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ACF #7 Dunkirk
Here’s the first in a series of podcasts on the movies of Christopher Nolan, starting with his newest, Dunkirk. Today, I am joined by my friend Eric and we’re talking about everything from Winston Churchill and Christopher Nolan to Edward Elgar and Charles Lightoller (yes, the second officer on the Titanic!). The crisis of confidence of the West is part of the discussion, too, as are America’s teenagers. And all that in about half an hour. Listen to our podcast — you’ll get details about the movie mentioned almost nowhere else, and assembled in a novel way. Pain and patriotism rate a mention, too!
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What!, no!, surely, you’re gonna make an exception for me!
Especially since the Valley of the Sun isn’t sunny today. Come on, Mark!
Well, since I liked Dunkirk I listened to the podcast. Whew . . . dodged that one!
Wow Trink! Incredible stories! Nice to see you back! Everyone is talking about Dunkirk – I think we’ll have to see it. It sends a good message to Hollywood when it passes up Emoji in popularity!
So now I’ve listened to the podcast after struggle to make it work on my phone. Great podcast by the way. Your friend’s comments on the score of the movies were amazing, that kind of analysis is what we need more of.
I’ve been thinking about Tom Hardy’s character (the pilot) and how he represents this great nobility as compared to the more pitiable and human characters on the beach. Yet as I recall the two soldiers on the beach when they get back to England say something like “All we did was survive” to which an old man handing out rations says “that’s enough for now”. Their orders might have been to wait on the beach, but in a higher sense wasn’t their duty to survive and get back to England to potentially fight another day? Their cowardliness leads them to cross beyond the safe perimeter, find an abandoned ship, and sail it off as far as they can. In the end they do their duty to survive and fight another day, though that is not what they are concerned with at the time, and so their actions make them out to be cowards not heroes. Yet they do their duty.
Tom Hardy’s character’s on the other hand ignores his orders also which were (if I am not mistaken in my remembrance) to save enough fuel to get back. Thus his orders were to return when he was running low on fuel so as to preserve the plane (valuable equipment) and himself (even more valuable experienced pilot). Instead he turns around to down the Heinkel, which I if I recall still managed to sink the ship it was aiming for. So he disobeys his orders, but because he is ignoring his own safety and survival he is heroic though in the end he loses his plane and himself to the enemy. I guess he saves Branagh and makes the men on the beach cheer for him when he arrives. But in the end I am not sure he really lived up to his higher duty despite his personal heroics.
Wow, that’s damning with faint praise…
Thank you for the kind comments on my remarks.
There are two incidents with ships and bombers, if I recall, and I must confess, the details are beginning to weaken a little, but one ship is bombed, but another is not due to Hardy’s actions. I may be mistaken on this point, if I can, I’m going to carve out the time to see the film again.
But, even if you take another interpretation of the action of Hardy, in otherwords, if one takes your view, their is a counterpoint between the reasoning behind our actions, their actual fruit, and what they cause beyond our understanding of them. I think the film is a meditation or can be legitately read as one, between fate or providence. I think their is enough wiggle-room in the film makers philosophy to allow for people to read it in slightly different, sometimes even contradictory ways, and that allows for legitament readings.
All great art – and really in the early 21st century film (generally a middle-brow art, especially popular film) is about as good as it gets – has flaws, and that’s ok.
It is understandable having a legitament dislike for a work of art (popular or high, etc), and it is understandable writing because you disagree with the post, but I find these sort of gratuitous thrashings of the proverbial dead horses unwarrented.
I increasingly feel that conservatives and libertarians deserve the wilderness they find themselves wandering in apart from and unable to reach and move their fellow citizens in a shared culture. It is time to stop with the knee-jerk reactions, or the inability to understand that there are considerations beyond our subjective enjoyment of films in our culture that need to be considered. Titus and others write a great deal about low-brow comedy and super-hero flicks, both types of pictures don’t interest me in the least, yet they have a profound impact on young filmviewers today and need to be considered in that light, as well as, the messages they often teach should resonate with conservatives, and we can learn from them, even more so than we they don’t. The inability to learn from people who are not of our “tribe” is going to kill us. The failure of conservatives to produce quality story-telling art of their own with descending into cliche, bathos, or polemic has done us no favors.
The relationship between the actions of the Spitfire pilot and Tommy, the soldier, also struck me.
