Japan’s "sneak attack on Pearl Harbor" was the worst military attack on the United States in the 20th century. According to data, 350 Japanese fighter planes bombed the US Pacific base-Pearl Harbor in two batches, dropping 144 tons of various types of bombs and 40 torpedoes, causing heavy losses to the Pacific Fleet, including 8 battleships and 11 cruisers. More than 40 ships were sunk or severely damaged; 188 planes were bombed and 155 planes damaged; 2,403 American soldiers were killed, 11091 were injured, and 68 civilians were killed. Japan’s losses were 29 fighter planes and 5 miniature submarines, which caused the United States to suffer unprecedented losses and casualties at a small price. This incident, as the film "Pearl Harbor" Nakayamamoto said "awakened the sleeping giant", became the direct cause of the US military's participation in World War II. So far, the Pacific War broke out, and the war of World War II had undergone a critical turning point.
Before the film "Pearl Harbor", many films related to the Pearl Harbor incident were put on the screen. The most famous one was "Tiger!" which was co-produced by the United States and Japan in 1970. Tiger! Tiger! "The film was named after the action code "Tiger Tiger Tiger" when the Japanese Air Force bombed Pearl Harbor. The film faithfully shows the complete process of diplomacy, military affairs and even intelligence that led to the Pearl Harbor incident. The viewpoint is unbiased, and the details are as faithful to the history as possible, with the taste of historical materials. After the film was released, it became very popular in Japan, but it was mediocre in the United States. As the victims of this incident, the American people obviously cannot get emotional satisfaction in this film; at the same time, the true reproduction of the tragedy of Pearl Harbor also undermines the pride of the American military. People look forward to seeing a movie that describes the Pearl Harbor incident from an American perspective, reflects American emotions, and also American dignity.
It was in this expectation that on May 21, 2001, the war love giant "Pearl Harbor" premiered in North America, and made a good start to $59.07 million. After that, it gained nearly 200 million box office in the United States and 250 million box office overseas. The world has accumulated a total of 450 million U.S. dollars, which is among the top 100 movies in the world at the box office of all time. In the context of the grand narrative before and after the Pearl Harbor incident, the film tells the romantic and poignant love story of two American pilots trapped in the war and a female nurse. Director Michael Bay believes that the focus of this film is no longer the objective reproduction of the Pearl Harbor incident, nor is it a deep reflection on the history of war, but a more commercial choice of lingering love in the battlefield and an air combat bombing war that emphasizes audiovisual wonders. scene. The Pearl Harbor attack caused by the political, military, and diplomatic game between the United States and Japan during World War II no longer has such a strong political color in the film, but a huge disaster that suddenly came to the American people who lived in comfort and comfort. Faced with such a test, how people make choices, the director's answer is "The United States has withstood the test. Whether men or women, they are all heroes." Thus, an American-style heroic war epic kicked off.
The biggest feature of "Pearl Harbor" different from previous films showing the Pearl Harbor incident is its special narrative angle. Screenwriter Randall Wallace once said, "As a playwright, if this is a story involving Washington's political secrets, I would not be interested." Judging from the films "Brave Heart" and "Man in the Iron Mask" in which he served as the screenwriter, Randall is good at describing the legends and delicate emotions in the grand epic. The same is true of "Pearl Harbor", which is full of heroism, War love epic film of patriotism and romantic temperament. The emotional entanglement between Leif, Danny and Evelyn accounted for more than half of the length of the film. It is not so much a war film, but rather a romance. At the same time, a heroic imaginative plot is added to the film. Compared with the historical fact that the United States did not have a fighter jet into the air when Pearl Harbor was attacked, the fictional plot of the film’s two male protagonists ascending into the air and destroying seven enemy planes in the artillery fire is to make up for it. A heroic dream of painful trauma. At the end of the film, the bomber made a forced landing in China. According to historical records, except for one plane that made a forced landing in Vladivostok, the other 15 planes landed or crashed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, China. After parachuting, most of the crew were rescued by Chinese soldiers and civilians and sent to Chongqing. Return to the United States again. The film is designed for these planes to exchange fire with the Japanese invaders after a forced landing. The bravery and sacrifice of the pilots once again sublimated the heroism and patriotism of the film. Therefore, the choice and rewriting of historical facts in "Pearl Harbor" depends on the theme. The film does not show the tragic plot of the bombing of Pearl Harbor alone, but combines the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with the US airstrike on Tokyo. This clearly highlights the American perspective and clearly shows that the latter is revenge against the former. Although the military effect of the air raid on Tokyo was limited, it greatly boosted the morale of the American military and civilians against Japan.
