A Week of Movie Posters, IV: Pearl Harbor
Okay, so the movie is awful. In so many ways. All hail Trey Parker and Matt Stone for immortalizing how bad the movie is in Team America: World Police. Join with me and sing:
I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark,
When he made Pearl Harbor.
I miss you more than that movie missed the point,
And that’s an awful lot girl.
But this poster is gripping. A beautiful image to begin with, it’s also, of course, ominous, and it effectively transports me to Pearl Harbor as the planes came in. It’s also quite smart, in that it captures a moment before the attack when the lone figure in the shot was powerless to do anything but watch, and this is the position that the movie-goer will find him or herself in: knowing what the film is building up to, powerless to react, unable to look away. I’m very uncomfortable with the patriotic drumbeating that this image engages in, especially when the film and its re-release post-9/11 would be recontextualized to justify a War on Others, oops, I mean a War on Terror; but it’s effective nonetheless, playing with anticipation (of the spectacle of destruction, and of the horror of that destruction).
Pity the film ended up a true horror to watch. Sing with me once more:
Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies.
I guess Pearl Harbor sucked,
Just a little bit more than I miss you.
Tomorrow, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
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