Professor David Peimer
Hollywood and History: Portrayals of Pearl Harbor

Professor David Peimer - Hollywood and History Portrayals of Pearl Harbor

- Okay, so thanks very much, Jess. And hi, everybody, and hope everybody is well everywhere. Something very important to say upfront at the beginning, Wendy, Trudy, and everybody who does presentations, we all spoke a little while ago, and I know Trudy mentioned this during the week, and all agreed that although today is, of course, Holocaust Memorial Day. And obviously we would usually commemorate it in the memory, in some profound meaningful way, we all made a decision together that it somehow didn’t feel right given what has been happening, obviously the last few months, and given what is happening globally. Obviously in Israel and the horrific events of October the seventh, and events after for Israel, and for Jewish people everywhere. So we felt that we would commemorate this most profound and important day in the year for, not only Jewish people I would argue, but everybody in the world. We would commemorate it probably at Yom HaShoah in a couple of months time.

Visual slides and video clips are displayed throughout the presentation.

And I just want to say that it initially felt a bit weird or a bit strange to be talking about Hollywood and fiction and film, even though it’s this big event historically, Pearl Harbour, on such a day. But in the interest of the bigger picture that we’re all engaged with, the group of lockdown, the family and everybody, we all felt we would rather just hold this for Yom HaShoah, and commemorate in the deepest, most profound, and meaningful way then. So I wanted to mention that because this is the day, obviously of Holocaust Memorial Day, and it’s very important to share this very honestly and thoughtfully with everybody. Okay, so having said that, and I’m sure many everywhere in the world have been in deep and profound thoughts given, or what the meaning of today is, and the events of the last few months, and October the seventh, the utter tragedy. So I just wanted to mention thoughts to everyone who has family and friends in Israel, and Jewish people everywhere around the world, that on behalf of everybody in lockdown, we all share that as much as we can in this family and community that Wendy and Trudy have set up. So, thank you all, and I hope we can all have an agreed understanding of this today.

So today, I’m going to go into, as I know, we’re looking at America, and the period of the end of the ‘30s, early '40s, and particular historically, in terms of the historical spine, the massively momentous day, of course, of the December, 1941 attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour. And I’m going to look primarily at two movies, mainly at this one, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, and a little bit at the more recent 2001 film with Ben Affleck. And just do a little contrast in terms of asking the key question, how do we choose to, or how do we represent historical events in essentially a 90 minute, or two hour, or two and a half hour film? A huge historical event that is contemporary, not just going much further back to perhaps a couple of centuries ago, or to ancient Rome, or ancient Egypt, whatever. What do we try and do? What can we say is the aim of taking historical events and putting them into a pretty short film, given artistic licence, given entertainment, the needs of budget, the needs of profit, et cetera? Comparing that fiction to documentary, to the facts of the historical event itself.

And just to share some contemporary ideas around all of this, which I would call a creative tension between the debate of being accurate to history and being entertaining and informative, but in an artistic, or in this case, the visual filmic medium. It could be theatre, it could be literature, novels, et cetera. Anything that is fundamentally fiction, the techniques of fiction used to portray reality and what happens. So that’s the basic idea that I want to look at, which I’m sure many have thought of everywhere. And just share a couple of key ideas based on this movie as a key example. It’s just, first of all, this film was made in '71, and it’s regarded as one of the great epics of historical accuracy, and how it tries to dramatise the events leading up to the immediate events, and then the events of the attack on Pearl Harbour, the beginning of course, of American entry into the war. “Tora! Tora! Tora!” the title literally means tiger. It’s an abbreviation of what what was called by the Japanese leadership at the time a lightning attack, a surprise basically. And they achieved complete surprise.

This film, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, has been praised for historical accuracy, its attention to detail, the visual effects, the action sequences, if you like, the spectacle of the action and war, the battle sequences, the training. It’s also been praised for some historical accuracy in terms of the lead up to the attack. And I’m sure many know what happened in terms of the military intelligence, the American intelligence getting certain reports, sending them to the higher ups, and the higher ups bundling, or misunderstanding, or incompetence, or just not getting it, what was really going on by the lower ranked. And in a very interesting 1994 survey in America, this film was regarded as the most common source of educational knowledge about the Pearl Harbour attack. Now, that’s fascinating, because it means that although obviously many, this is of course a survey done in 1994, of course many high school kids are learning about this attack, obviously in history classes and elsewhere. But they referenced the film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” as the most educationally informative aspect of what they remembered from their school. So it’s fascinating that not only is film being used as part of education about history, but of course it’s the medium of our times. Film, internet today, TV again, this is the medium of our times. Storytelling in this way is the visual medium, is our medium.

And it’s not only what we may learn in class, but this survey is, I think a very important and underrated survey in terms of that creative tension between learning history in the classroom and getting a sense of history through 90 minute, two hour movie. And we have to take it on board because it is the medium of our times. In Shakespeare’s time, people would say, “Let’s go and listen to a play, or let’s go and hear a play.” And it is only in the 20th century that people would start to use the word, “Let’s go and see a play. Let’s go and obviously see a movie, or let’s go and see a concert.” Whether it’s a rock group, or a music group, or whatever, musical, “Let’s go and see it. Or let’s go and see the football match. Let’s go and see the baseball match.” So the visual sensory aspect of our human nature is the one that has been completely mobilised in our times and in the 20th century. Compared to the auditory, which was obviously for thousands of years before through the oral storyteller. And theatre before obviously the dominance of the visual. So the oral storyteller would’ve been profoundly important, and it’s been taken over by the visual sense.

