreate the atmosphere of pre-war Pearl Harbor, the producers had the advantage of staging the film in Hawaii and using the current Naval facilities, although for the sake of expediency and due to the present use of the base, the set at Rosarita Beach in the Mexican state of Baja California was utilized for scale model work. Formerly serving as the set for the Titanic, Rosarita served as the ideal location to recreate the death throes of the battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack. A large-scale model of the bow section of the USS Oklahoma mounted on a gimbal produced an authentic rolling and submerging of the doomed warship. Production Engineer Nigel Phelps realized that the sequence of the ship, rolling out of the water and slapping down would involve one of the "biggest set elements" to be staged. Matched with computer generated imagery, the action had to reflect precision and accuracy throughout.[3]

Reaction

Box office

Pearl Harbor grossed US$200 million at the domestic box office and US$450 million worldwide. The film was ranked the sixth highest-earning picture of 2001.[2]

Critical response

Pearl Harbor was panned by the critics and the public, earning only a 26% approval from critics on the review-compiling website Rotten Tomatoes, although Metacritic give it a 44, meaning mixed or average reviews. While it earned praise for its technical achievements, the screenplay and acting were popular targets for critics.[4]

Roger Ebert gave the film one and a half stars and wrote, "The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them" and criticized its liberties with historical facts: "There is no sense of history, strategy or context; according to this movie, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because America cut off its oil supply, and they were down to an 18-month reserve. Would going to war restore the fuel sources? Did they perhaps also have imperialist designs? Movie doesn't say".[5] Michael Bay responded to Ebert's criticism of his film: "He commented on TV that bombs don't fall like that. Does he actually think we didn't research every nook and cranny of how armor-piercing bombs fell? He's watched too many movies. He thinks they all fall flat — armor-piercing bombs fall straight down, that's the way it was designed! But he's on the air pontificating and giving the wrong information. That's insulting!"[6] Nonetheless, on a similar refrain, A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, "Nearly every line of the script drops from the actors' mouths with the leaden clank of exposition, timed with bad sitcom beats".[7] USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "Ships, planes and water combust and collide in Pearl Harbor, but nothing else does in one of the wimpiest wartime romances ever filmed".[8]

In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "although this Walt Disney movie is based, inspired and even partially informed by a real event referred to as Pearl Harbor, the movie is actually based on the movies Top Gun, Titanic and Saving Private Ryan. Don't get confused".[9] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "Affleck, Hartnett and Beckinsale - a British actress without a single worthy line to wrap her credible American accent around - are attractive actors, but they can't animate this moldy romantic triangle".[10] Time magazine's Richard Schickel criticized the film's love triangle: "It requires a lot of patience for an audience to sit through the dithering. They're nice kids and all that, but they don't exactly claw madly at one another. It's as if they know that someday they're going to be part of "the Greatest Generation" and don't want to offend Tom Brokaw. Besides, megahistory and personal history never integrate here".[11]

Entertainment Weekly was more positive, giving the film a "B-" rating, and Owen Gleiberman praised the Pearl Harbor attack sequence: "Bay's staging is spectacular but also honorable in its scary, hurtling exactitude ... There are startling point-of-view shots of torpedoes dropping into the water and speeding toward their targets, and though Bay visualizes it all with a minimum of graphic carnage, he invites us to register the terror of the men standing helplessly on deck, the horrifying split-second deliverance as bodies go flying and explosions reduce entire battleships to liquid walls of collapsing metal".[12] In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "here is the ironic twist in my acceptance of Pearl Harbor-the parts I liked most are the parts before and after the digital destruction of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese carrier planes" and felt that "Pearl Harbor is not so much about World War II as it is about movies about World War II. And what's wrong with that?"[13]

The soundtrack for the 2004 film Team America: World Police contains a song entitled End Of An Act. The lyrics "Pearl Harbor Sucked (And I Miss You)" equate the singer's longing to how much "Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor" which is "an awful lot, girl". The ballad contains other common criticisms of the film, concluding with the rhetorical question "Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?"[14]

Historical inaccuracies

Like many historical dramas, Pearl Harbor provoked debate about the artistic license taken by its producers and director. National Geographic Channel produced a documentary called Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor[15] which covers some of the ways that "the film's final cut didn't reflect all the attacks' facts, or represent them all accurately."[16]

Many Pearl Harbor survivors dismissed the film as grossly inaccurate and pure Hollywood. Historian Lawrence Suid's review is particularly detailed in the major factual misrepresentations of the film and the impact of them, even in an entertainment film.[17] Historical inaccuracies found in the film include the early childhood scenes depicting a Stearman biplane crop duster in 1923, as the aircraft was not accurate for the period and the first commercial crop-dusting company did not begin operation until 1924.[18] The inclusion of Affleck's character in the Eagle Squadron was another jarring aspect as serving U.S. airmen were prohibited from doing so, though some American civilians did join the RAF.[19] Countless other technical lapses such as painting the Japanese Zero fighters green for effect even though Bay knew that was inaccurate, but liked the way the aircraft looked so that audiences could differentiate the "good guys from the bad guys" was another aspect that rankled film critics.[20]

