"Pearl Harbor": photos from the filming and interesting facts about the film (13 photos)

Surely many of you have seen Michael Bay's film "Pearl Harbor" starring Ben Affleck and Josh Harnett. I suggest you learn some interesting facts about this war drama.





1. Ben Affleck, Josh Harnett and Alec Baldwin received basic flight training for this film. Therefore, in some scenes the actors themselves fly the plane a little, but, of course, under strict supervision.



2. Director Michael Bay was angry at Josh Harnett for taking the film too seriously. In many moments, Bay wanted to achieve lightness from the actor, but he almost always did everything with a serious face, and it was almost impossible to get a smile from him.





Bay then threatened the actor that he would insert that one shot of Harnett smiling into all his scenes. Only then did Harnett begin to force a smile.



3. Many scenes in the film were not liked by veterans of both the American and Japanese sides. In particular, the Japanese were outraged that the film showed the bombing of a hospital, since in reality they only bombed military targets.



The director himself stated that the film is a work of fiction, and the bombing of the hospital was inserted only to create a dramatic effect.



4. Ben Affleck's grandfather (veteran) refused to watch this film because, according to him, if he saw historical inaccuracy in the film, he would hate his grandson. Well, it’s probably good that I didn’t see it, since there are plenty of blunders and historical inaccuracies here.



5. Many critics condemned the film not only for its historical inaccuracy, but also for its absolutely cardboard love line. To this, director Michael Bay replied that he deliberately made the love story “cardboard,” as was customary in films of the mid-20th century. He also noted that he received many letters from older viewers who were delighted with the love story shown in the film, so he does not care about the opinions of critics. But did he really receive these letters? Unknown.



6. Actress Kate Bessingel said that all the romantic scenes were filmed almost at the end, and during this time she became very close friends with Ben Affleck. Therefore, during romantic scenes they were very awkward.



7. It was originally planned that the song for the film “Pearl Harbor” would be performed by the famous Canadian singer Celine Dion, who several years earlier sang the hit “My heart will go on” for the film “Titanic”. But in the end, the singer refused this offer, and the song for the film was performed by country singer Faith Hill. She was even nominated for an Oscar for this song, but in the end she never received the statuette.

8. There is an extended version of the film, which is longer than the theatrical version by only 69 seconds. There were a few minor scenes inserted into it, such as a longer scene involving fake tears.



9. The film “Pearl Harbor” at one time even got into the Guinness Book of Records as the film in which the largest amount of explosives was used.



10. Naturally, such a large-scale picture with explosions was not without accidents. During filming, five such cases were recorded, which, of course, is not that many, but still.



11. During the filming of the film, residents of Orange County thought that a real war had begun. The fact is that the Air Station Tustin base, where the filming took place, has not been used for a long time. And when military planes began to fly over the district, it was verythe residents were tied up, and many of them thought that a war had really begun.



12. The film's budget was $210 million. Of these, 140 million went to production, and 70 million to marketing (advertising). As for box office receipts, they amounted to about 450 million worldwide.