So we have to also incorporate that when we’re trying to understand the tools of contemporary education. So this film was praised for the visual spectacle, the visual effect, and the impact of it all, and its historical accuracy. It was also heavily criticised that it didn’t have primary characters, protagonist, antagonist, who you could really emotionally identify with. Now, that is a classic technique of fiction, of literature, of film, theatre, everything. We need a goodie and a baddie, or at least a protagonist and an antagonist, “Macbeth,” a Banquo, a “Lear”, a Cordelia, all the goodies and the not so goodies. We need to identify with some character to feel emotionally identifying and connected in order to follow a fiction story. And this has been criticised. And it’s fascinating 'cause it creates an interesting question. It criticised that we don’t really have that to identify with in “Tora! Tora! Tora!” like we do with the later 2001 Ben Affleck film, which is essentially a love story, just happens to be set in Hawaii during Pearl Harbour.

So we have this endless creative tension between fiction and fact, and historical accuracy and not as one example. The main criticism was that no identification with the main character. And you can see the difference with something like “Schindler” and many other films made of catastrophic historical events, where there’s obviously an identification with a main character and we go on that emotional journey. Now, many people I know listening will know this, but I’m trying to share it for everybody here so we can all have a sense of where we begin the debate. The film was nominated for five Oscars. It’s important I think for me, just to mention briefly the plot because it does show the accuracy to the historical detail that the later 2001 film does not, it glosses over a lot. And many other films gloss over a lot of historical detail. So August, 1939 in the film, the US imposes a trade embargo on a belligerent Japan. It limits raw materials. The Japanese army and the leadership of the politicians, they push through an alliance with Germany and Italy. So 1940, we have the axis being formalised.

And the Japanese prepare for war with America, they’ve already been at war with China. Chief of the fleet is Admiral Yamamoto. And he, in the film, reluctantly plans a preemptive strike on the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. Believing, not only him but the others, that Japan’s best hope of controlling the Pacific and the war that they envisaged for raw materials in the Pacific, that Japan envisages raw materials, is to quickly annihilate the American fleet while it is in harbour. American intelligence has broken the Japanese purple code, it was called. Pearl Harbour itself, Admiral Kimmel increases patrols around Hawaii, General Short recommends concentrating aircraft and safeguarding aircraft, concerned about internal saboteurs attacking. No one had the imagination that a fleet might have been sent most of the way around the world from Japan undetected to attack Pearl Harbour without any inkling of intelligence or anybody knowing. An extraordinary lapse of intelligence. An extraordinary breakdown, incompetence, misunderstanding, fear of upsetting the authorities above, misinterpretation of messages. Because intelligence had the information until very shortly before the attack.

And I’m not talking about what happened with the Japanese ambassador yet, and all the messages, of course their intentional delay of informing the Americans of the attack and the beginning of war. So what happens in the film? We see all this, we see several months pass, diplomatic tensions escalate between Japan and America. Japan decides not to make peace and try and negotiate a deal with America and keep its possessions in China. Japanese Ambassador Washington continues negotiations to stall for time. Large Japanese fleet heads into the Pacific. On the day of the attack, Americans learn from intercepts, that’s a Japanese plan, 14 radio messages from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in Washington to tell them that the attack is coming, but they’ll only let them know 30 minutes or whatever before. So all of this is actually known because the Americans have cracked the code, the Japanese code. So the American military intelligence gets it. The Japanese intention is to launch a surprise attack immediately after the messages are delivered. And Bratton tries warning his superiors of his suspicions, but to put it euphemistically, encountered problems.

Chief of Naval Operation Stark is indecisive over notifying Hawaii without first alerting the president. Got to follow protocol, got to follow the inkling, great scene, need confirmation. I need, et cetera, which I’m going to show. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall is ordered that Pearl Harbour be alerted of an impending attack. Is stymied by what? By poor atmospherics that prevent radio transmission. They can’t just pick up the phone. And by bungling, human error and human bungling. When a warning was sent by telegram, it’s just not marked urgent. Quite extraordinary that human, and I really believe this, that we have to always factor in human error, human mistake. Can’t just rely on a machine. Why they couldn’t pick up a phone and phone and demand whatever. But it’s this age old debate between relying on technology, relying on protocol and procedure, and relying on what you’re actually seeing and reading from intelligence reports, or what you’re seeing is emerging and coming out. What the human eye, the human intelligent resources are saying, Personally, I would always go for the human intelligence, but that’s me.

So it’s an extraordinary film that really tries to capture all of these debates, all of these nuances in the first part of the movie before we even get onto the action, the dramatic action of the attack and the spectacle of war movie and so on. So it really tries to capture detailed historical accuracy in the way that for me, the film “Darkest Hours”, fantastic film. The British film about the 10 days in May when Churchill took over from Chamberlain. Fundamental change in human history, completely that change. And all he does is focus on the 10 days in May and what happens. And with mostly pretty much historical accuracy in the portrayal of the main events. But many films don’t, of course, they gloss over it. So then what happens afterwards is that December the seventh, as we all know, the Japanese fleet launches its aircraft. Then in addition, their approach to Hawaii, the aircraft approaching Hawaii is detected by two ordinary low ranking radar operators. But their concerns are dismissed by the duty officer. Again, basic human error and disbelief. Japanese achieve complete surprise, terrifyingly but true.