The greatest criticism came when actual historical events were altered for dramatic purposes. For example, Admiral Kimmel was not on a golf course on the morning of the attack (he was planning to meet General Short for a regular game, but cancelled as news of the attack came in), nor was he notified of the Japanese embassy leaving Washington, D.C., prior to the attack. The first official notification of the attack was received by General Short several hours after the attack had ended. The report of attacking an enemy midget submarine, in real life, did not reach him until after the bombs began falling.[21] The roles that the two male leads played by Affleck and Hartnett have in the attack sequence are analogous to the real historical deeds of U.S. Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies during the Japanese attack and, together, claimed six Japanese aircraft and a few probables. Taylor, who died in November 2006, previously declared the film adaptation "a piece of trash... over-sensationalized and distorted."[22]

Sensationalizing the real-life deeds of Doris Miller's actions during the battle "rubber stamps the legend" surrounding the black seaman's actions. In the film, Miller comforts Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, who has been mortally wounded by a torpedo striking his ship, and is with him when he dies. Miller delivers the Captain's last orders to the ship's executive officer and then mans a machine gun. In reality, Miller picked him up after he was wounded (by fragments when one of the Tennessee's gun turrets exploded) and attempted to carry him to a first-aid station. The Captain refused to leave his post and remained on the bridge and continued to direct the battle until he died of his wounds just before the ship was abandoned. While Miller did man an antiaircraft gun, he was never credited with any kills (as opposed to the one shown in the film). Fellow crewman Ensign Victor Delano who comforted the Captain in his final moments, then managed to get two machine guns going, showing Miler how to fire one, knew the true story would show that Miller did not even "know how to shoot a gun."[21]

The movie was also criticized for the way it "distinguished Americans from Japanese, including the wearing of black clothes, the lack of a social life, family or friends, and the devotion to warring, juxtaposing these with the portraits of Americans".[23]

Home media

A Commemorative 60th Anniversary Edition was released on December 4, 2001. The feature was spread across two videotapes in letterbox format, and tape two also included Unsung Heroes of Pearl Harbor, a 50-minute documentary on little-known heroes of the attack, and a Faith Hill music video.

Around the same time a two-disc DVD of the Commemorative 60th Anniversary Edition was released. This release included the feature on disc one, and on disc two, Journey to the Screen, a 47-minute documentary on the monumental production of the film, Unsung Heroes of Pearl Harbor, the Faith Hill music video and theatrical trailers.

A Pearl Harbor DVD gift set that includes the Commemorative Edition two-disc set, National Geographic's "Beyond the Movie" feature and a dual-sided map was released concurrently on December 4, 2001.

A deluxe Vista Series edition of the film was released on July 2, 2002. It contained an R-rated extended cut of the film, with numerous commentaries from the cast and crew alongside a few "easter eggs". The extended cut of the film included the reinsertion of graphic carnage during the central attack (including shots of eviscerated bodies being torn apart by strafing, blood, flying limbs and so forth); small alterations and additions to existing scenes; Doolittle addressing the pilots before the raid; and the replacement of the campfire scene with a scene of Doolittle speaking personally to Rafe and Danny about the value of friendship. It runs at 195 minutes compared to the 183 minutes of the theatrical cut.

This elaborate package, which DVDtalk.com called "the most extensive set released comprising of only one film" includes four discs of film and bonus features, a replication of Roosevelt's speech, collectible promotional postcards and a carrying case that resembles a historic photo album. The bonus features include all the features included in the commemorative edition, plus additional footage. There are three audio commentaries: 1) Director and film historian, 2) Cast and 3) Crew. Other features include The Surprise Attack - a multi-angle breakdown of the film's most exciting sequence (30 minutes), which includes multiple video tracks (such as previsualization and final edit) and commentaries from veterans; Pearl Harbor Historic Timeline - a set-top interactive feature produced by documentarian Charles Kiselyak (68 minutes); Soldier's Boot Camp - follows the actors as they take preparation for their roles to an extreme (30 minutes)), One Hour Over Tokyo and The Unsung Heroes of Pearl Harbor - two History Channel documentaries; Super-8 Montage - a collection of unseen Super-8 footage shot for potential use in the movie by Michael Bay's assistant, Mark Palansky; Deconstructing Destruction - an in-depth conversation with Michael Bay and Eric Breving (of Industrial Light and Magic) about the special effects in the movie; and Nurse Ruth Erickson interview.

On December 19, 2006, a 65th Anniversary Commemorative Edition high-definition Blu-ray Disc was released.

Awards

At the 2002 Academy Awards, Pearl Harbor was nominated for four awards, winning one for Sound Effects Editing. Its other nominations were for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Song.[24]

At the Golden Globe awards it was nominated for best original score and best song.

At the 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards Pearl Harbor was nominated for six awards: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Screen Couple, Worst Actor (Ben Affleck), and Worst Remake or Sequel (presumably of the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!); but lost to Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered in all but the latter category, wherein it lost to Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes.

