Pearl Harbor 珍珠港（2001） Movie Script

BRITISH AIR COMMANDER Air-Sea Rescue picked up Nigel. He'll be back with us tomorrow.

Rafe nods, glad to hear the news. The Commander starts to walk away, then turns back.

BRITISH AIR COMMANDER Some of us look down on the Yanks for not yet joining this war. I'd just like to say that if there are many more back home like you, God help anyone who goes to war with America.

The Commander salutes, with his left hand. And Rafe salutes too -- with his left hand.

EXT. ESTABLISHING THE WHITE HOUSE - WASHINGTON D.C. - DAY The White House looks somehow whiter and purer in the glow of 1941.

INT. PRESIDENTIAL CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY GENERALS, ADMIRALS, and other advisors sit around the polished table -- all males, in suits and in uniforms. The door opens, and the men all stand.

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT appears, in a wheelchair, pushed by a huge black valet, GEORGE. The President's legs are shriveled, braced with the iron supports that attach to his shoes and are apparent beneath the cloth of his pin-striped pants. From the waist up Roosevelt is heavily muscled, powerful, and handsome even in his little spectacles. The valet rolls him to the head of the table; he's speaking even before he settles in.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Please be seated, gentlemen.

They sit, as one.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Churchill and Stalin are asking me what

I'm asking you:

How long is America going to pretend the world is not at war?

GENERAL MARSHALL We've increased supply shipments to them, Mr. President, and we're losing merchant vessels every day.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Shift in every destroyer and anti- aircraft weapon you can find.

ADMIRAL:

Sir, our Pacific Fleet is already down to almost nothing.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Gentlemen, at this moment the nation of Hungry has a larger military then the United States. We have no choice but to draw from whatever we can.

EXT. ESTABLISHING TOKYO - JAPAN - NIGHT INT. JAPANESE HIGH COMMAND - NIGHT The Conference Room is similar to that of the White House.

But this table is low and all the men sit on the floor. And there are no civilians here; Japan is now a nation ruled by its warriors.

The last man to enter the room and take his place is ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO. Harvard educated, Yamamoto is an object of veneration and suspicion among the men of the war council.

Yamamoto bows, sits, and looks across the table at his friend Genda, who can't hide his fear. Yamamoto glances to the far end of the table where NISHIKURA, chief of the War Council, sits glowering. (Their discussion is in Japanese, with subtitles.)

NISHIKURA:

So you join us, Admiral. Some of us thought your education at an American university would make you too weak to fight the Americans.

YAMAMOTO:

If knowledge of opponents and careful calculation of danger is taken as weakness then I have misunderstood what it means to be Japanese.

NISHIKURA:

The time has come to strike! Or to sit and let the Americans cut off our oil and our future. I know what you whisper to the others, Yamamoto -- that the Americans are strong. Yet look at their leader.

He motions to OYAMA, an intelligence analyst, who opens a file and lays out pictures of Roosevelt.

OYAMA:

Franklin Roosevelt. Born into great wealth. Fifteen years ago, he was stricken with polio. Now he cannot walk, or even stand without help.

Photographers will not take pictures of him in his chair; Americans do not wish to know how weak their President is.