Of course the casualties, the catastrophe, the end of seven battleships sunk or heavily damaged, all the General Short’s anti sabotage precautions, believing a sabotage is going to happen rather on the island, then the fleet’s going to travel all the way, and the aeroplanes , disastrous mistakes. So the Japanese planes, as we know, destroy most of the aircraft on the ground, and there’s virtually no ability for military response in time. For me, in the end, it’s a failure of human imagination. Scary but true, and it’s repeated throughout thousands of years of human history when you examine not only warfare, but I think many other things. A failure of imagination, or is it arrogance on behalf of the military leadership in the States at the time? Or is it incompetence? Or is it fear of upsetting the superiors? Or is it a combination of it all? This is part of the debate the film throws out. The film doesn’t answer it, it just throws out this historical, these ideas for debate. And of course, ultimately it’s trying to show historical fact and fiction in film in the short period, but trying to take out the main historical events that happened. Hours after the attack ends, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, they receive Marshall’s telegram warning of the impending damage, well, the danger. Well, of course it comes too late 'cause it wasn’t marked urgent by whoever it was meant to be. Washington, we see Secretary of State Cordell Hull, he’s stunned to learn of the attack.

Urgently requests confirmation before receiving the Japanese ambassador message, which was transmitted to the Japanese embassy in 14 parts. Was meant to be delivered to the Americans at 1:00 p.m in Washington, 30 minutes before the attack. Of course, it was intended to stall, play for time, so the Americans couldn’t be alerted in time, obviously. But of course, the message by the Japanese embassy in Washington, it’s not decoded, it’s not transcribed in time, so the attack starts while the two nations are technically still at peace. We see the Japanese ambassador distraught, but he’s bluntly rebuffed, of course, by Hull. Then of course, interestingly, we switch to the Japanese fleet commander, Nagumo, who refuses to launch a scheduled third wave of aircraft attack. Now, that’s interesting, because he’s scared, they can’t believe they’ve achieved such complete surprise. But he’s scared, he won’t launch the third attack of the aircraft because he’s scared he’ll expose his force to the American submarines. 'Cause he’s convinced that American submarines would’ve been alerted by then, and will block them off, and will basically blow the Japanese fleet out the water.

Aboard his flagship, and of course, Admiral Yamamoto solemnly informs the staff, the primary target, the American aircraft carriers, which were the crucial battleships of the war, still today. American aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbour. They departed a couple of days before to search for Japanese vessels. So all this is historical detail, I don’t want to bore everybody, I’m sure everybody knows it. But it’s important, because we have a film which shows it all, and that is rare in any film which is based on history. Think of “Gladiator,” think of the Ben Affleck film I mentioned, “Pearl Harbour.” It glosses over so much of this. It glorifies a love triangle relationship at the expense of this kind of historical accuracy. And yet it’s praised because it’s getting huge, not only making huge amount of money in the box office, but it’s got characters the audience can identify with and school kids can identify with, because it’s a love triangle. It’s about two guys who are in love with the same girl, and it’s all their stuff, and they end up being the heroes. And this is a bit of a sideshow almost, the Pearl Harbour attack.

So two films which show two very different approaches to exactly the same historical event. And raises the question, how do we show history in film and yet be emotionally addictive for an audience? So the Declaration of War arrives late, Yamamoto notes that nothing would infuriate America more because they were not warned before. And we all know the famous quote that Yamamoto is purported to have made. But I must say there is no written evidence that he ever actually said this, but it’s purported. And the quote from Yamamoto is, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” It’s a fantastic quote. Is it historically accurate or not, 50-50. 20th Century Fox executive Darryl Zanuck, who had produced “The Longest Day” in 1962, wanted to create a real epic. And look at what really happened. And it’s thanks to Zanuck that I think so much of this “Tora! Tora! Tora!” really happened, the film. He believed the Commanders Short and Kimmel in Hawaii, although they were scapegoated for decades, that they did provide adequate defence, but all the others had ignored the warning signs.

Anyway, Zanuck developed then a fascinating American Japanese co-production. He wanted to show the point of view from both nations. Now, that’s rare. I know this is only 26 years after the end of the war, 1971, the film comes out. But it’s rare that you do see in the film the Japanese perspective, and nuanced. Those who are pro-war, those who are anti, those who are unsure. And you see the American perspective, you see both well portrayed. And they were both directed by Japanese and American directors, and acted by Japanese and American actors. The other thing that they didn’t have a budget for, but also they didn’t want, was to have huge names as protagonist and heroes. Unlike the 2001 Ben Affleck film, where of course they have the big Hollywood names, the actors. They didn’t want that because Zanuck wanted the focus to be on the story and the historical accuracy at the price of emotional identification with character, which fiction needs. So he’s paying an artistic price, but he’s getting historical accuracy. The other later movie is getting emotional identification with a character, so it’s working as a fiction, but the price is historical accuracy.

And to find that very, the good mix between the two is very hard in film. Okay, if we go on to the next slide, please. This is the Ben Affleck film. You can see it’s a love triangle, two guys in love with the same girl. And what happens, these are two young, just trained pilots, and what happens. But you can see the difference in the focus by the poster. It’s a love story, that’s what is set up to be. With the whole events of Pearl Harbour as a war spectacle is a bit of a backdrop. But the filmmakers are getting us to emotionally be moved with the love story. Okay, and I think we see the difference in the two posters, the intention of the two different filmmakers. Okay, if we can go to the next slide, please. This is a model for “Tora! Tora! Tora!” A one to 15 scale, a model of the USS Nevada, one of the ships that was in the Pearl Harbour attack. So it’s on a scale of one to 15, I just wanted to share it because it brings back to us the immediacy and the reality, pardon me, of filmmaking. And you can see a small model being used in all different ways, how it was buffeted, and they set it up in the warehouse, and how they could shift and move it with trolleys and pools, et cetera, to mimic as if it was at sea and shaking all over the place. But this is a scale model, like we know, which is used in so many others.