The film’s narrative structure is very distinctive. It adopts the classic three-act linear structure of the drama and sets the plot points of the film, so that the audience's attention is always firmly attracted by the conflicts and stimuli that constantly appear or escalate. An hour before the film, as the first act of explaining the background and setting off the atmosphere, it completed an excellent description of the characters and relationships of the three protagonists in the film, and also explained the situation and the attitude of the United States at that time. There are two clues: macro and micro. Intertwined, primary and secondary, the helpless fate of the little people in the big background attracts the audience to the next scene. The middle hour of the film is the focus of the whole film-the story of the Pearl Harbor incident. The plot laid out in the previous scene reached a high point in this scene with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the multi-line rapid alternate narrative replaced the previous lyrical narrative. , The intense tension makes the audience reach the first emotional high point. At the end of the second act, the narrative rhythm slows down, and the accumulation of complex emotions intersects with the calm plot, making the audience look forward to the climax of the third act. The last hour of the film is the third act. The clues that have been laid before have begun to gather. The emotional problems of the three have been resolved and sublimated. The painful spiritual experience of the Pearl Harbor incident has also reached an emotional climax by overcoming all difficulties bombing Tokyo. The audience starts from the second act. The depressed mood at the time was finally released. The development of the three acts progresses layer by layer, from "basic" to "tribulation" to "counterattack", laying the track according to the audience's general psychological needs for stories and emotions, drawing the audience into the shared experience of images and hearts. Under the big narrative framework, the small details are also intertwined, and the previous details are taken care of later, such as the two use of Leif and Danny's cross flying stunt in training and on the battlefield. It is worth noting that although the screenwriter does not focus on the "Washington Political Secrets", he did not avoid it, but chose a dark line of light and dark clues to pave the way. The space is not much, but it is enough to imply the United States and Japan. Long-term open and secret fighting is the main factor that induced the Pearl Harbor incident, and it also explained several key points related to the incident and the situation in the Eurasian battlefield.
The character design of the film is quite bothersome. The three protagonists, Leif, Danny and Evelyn, have their own representative personalities, which can be understood as the embodiment of people with different mentalities or states before and after the United States entered the war during World War II. Leif has the characteristics of a certain American hero, smart, humorous, decisive and brave, and has a basic sense of justice in war. At the same time, he is eager to prove himself in the war, grow up in the war, and eventually become a mature and firm man, which can be regarded as the American advocate at the time. The hint of one side participating in the war. Danny is a conservative side who does not advocate joining the Second World War. Under the influence of his father, he fears war. He is kind and indecisive. He has a sense of justice but is unwilling to participate in the European battlefield that is irrelevant. However, he is forced to continue to be cruel. Making a choice in reality, his death can be regarded as the price the United States paid for speculative foreign policy at that time. Evelyn, as a representative of the American people or family members of the military in the rear, is not so concerned about the world outside of their homeland, focusing on the people they love, but when the disaster suddenly strikes, they have shown unparalleled tenacity. And brave, who silently endured the painful trauma of the war and gave support to their loved ones. Their existence was an important factor in the victory of the United States in World War II. Three people with different personalities make different choices when facing a decision, giving the audience their own emotional sustenance, but the common choice made when facing the national honor and disgrace has also triggered the collective emotional resonance of the audience.
