Historical accuracy tossed aside

Hollywood's latest blockbuster, "Pearl Harbor," is doing boffo box office. So far I haven't seen it, and I hope I won't: the theatrical preview I saw seemed to last for three hours all by itself. I don't need a movie to remind me about World War II, since I grew up in a period (the Fifties) obsessed with it, and rightly so: the war was the defining experience of my parents' generation. So let me stress: I'm not talking here about the movie. I'm interested in what people are saying about it, both critics and the public, who've been flocking to the Internet to make their voices heard.\nThere has been complaint about "Pearl Harbor's" historical accuracy or lack of it, but much of what I've seen so far is for its failure to demonize the Japanese enough. If I never hear the words "sneak attack" again, it'll be too soon. Since when do attacking forces send a messenger in livery to announce their intent? "You are cordially invited to a battle at the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor in the early morning hours of December 7, 1941; anti-aircraft fire optional." Did the U.S. warn Japan of its intent to bomb Hiroshima?\nAs usual with Hollywood\'s pseudo-historical epics, fans of "Pearl Harbor" alternate between brushing aside historical questions (hey, it's just a movie, just lie back and enjoy it) and ignoring any inaccuracies (besides, it really happened that way, even if it didn't). But many people are complaining because the movie is "too" accurate. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, for instance, is indignant because the script mentions that the United States cut off oil supplies to Japan in August 1941 -- what, he fumes, about Japan's "imperialist designs?" Yes, Japan had imperialist designs in Asia; so did the United States, which kept thousands of marines in China to protect our interests there. And there's no need to wonder what the U.S. would do if another country merely threatened our access to oil supplies, let alone actually cut off that access; the historical record is pretty consistent on the point.\nQuite a few people claim, probably correctly, that the filmmakers developed their portrayal of the Japanese with an eye to foreign grosses, not wanting to offend potential ticket-buyers in Asia. Those interested in history should be aware that self-censorship is as old as the movies. In the years just before World War II, according to movie historian James Curtis, Hollywood often bowed to economic pressure from Germany and other countries in its choice of projects. Hollywood is a business first and last, and you don't stay in business if you alienate customers. Besides, it's only a movie, don't be so serious, chill out!\n"Pearl Harbor" fans' favorite theme is the movie's supposed value as an educational tool. Since "Schindler's List" (1993) and "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line" (both 1998) came out, Americans apparently have forgotten World War II again, and we need a cinematic extravaganza to refresh our notoriously short memories. Or today's kids need to know what it was like to live then, but I'm not sure a movie can tell them that, especially not a Hollywood product built on movie conventions and special effects, not history. And it's clear from the complaints I've mentioned that many people don't want history -- they want propaganda, accuracy be damned.\nI'm most sympathetic to the argument that veterans and others who lived through the war need to see their experience depicted on the screen. Just about every movie made about the Vietnam War, for instance, was welcomed by Vietnam vets who were hungry for accounts of what they went through: even leaden, pretentious junk like Oliver Stone's "Platoon" was praised by veterans for its realism.\nThere's no shortage of media about World War II, however, especially not recently. The 50th anniversaries of D-Day and the Allied victories during the mid-1990s generated a flood of reminiscence. Whenever someone detects a media silence on a topic on which there's actually media saturation, I get suspicious. "Accurate" information about history is in short supply in the American media, but "Pearl Harbor" isn't going to change that, and from people's reactions to the movie, no one believes it will.