Okay, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” took three years to plan. Kurosawa worked on script development, but didn’t direct the Japanese section. And the quote from Yamamoto, “All we have done is awaken a sleeping giant,” is of course used in the 2019 film “Midway,” which is actually tries very hard to combine what I’m saying, the emotional connection for an audience with the characters and with historical accuracy. 2019 film of “Midway,” “The Great Battle of Midway.” It was the ninth highest grossing film of 1970. And interestingly, it was a major hit in Japan in 1971, in the early '70s. The film, I’m just quoting from a couple of newspapers at the time, “The film was seen as accurate, the tragedy of Pearl Harbour, the detail,” everything I’ve mentioned. But it was criticised by being a clinical approach to filmmaking with little feeling. And another critic, a very well known American critic, Roger Ebert, wrote, “Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the deadest, dullest blockbusters ever made. It suffers from not having any characters to identify with.” Ebert, in his characteristically direct way, which I love, is so direct. “New York Times” was also unimpressed, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”. “The Los Angeles Times,” “The movie’s Chief virtues are that it is spectacular in the war sequences and the careful recreation of the historical event.”

So it was criticised, but it has become known as a great classic over time since it was made. The movie, of course I want to just mention briefly the Ben Affleck film. If we can go back to the previous slide, please. Okay, this one here of 2001, it was criticised for being banal. It was criticised that it was directed without grace, or vision, or originality, no historical accuracy. And at liberties, the film took the historical facts. One critic wrote, “There’s no sense of history. According to this film, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour just because America cut of its oil supply and they were down to an 18 month reserve. We’re going to war to restore the Japanese fuel reserves? Did they have other imperious designs perhaps? The movie doesn’t say.” And then there’s an interesting essay by Ebert again on “Lawrence of Arabia.” He says, when you watch “Lawrence of Arabia,” you see that the word epic refers not to the cost of the production, or the size and scale, but to the size of the ideas and vision. “Lawrence of Arabia” is an epic in ideas and vision, “Pearl Harbour” is not.“ And I think a beautifully written piece by Ebert. That if you think about these great historical epics, "Cleopatra,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Darkest Hours,” “The Longest Day,” and others, it’s the size of ideas and vision, that’s what makes an epic in film. It’s not just huge budget, stars, and massive spectacles of war.

Recently I saw the movie on Napoleon, hugely disappointed because it makes out everything there is a love story again. It’s everything between him and Josephine. When it is that, but it’s a hell of a lot more. In the very recent film of about Napoleon, I think it misses so much about what he did, what he achieved, just many things from history, which I do think need to be in the film. If you look back at the film “Waterloo,” it misses a hell of a lot there. Anyway, I don’t want to go on and on, we all know this debate. So this has been, and I think very interestingly, this film of “Pearl Harbour” 2001 has actually, people realise this was based on “Titanic,” “Top Gun,” “Titanic” in particular. Because there, it’s again, a love story. And the sinking of the ship and all that, it’s there, but the primary thing is a love story to get our heartstrings activated and around the historical event. So you can almost get a double whammy in “Titanic.” And that becomes the model for how you showed a great historical event in a way, the model after “Titanic,” because it’s such a huge box office hit, of course. So we get that happening afterwards.

And this is the creative debate, the creative tension between fact and fiction, and history and filmic fiction that every filmmaker makes. And of course, in “Titanic” and in this one, “Pearl Harbour,” this version, the historical context and the personal history of love and triangles don’t really integrate. And that’s of course the criticism and the question that we need to face. But it is still, all of these are used to teach. So we need to be aware of this in education systems, of how we use film history. I do think that film is a very useful tool for historians, for anybody, for education, for just entertainment. And it’s precisely because it’s unreliable, and it’s 90 minutes or it’s two hours. We cannot have the illusion that it really ultimately interprets, that it pictures reality, it is an interpretation of reality. I don’t want to get over scholarly, but film, historical films are an interpretation of reality. They’re not pictures of the real thing, of the real event. Films provide historians, scholars, educationists with ways to unearth hidden aspects of society’s attitudes. A film reveals those inner aspects of human nature in an historical moment. It doesn’t necessarily show historical accuracy, it reveals. And if it chooses its characters carefully, it will reveal it, like “Conspiracy,” or “Nuremberg,” or “Judgement in Nuremberg.”

It will reveal it through understanding how you create character with emotional journey for the audience, and you don’t ignore the historical accuracy as much as you can. It’s never going to be perfect, you’ve got to try and weigh up the two. It’s what’s called the visible and non-visible in a bit more academic jargon on film theory. Ultimately these stories are crucial, because in our visual age, this is how a culture’s identity and memory are forged, through the myths, the stories that come down through generations. From the war generation to others, they come down through pictures, through films. We’ve got to take it on board, we’ve got to use it, celebrate it. And we cannot ignore, or only say we are going to have documentaries, or only fiction. In contemporary language you talk about faction, or we talk about edutainment. Which is a wonderful phrase, because it’s entertaining and it’s educational. So we’ve got to look at all these things when we consider for today. And I would argue that films, I propose don’t just mirror society. They actually interpret or reflect an image of it through the storytelling. And that goes way back to ancient storytelling of ancient times. Okay, can we show the next one, please? The first film clip. This is from “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, the great scene of where the Japanese join the axis of Germany and Italy.

Video clip plays.

• Sir, the Japanese ambassador has just arrived. He should be up shortly.

• Thank you. The Japanese are stalling, Henry. You know that. When Nomura took over as ambassador, I had some hopes of settling our differences, but our meetings so far have been unproductive. He brings me proposals, I offer compromises. He brings me counter proposals and so on. I tell you, Henry, Nomura was sent here to buy time.

• Great, thank you. That speaks for itself, I think, here, and the historical accuracy that they’re going for. If we go on to the next clip, please. Okay, this is one of the great scenes, I think. Okay, getting confirmation scene. “Tora! Tora! Tora!” No, sorry, sorry, this is the training.