As a war epic blockbuster, the image expression of war scenes in "Pearl Harbor" is the focus. "Pearl Harbor" costs as much as 145 million US dollars. The crew not only received the full support of the US Department of Defense, but was able to enter Pearl Harbor in the US military base on Oahu. For the scene shooting, he also spent huge sums of money to purchase a number of old-fashioned U.S. military fighters and put them into the real shooting of a large number of explosions, air strikes, naval battles and scenes in the film. The shooting method combines multiple methods such as aerial photography and underwater photography. Some visual effects that cannot be achieved by real shooting are realized by adopting advanced digital image synthesis technology in post-production, and all means are used to complete the construction of visual wonders. At the same time, the sound processing of war scenes is also the key to success. The multi-track soundtracks in the film are delicately handed over and synthesized, giving the audience a real and shocking effect, thus winning the award of the best sound editing Oscar that year. The film uses the most shocking audiovisual effects to bring the tragic scene more than half a century ago to the audience. After watching the film, the vast majority of the audience said that they were unforgettable for the 45-minute bombing scene of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film’s image expression of war scenes and other scenes has its own characteristics: lyrical scenes about emotional descriptions, the camera movement is calm, mainly with warm colors; the treatment of love scenes is even more romantic, Hollywood's typical three-point lighting brings the characters close-up shots The shooting is extremely beautiful; for the diplomatic and military planning scenes of the two sides, especially the Japanese side, the images are usually processed in cool colors to set off a gloomy and depressive atmosphere; in the scenes of the rescue of the wounded in the hospital in the rear, the camera mostly adopts a subjective perspective Shooting, using shaking high-speed photography and virtual focus processing to render people's inner panic and panic.
The excellent soundtrack of the film is worth mentioning. The famous Hollywood soundtrack master Hans Zimmer has a variety of styles and is good at vigorous symphony. In "Pearl Harbor", he distinguished the soundtrack into three major sections, the lyrical and beautiful music in emotional entanglements, the vigorous and powerful movements in fierce war, and the gloomy and restrained music in the enemy's strategic deployment. The distinctive movement changes with the progress of the plot, each has its own characteristics, and the convergence is not abrupt. Director Michael, who was born in shooting MTV, has a wealth of experience in audio and video editing. Whether it is high-speed photography in the background of lyrical music or fast alternate editing in a passionate symphony, the film gives the film a MTV-like texture to a certain extent. .
From the above point of view, as a commercial film, "Pearl Harbor" is relatively successful, but director Michael is still criticized by most film critics, ridiculing his lack of "humanistic and historical accomplishment". It can be seen that war films are only stimulating. Scenes and sighing love are not enough. In response to that unfortunate war, "Pearl Harbor" was not reflective. The unilateralization of the narrative perspective, the beautification of the US government, and the expression of the cruelty of war are only the direct visual stimulation of blood and death. Japan's unjust attack on Pearl Harbor has become the moral foundation of the film, emphasizing its own justice. Ignoring the reflection on the nature of war and the backward American military strategic thinking, focusing on the large-scale explosion scenes and love triangle love stories, exposing the weakness of most commercial films. With the excavation and discovery of more historical materials, such as the Far East Military Tribunal’s debate on whether Japan’s severance of diplomatic relations with the United States was before or after the Pearl Harbor incident, there is still no conclusion yet. Whether the United States has long learned about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc. Wait, and think calmly after a certain historical distance. The Pearl Harbor incident was a collision tragedy between the political, military and diplomatic sophistry of the United States and Japan during World War II and the disasters suffered by ordinary American soldiers. Simplify this complex history of intense conflicts between life and interests, individuals and the country, and cover up with passionate national sentiments and sensational love stories, weakening the tragic nature of human war itself, and the audience cannot get more after the visually stunning Deep perception and thinking. In addition, the performance of the emotional entanglement of the three protagonists is also somewhat lacking in persuasiveness. The love between Leif and Evelyn is flat and not deep enough due to insufficient preparation. The love between Danny and Evelyn is even more plot-like. As for the tragic color of Danny's sacrifice in the end, it became the audience's desire for Leif and Evelyn's lover to finally get married.
Strong propaganda strategies, high-tech visual shocking effects, the poignant love of handsome men and beauties, and the values of universal colors in Hollywood are all important factors for "Pearl Harbor" to be widely recognized. At the same time, the film’s heavy blow to Japanese fascism during World War II has also received emotional recognition from audiences in most Asian countries. At the end of the film, the rescue of American pilots by Chinese soldiers and civilians also made Chinese audiences feel a little gratified. Although it does not completely conform to the real historical details, it is It is one of the important means for overseas promotion of Hollywood movies to seek the emotional vent of the common historical memory among different groups.
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