References

Notes
  1. ↑ National Revolutionary Army soldiers can be identified by wearing Brodie helmets.
Citations
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cagle, Jess (May 27, 2001). "Pearl Harbor's Top Gun". Time (Time Inc.). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,128107,00.html. Retrieved August 17, 2010. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Pearl Harbor (2001)." Box Office Mojo, 2009. Retrieved: March 25, 2009.
  3. ↑ Sunshine and Felix 2001, p. 135.
  4. ↑ "Review: Pearl Harbor (2001)." rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved: March 25, 2009.
  5. ↑ Ebert, Roger. "Pearl Harbor." Chicago Sun-Times, May 25, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Michael Bay." IMDb Profile, 2009. Retrieved: March 25, 2009.
  7. ↑ Scott, A.O. "Pearl Harbor: War Is Hell, but Very Pretty." The New York Times, May 25, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  8. ↑ Clark, Mike. "Pearl Harbor sputters — until Japanese show up." USA Today, June 7, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  9. ↑ Howe, Desson. "Pearl Harbor: Bombs Away." Washington Post, May 25, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  10. ↑ Travers, Peter. "Pearl Harbor." Rolling Stone, June 21, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  11. ↑ Schickel, Richard. "Mission: Inconsequential." Time, May 25, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  12. ↑ Gleiberman, Owen. "Jarhead." Entertainment Weekly, June 1, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  13. ↑ Sarris, Andrew. "Shrek and Dreck? Well, Not Quite." The New York Observer, June 10, 2001. Retrieved: June 25, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Team America: End of an act lyrics." lyricsbox.com. Retrieved: March 25, 2009.
  15. ↑ "Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor." National Geographic Society, 2001 Retrieved: March 26, 2009.
  16. ↑ "Beyond the Movie: Pearl Harbor (2001) (TV)." IMdB Profile, 1990–2009. Retrieved: March 26, 2009.
  17. ↑ Suid, Lawrence. "Pearl Harbor: Bombed Again". Naval History August 2001, Vol. 15, No. 4 (United States Naval institute), p. 20.
  18. ↑ Hanson, Dave. "Boeing/Stearman Model 75/PT-13/N2S." daveswarbirds.com. Retrieved: June 22, 2010.
  19. ↑ "Americans in the RAF: Eagle Squadrons." rafmuseum.org.uk. Retrieved: June 22, 2010.
  20. ↑ Cagle 2001, p. 51.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Sullivan 2001, p. 54.
  22. ↑ Sullivan, Patricia. "Kenneth Taylor; Flew Against Pearl Harbor Raiders." Washington Post, December 12, 2006. Retrieved: March 26, 2009.
  23. ↑ Mackie, Ardiss and Bonny Norton. "Revisiting Pearl Harbor: Resistance to Reel and Real - Events in an English Language Classroom." Canadian Journal of Education, 29, 1, p. 8. Retrieved: March 26, 2009.
  24. ↑ Awards
Bibliography
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  • Barker, A.J. Pearl Harbor (Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II, Battle Book, No. 10). New York: Ballantine Books, 1969. No ISBN.
  • Cohen, Stan. East Wind Rain: A Pictorial History of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1981. ISBN 0-933126-15-8.
  • Golstein, Donald M., Katherine Dillon and J. Michael Wenger. The Way it Was: Pearl Harbor (The Original Photographs). Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's Inc., 1995. ISBN 1-57488-359-3.
  • Kimmel, Husband E. Kimmel's Story. Washington, D.C.: Henry Regnery Co., 1955.
  • Prange, Gordon W. At Dawn we Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1981. ISBN 0-14-006455-9.
  • Sheehan, Ed. Days of '41: Pearl Harbor Remembered. Honolulu: Kapa Associates, 1977. ISBN 0-915870-01-0.
  • Sunshine, Linda and Antonia Felix, eds. Pearl Harbor: The Movie and the Moment. New York: Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0-7868-6780-9.
  • Sullivan, Robert. "What Really Happened." Time, June 4, 2001.
  • Thorpe. Briagdier General Elliott R. East Wind Rain: The Intimate Account of an Intelligence Officer in the Pacific, 1939–49. Boston: Gambit Incorporated, 1969. No ISBN.
  • Wilmott, H.P. Pearl Harbor. New York: Bison Books, 1981. ISBN 0-99365-543-8.
  • Wilmott, H.P. with Tohmatsu Haruo and W. Spencer Johnson. Pearl Harbor. London: Cassell & Co., 2001. ISBN 0-304-35884-3.
  • Winchester, Jim, ed. Aircraft of World War II (The Aviation Factfile). London: Grange Books, 2004. ISBN 1-84013-639-1.
  • Wisiniewski, Richard A., ed/ Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial: A Pictorial History. Honolulu: Pacific Basin Enterprises, 1981, first edition 1977. No ISBN.

External links

Films directed by Michael Bay
1990s
Bad Boys (1995) · The Rock (1996) · Armageddon (1998)
2000s
Pearl Harbor (2001) · Bad Boys II (2003) · The Island (2005) · Transformers (2007) · Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
2010s
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)