Video clip plays.

• Notify comm 14 that we’ve dropped depth charges on a sub operating in our security zone?

• Aye, aye, sir.

• This Captain Earle speaking?

• We have a message from the war, sir.

• Alright, read it to me.

• “Have dropped depth charges on sub operating in our security zone.”

• Yeah, but we’ve had so many of these false sightings, Kaminsky,

• But this is the real thing, sir. Closer than any previous sighting, just off the harbour infants.

• Yeah, but you know as well as I do that the skipper of that destroyer is a green kid. I’ll pass it on to Admiral Block.

• With all due respect, sir, I think we should alert all commanders

• Confirmation, Kaminsky, I want confirmation.

• Have damage control report all done.

• Aye, aye, sir.

• Sir, if we stay here, we’re going to fry for sure.

• Okay Sergeant, let’s get the men down.

• Alright you guys, let’s go.

• Where the hell are our fighters?

• Captain, the main fuel tanks are fractured. The lower deck half is flooded and we’re listing eight degrees.

• Well, counter flood, dammit, counter flood.

• Aye, aye, sir.

• You wanted confirmation, Captain? Take a look, there’s your confirmation.

• Oklahoma, capsized. Nevada has taken a torpedo forward and is down by the head. West Virginia, subjected to at least six torpedo hits and several deck fires. Cruisers Raleigh and Helena, damaged and listing.

• And the California, two torpedoes fires all around, temporarily abandoned. I’ve just come from her.

• [Soldier] It’s spent, sir.

• Would’ve been merciful had it killed me.

• Thanks, Jess. For me, that’s one of the great scenes in “Tora! Tora! Tora!” because it does show the human side we can identify with. The captain, who’s made this terrible mistake through incompetence, fear of his superior, or his human error, all of these things. And the spectacle of the war movie, they are to me, they put together this so well, It’s really, to use the jargon, but it’s so integrated. Okay, if we could show the last clip, please. And this is at the end of the attack, and we see Yamamoto and the Japanese.

Video clip plays.

• This is number seven, Jess? Yeah, thank you.

• Okay, if we can freeze it there please, Jess. Thank you, just hold it there. These couple of scenes are for me extraordinary. Because they show historical accuracy. Whether he actually said that quote or not, not the issue here. And they show the key historical events in the very, very personal lives of a couple of these main figures from history, with their choices, decisions, what happened. And I think that this captures for me the human folly, the human foibles, the terrifying impact of war. And what it also really does, which the 2001 film does not, it focuses on how do these things start. Not only, obviously many things will build up in history over time, whether it’s oil, or embargoes, or other things happening or whatever given a conflict, or given an attack of whatever kind. It’s how these things start, actually, of the results of huge decisions of historical importance, but also ordinary mix up of human. And the human fallibility, the human choice, the human decision, the human feeling, instinct is so well portrayed for me in “Tora! Tora! Tora!”. And that is ultimately the brilliance.

It attempts, “Tora! Tora! Tora! tries to dramatise history by showing the event, not just people who are played by star actors. We’ve got to remember though, it’s an imagining of the past. None of this may have happened, or may not have happened in this way. We may have heard about it second, or third, or fourth hand, even trying to get the historical accuracy, but it’s always a re-imagining of the past or cultural memory. It’s through visual terms, the film. It’s a re-imagining, it’s a reflection of society’s attitudes, it’s an interpretation of history. We cannot ever have the naive illusion that film about history is actually a true portrayal, if you like, of that history. It tries to be accurate and take from historical accuracy, but it’s about the ideas and the vision inside the film that make it epic. Like "Lawrence of Arabia,” like “Tora! Tora!” and others, in my opinion. It’s an imagining of the past, it’s an imagining of the story for a contemporary audience. And this was created by filmmakers who really lived through the war. And then afterwards, and then wanted to do it with that sense.

But by 19, early '70s when it came out, let’s think of what was really popular. It was getting close anyway to the end of the Vietnam War. So much was being shown about Vietnam in America, so the disillusion with heroism, with patriotism, with all of that stuff going on historically in America about Vietnam is happening. So movies which are much more about individual grit, and individuals up against the system, and fighting it or disagreeing in some way. And what do we have? The classic film, which is brilliant, “Bonnie and Clyde” and others. And these are all examples of individuals who are non-conformists, who go up against the system. “Easy Rider,” “Bonnie and Clyde” are all being made in the early '70s because there’s a different set of social attitudes that are imperative at this time in American history as the Vietnam War is coming into, at the end of the '60s, early '70s. So it’s crucial to be aware that film also reflects the social attitudes of the time that it’s made.

Even though it’s trying to recapture the attitudes of, in this case, 26 or about 30 years ago, in 1941 it’s trying to capture, but it’s made 30 years later. How do we frame and interpret and imagine the past? Films about ancient Greece, ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, whatever. The “Titanic” is the model. And it’s not by chance that it’s the highest, one of the highest grossing movies of all time. Because that, once the “Titanic” was made, it became the model for history and emotion, and love story and characters. So we see that even in “Top Gun.” We see that even in, obviously in “Titanic.” We see that now with an Napoleon movie just recently made, and many others. We found that uneasy combination because it was so successfully done by Cameron in “Titanic.” Can history be learned through these Hollywood films? Yes. We can use film to learn and to teach history, absolutely. We cannot ignore one of the most powerful mediums ever invented by the human psyche.

It’s entertaining, it’s informative, it’s a way of showing and learning history. It can expand our visual and educational vocabulary hugely. We have documentaries, which are a more in depth coverage and analysis, although it’s still edited and filmed, of course. There’s always going to be inaccuracy, there’s always going to be creative liberties and that tension between the two, between historical events and the other. I think the key is when it’s taught, that these ideas are made known to whomever might be learning about it. Authenticity becomes the key question. But can you really show even in a 55 minute documentary how authentic things really are? It’s always a crystallised, edited, abbreviated version if you like. A very good friend of mine, brilliant friend of mine who teaches history, talks about headlines and captions. It’s always, documentaries in a way show the headlines with a little bit more maybe, as we try to go into it with depth. But these are the tools of our trades. In education, in theatre, in art, in film, in literature, we’ve got to be aware of it together with make it. Ultimately it’s about telling a story way back to ancient times.

And stories, Harari talks about how human societies need stories. Because it’s the collective fictions that he calls, as Harari calls it, the collective fiction of stories. That is how societies are able to cooperate and work together. And the stories may be believe in this God or believe in that God. Or the story may be the event of Pearl Harbour. The story may be the beginning of the Second World War, the attack in Poland. The story may be Churchill taking over from Chamberlain. All these things happening in the late '30s, early '40s in the world. The stories create the mythology, and that’s what forges a culture’s identity. It’s through the stories that identities are forged. Stories can go way back to biblical stories; David and Goliath, whatever. And I think Harari is right, he calls them collective fictions. And that societies need them, 'cause what else is going to really pull people together? What else is going to make them help them, enable them to cooperate and believe in a common story which represents a common value or common idea? Even if we are thirty cavemen and women living in a cave, and we only have 15 bananas. Okay, so who is going to get two bananas, one banana, and no bananas until the next day? Should it be the woman who’s pregnant with a baby? Should it be the baby, who’s maybe two years, the little infant, two years old? Should it be the elderly person? Should it be the fit one who has to go out the next day and hunt? How are we going to portion, we’ve only got half a banana per person. You get the idea.

These are all collective fictions that Harari talks about in his book, and I think it’s right that these create the mythologies, they create the stories which we need as human societies, human groups, however small or large. And they can’t be through religion or whatever else it can be. And we need them because then they represent our dominant beliefs and ideas and attitudes. And the same way “Tora! Tora! Tora!” and the 2001 film, there’s also “From Here to Eternity, lots of others, "Midway.” They all try to represent massive events happening in these times in the '40s of the war. We have “Who Dares Win.” We have the Clint Eastwood movies, “Kelly’s Heroes,” the others, which are lovable, and fantastic fun and entertainment purely. But they’re made with irony, I think inside them as well. They have an ironic quality inside the story. That’s a whole different approach to storytelling, so I don’t want to get into that now. I just want to say that to me, I celebrate these endless debates. There’s no right or wrong in the end. I don’t think it’s just a simple polemic, this is a goodie this is a baddie film.

There are better ones which try to integrate what I’m calling emotion of character and identification with the historical accuracy. They try to integrate it a bit better. And the ones then who don’t. So only the spectacle, like a Marvel comic movie, and just endless massive shootings and killings and bombs or whatever. And then the other one just shows much more of a love triangle or love story. “Titanic” tries to really pull the two together. But ultimately the meaning of epic is what I said before, it’s about always, I think the idea inside it. And the vision of the filmmakers, and the writers and the actors inside it that create what might be, “Gandhi” may be the film, an integrated, a more integrated approach. So I wanted to share this because at this moment, we’re looking at how does Hollywood and how do films portray huge historical events which are completely history, life changing, world changing as well. And these are some of the fascinating ideas of what to me is a very rich debate, which to share with everybody here today. And I think in the end, questions of authenticity, yes.

But film reveals an interpretation of history. It also reveals a society’s values and attitudes. Films reflect the stories of our cultures. And in that way I celebrate them. Whether they’re more edutainment, whether they’re more documentary, fiction, a mixture of both. They celebrate how the visual sense through film and TV help to forge a culture’s identity, because it’s through visual memory, not only words and verbal memory in our times. And film is of course part of all that, the way of making memory and history come alive. Okay, thank you very much. We can do some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Nima, thank you, and that’s very kind. Yeah, and I spoke to my sister the other day in Jerusalem. And yeah, all I can say is in this reminder of this terrible, the most tragic day, I think, in Jewish history, and of course, and in human history, the reminder of today. Which cannot be ever, it must be spoken about, written about, made about more and more. I just believe it so passionately. And about Pearl Harbour. Yeah, I think the, maybe there’s some metaphors here.

Thank you. Nikki, “There’s your lecture last week of Charlie Chaplin.” Yep. “In UK, we had an act who borrowed heavily from Chaplain, the bowler hat.” Yeah, that’s great, exactly. Thanks, Nikki.

William, “Was into a football game, interrupted by an announcement of the attack.” God, that’s fascinating, William. So you question, where were you when? Where was I on October the seventh last year? Where was I when 9/11 happened? Where was I when, we go on and on, exactly. We do make those connections in our ordinary day-to-day lives with these huge events.

Q: Yona, “Didn’t you surprise whenever there’s a proposed October the seventh? Was a trigger, kick in the arse, yeah. To get the US into the battle against a worldwide enemy of civilization.”

A: Well, I agree with that completely, Yona. It might well be as you say, to trigger a much bigger event of the West and Islam, and Caliphates, and all of that, exactly. And Iran, of course.

Q: Carol, “Was Roosevelt waiting for a good excuse for isolationist US to enter the war?”

A: Yeah, and that is a fascinating debate. Because I mean, you may know more than I do, and I’m sure the Americans and historians who will know more than I do about this, Carol. But I think Roosevelt certainly was trying to help Churchill, was certainly trying to help the British, and I think he certainly understood history. And I think he certainly knew that if Hitler overran the English, then the British, and of course, who’s next? He’s not going to stop there. I don’t think there was naivety. So whether it was a good excuse for the isolationist America to enter, because of course, as we all know, the isolation movement was very strong, obviously incredibly strong at the time. I haven’t read any absolute definitive evidence that he was using it as a good excuse to get in or waiting. It might emerge, I don’t know.

Nikki, “His name was Norman Wisdom, and he is, I believe, based in Albania.” Ah, thank you.

Hillel, “There are no baseball matches, only baseball games.” Okay, thanks, Hillel. Well, what can I say? I follow the football, and the rugby, cricket, and other fun, crazy sports.

Q: “What about "From Here to Eternity?”

A: Yes, it was the first major film dealt with Pearl Harbour, but I wanted to focus on “Tora! Tora! Tora!” because, I think it’s a really good film because of everything I’ve spoken about today, that integration. But I wanted to focus “Tora! Tora! Tora! because it has those scenes, and I think those scenes are so crucial to remembering and how to create memory visually in seven, eight decades later.

Rita, ”“Tora! Tora! Tora!” 1970s available. Oh, great, thanks for sharing that for everybody. That’s lovely, Rita. And the 2001 Ben Affleck movie is also available. It’s fascinating to watch the two. You can’t believe or you hardly believe it’s the two events that are being portrayed in film. But it captures the essence, for me, of the creative tension of the debate.

Randy, “Early that morning, a Jap minisub was sunk just outside the harbour, and the captain superior thought he was mistaken. Did not sink a sub, but a flotsam.” Fascinating, Randy, thanks.

Miriam, “Crucial warnings being ignored, unfortunately repeated.” Yep. I hate to say it, and it repeats itself again and again in history, Is it arrogance, is it incompetence, is it naivety? Is it a failure of imagination to actually imagine what might be going on? Or is it a combination of all of that? It’s the human versus the technological, or the human versus the human structures of bureaucracy and society and authority. It’s eternal, endless, endless debates. Terrifyingly horrifically repeated on October the seventh. And yes, you mentioned 9/11 there, absolutely.

Ron, hope you well, Ron, great to see you. Sleeping giant analogy is generally first attributed to Napoleon. Ah. Yeah, I think Napoleon said, “Let China sleep, but when she wakes, the world will thunder” Think that was Napoleon’s phrase. Carol, “A friend Korean vet, Korean war vet, was a war buff. He lamented that the Affleck "Pearl Harbour” turned out to be a love story.“ Exactly. I think anybody who’s been in the army or been in the military, and I have been in it for quite a few years, absolutely laments it. Because it doesn’t show the combination of the two. whereas other films do, and you can do it in film, you can absolutely do it.

Carol, he was not happy, I’m quite sure.

Q: Evelyn, "How does "Oppenheimer” fit into this discussion?“

A: That’s a fantastic question also, Evelyn. I think that Christopher Nolan’s really trying to put the two together. And he, in a way for the film, he has to almost choose that period where Oppenheimer is being interrogated, interviewed slash interrogated by the FBI after the war in the '50s. Is he a communist spy or not? Reflects those social attitudes then. So all of it is, the present time in the film is of the '50s interrogation by the FBI of, and McCarthyism of Oppenheimer. And then so much of the film is taking place in the past, but it feeds in, that’s the hook of the story. So it’s storytelling through that, which I think is a powerful choice, and I think it does work for me. Because it doesn’t get over obsessed with the love stories and Oppenheimer’s personal life, he’s trying to show both happening together. And overall the historical enormity of the event. So for me, it is a much better film. I just felt the music was so loud, and it was too long.

Michael, "Best you read the making of the atomic bomb.” Great, thanks Michael.

Francine, “I think that the film’s based on historical event or a person way introduced the general public.” Yes. “Who are not interested in history, but they find history boring and the class is boring.” One of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, Joanna, Joanna Milan, one of the most remarkable human beings. Who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp as a baby, and was literally three years old when she was found and taken from Theresienstadt to England, to be part of what were called the Windermere children, if you like. And she was the youngest. And I’ll never forget Joanna once saying to me years ago, 'cause actually wrote a play about adapting her, the main aspects of her life. And I’ll never forget after many interviews, and Joanna once saying, the thing about “Schindler’s List” is that it did exactly what you’re saying, Francine. That although we may criticise it or critique it, it opened the world to so many people and approaches to education about the Holocaust. And to so many people around the world to be even just be much more aware through “Schindler’s List.” And after that, so many more people interested in hearing or are trying to understand more about the Holocaust. And I think it’s exactly the very important point you’re making, Francine, that films like that, which are used in England, partly anyway, to teach about the Holocaust, and others must be used and must be seen, must be incorporated as part of, as you say, 'cause history can become. And I’m not talking about the Holocaust now, I’m just saying history in general can become, it can become pretty flat in the way it’s taught to high school kids in a high school class, as we all know.

Monty, yeah, you mentioned Schindler.

Mirna, exactly, “Dunkirk,” another great example.

Sharon, thank you.

Francine, yeah, history, yeah, aspects of it repeated.

Q: Gerald, well, that’s becomes a very profound question. When the film does come to be made, of October the seventh. How will it be made, what will be made, who will make it, the variations of it.

A: We’d have Spielberg’s movie about Munich, we have the “Entebbe” film as well. How will that be shown? And I leave that open for… That would be a fascinating and crucial discussion at another point.

David, “Pretty clear that they missed the oil storage, but dumps,” exactly. Very good point, David. This would’ve isolated away, yep. Oil storage, yep.

Margaret, thank you. Okay, I think there, going on. Monty, “In the Heat of the Night.” Yeah, another wonderful film to explore this topic. But instead of, I chose, instead of skimming a few, to rather go a bit more in depth just on the two.

Q: Ivan, “How many died in the attack?”

A: God, it just slipped my mind. Was it 1000 and something? 9/11 was 3000 and something. Okay, I need to check the exact figure.

Glenda, “Argo” uses imaginative twisting of facts to make the Americans the heroes, not the Canadians, who orchestrated the rescue at the embassy in Tehran. It doesn’t forge Canadian culture.“ Good point, Glenda. It’s for American.

Q: Marian, "How unusual is it in historical films to try to portray two different cultures?”

A: “Tora! Tora! Tora!, it tries, yes, to get inside the Japanese thinking. 'Cause Japanese writers and Japanese actors and directors made those sections of the film. So that’s what I mean. The films show the idea that they become an epic when the ideas are epic. We get the way of thinking of the Japanese mindset at the time and the American. So whether it’s right or wrong, that’s what we get in the film. And I think that’s an amazing thing, a fantastic thing that a film can achieve. It’s a great point, Marian.

Ivan, "As opposed to the fake news we get from Gaza.” Absolutely, I just heard the other day, or was it today, about the United Nations, one of the buildings actually had the Hamas individuals working for them. I mean, exactly, Ivan, fake news.

Rita, thank you.

Jack, “Cinematic "War and Peace.” Yeah. “Has it been a great movie?’ Yeah, there have been some of Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina.” I can get the specific references for you. A couple may, well yeah, “War and Peace,” Doctor Zhivago,“ "Anna Karenina,” Pasternak. Many of them in fact are taken from great novels and great books and works of art, works of literature.

David, “Tora! Tora! Tora! movie, fascinatingly was actually, was regarded as a major success in Japan. It was really seen as a big success, and it had a very big, not only box office, but a very positive critical response.

Q: Yona, ”“Exodus,” where does “Exodus” fit in?“

A: Yeah, I think the emotion mythologizing, in fact, I think "Exodus” does try to do a really good job. I really do. I don’t think any of these are perfect. I think there’s always a creative tension between fact and emotion and mythologizing, but I think “Exodus” is very powerful, “Super Fools” as well.

Cassandra, we’ve mentioned “Oppenheimer.”

Paula, thank you.

Helen, thank you, you’re very kind.

Ron, perhaps appropriate, yep.

Joan, “Group narratives are not always positive. We see it in our world now.” Exactly, and I’m not saying they’re positive or negative, but the groups need stories, and they can be terrible stories. Well, let’s not forget. Well, there’s so many, I don’t want to go into them now, but there can be the stories, but there can be the others as well. Let’s just think of Oedipus, just to quote a different culture for a moment. iPhone, thanks. “We draw the parallels of our own realities. They ignored the wall of Jericho document.” Yeah, okay, very powerful point.

Peter, “Presently debating how best to educate people in history, trying to put the Holocaust in context. Film documentary, the way to go effectively.” Well, Peter, that’s exactly what some of us here also discussing at the moment. I think there are many ways. And I would celebrate a documentary, whether it’s a 26 minute one or a 55 minute one, I would celebrate fiction, documentary. I don’t think there’s only one. And whatever speaks to the individual talent the best, a person may be much better at making documentary or much better at making fiction, or what’s become known as faction, or edutainment, or the mixture of the two. Wherever the individual feels their best talents lie. Are they a batter or a pitcher? Are they a goalkeeper or a centre forward? Wherever, you get the point. Wherever the talent lies of the individual and that’s what the person should follow, and I would celebrate as much of it as possible.

Paula, “The film is available, thank you.” Oh, that’s great, thank you. Oh, that’s a great site.

Rhoda, “YouTube.” Okay, thanks for that. Oh, there Rhoda and Paula. thank you.

Q: Francine, “Is it a fear of being wrong, with all that might follow? Losing lives, career.”

A: Yeah, I think often career, or it might be incompetence, it might be arrogance. In the end, the broad heading of failure of imagination, cannot imagine something, or just don’t want to admit it.

“My granddaughter,” ah, Francine, that’s fantastic. She makes documentaries, fantastic. Okay, love to hear more about it.

Rita, “Data sheet,” thank you.

Yolande. Yes, Kurosawa was originally involved in some of the writing of the script, but he wasn’t the only Japanese person to do it. There were others as well. He wasn’t the Japanese director of the Japanese sections.

Rita, “The attack killed 2,403.” Thank you. Okay, “Including civilians.”

Jet Dappin, thank you very much.

Evelyn, “I showed "Schindler’s List” every year, printed out lots of material. That cry there is yes.“ As Joanna said to me, and she’s one of the, again, one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. If "Schindler’s List” is going to mobilise human emotion, human thought in school kids, or 14, 15, 16, 17, university kids, wherever, do it, anything.

Sheila, I saw the same in South Africa just through theatre, in the early days during apartheid even, in the late ‘70s, early '80s. How powerful just simple theatre with a couple of actors can be to activate emotion, memory, and thought. And I’m not talking about South Africa now, I’m talking about, or the government now, I’m talking about whole different period. Sheila, oh, thanks for that information.

Susan, “It was UNRRA.” Yes, oh, okay, thank you for that, yeah.

Sherry, “2,403 people,” thank you.

Joel, thanks, very kind.

Helene, “Napolian,” Abel Gance. Okay, “The Dear Hunter.” Oh, “The Dear Hunter”, William, fantastic connection. Thank you, that’s a brilliant film. I think it’s one of the best about the Vietnam War. And the psychosis of it.

Okay, so thank you very much everybody. And I hope on this day of remembrance and commemoration, I just wish everybody health, thoughtfulness, and the reminders of our identity, and of family, and memory. And I hope going forward that everybody stays well.