Both disobey, and they exchange physical locations in the course of the film. The pilot disobeys for noble reasons, ends up on the beach that Tommy has spent the movie ignobly trying to escape, and sacrifices himself. Tommy ends up back in England, where the pilot started his day, and I took from his last scene that he was beginning to understand the significance of what he went through and the possibility he might act differently the next time.
At the same time, as you point out, it raises questions about orders and the duty to obey. Kenneth Branagh’s role in exposition lays out the dilemma Churchill and the War Cabinet faced. They wanted to rescue as many soldiers as possible from Dunkirk, but also to minimize the loss of ships, planes and pilots so desperately needed for the Battle of Britain. Tommy disobeys and becomes one of those who return, the pilot disobeys and is lost, though his very actions, while disobeying, allow for Tommy’s return.
I think you misunderstood me. I actually like Dunkirk enough that I think comparing it favorably to the Emoji movie (which held onto a record 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for a while, according to Chauvinist the Younger) is a real back-handed compliment. I mean, ouch! It wasn’t that bad!
I don’t mean to get all polemical about what I disliked about the film. I can see that there’s “art” involved. I just wish it told a better story about Dunkirk, rather than co-opting the event to get a message through to young Nolan fans.
If there’s not room for criticism, I’ll bow out.
Hey Titus! Just read this review at Marie Claire which points out you are really off base in your analysis. Key points:
Though it may be that the author missed the point, more than Michael Bay when he made Pearl Harbor.
Then I apologize, double, because I did completely misunderstood you.
From your comparison to Patton and also the line about faint-praise, coupled with your other comments I didn’t understand what you were getting at.
Also, my comment was that criticism is needed, including negative, but we need to move beyond just our subjective reactions to films. That was my point about learning from movies I find pointless or boring (low-brow comedy and super-hero films) or also films that are artistic messes but have followings or are popular. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years reading good critics of these films even though I don’t want to watch them myself. Not have I learned about the films and what they have to say, but then I understand better why they effect a lot of people rather profoundly or at least superficially in a profound way.
I hope you will take accept my apology.
I think I understand your point better from this part of your comment. If I might suggest something, without hopefully misinterpreting you further, I believe that historical events can be the tools for a sort of moral education when they have fictionalized appropriately, turned into myth in an authentic and classical sense. I guess I don’t understand why doing that is a failure regarding the events of Dunkirk, and would be curious for you to unpack this further.
Also, in many ways, Patton is just as much about myth as Dunkirk. The way the German high command was portrayed as pouring over and studying and worrying about George Patton was pretty much all bohunkis.
Someone else mentioned plot holes or inaccuracies with the film, and they are there, but that’s ok, just like the portrayal of the Germans in Patton is OK in my book too. The myth they are forming is important way at getting at the bigger truth because within the context of film is necessary to convey the “truth” that the underlying ideas and facts of history. The difference between art and history.
I think you likely agree with this – to some extent – so where is the line between Patton and Dunkirk.
Pearl harbor is the one where some lissome gal ruins the brotherhood in arms & makes a man betray his friend? I’m sure they cheered for that at Marie Claire: Girl power!
Think about the tagline they musta ran with: “The Japanese couldn’t finish the job–but a woman could!”
And in the end the tag line ended but being “You didn’t think you would end up rooting for the Japanese in the end, did ya?”
Wow. Touche!
“Read in our magazine about how a woman drove a nation to kamikaze!”
Why not “Herakire”. That way you can work in the Feminist pun as well.
Are all Romanians such wordsmiths?
The history writes itself!
They’re certainly not swordsmiths…
I’d heard conflicting reviews, but take you seriously, so went. Yes.
Glad to hear that, & thanks!
Marie Claire which used to be a decent fashion magazine is now a feminist garbage rag – some of the stories I’ve read made me realize that young women of today are not at all liberated in a healthy sense, but pawns of the worst propaganda.
Yeah. Women’s magazines are maybe worse than men’s, at this point-
Thought this was compatible with our take in many ways.
Not possible. There was no plot.
For me it was the opposite – I didn’t like the first half at all, it kind of came together a bit at the end (although the deadstick spitfire making multiple passes on the beach was ridiculous).
Hear Hear!
Haven’t listened to the podcast.
My reaction to the movie as a piece of “art”/”filmmaking craft” is that it was excellent.
My reaction to the movie as telling the story of Dunkirk is that it was terrible.
I go to movies for the story, not the art.
My understanding is that the Germans knew Patton was out best (combat) general and couldn’t understand why he wasn’t given more running room. That was one of the reasons why he was put in charge of the fake army used to convince the Germans we wouldn’t be invading Normandy.
It doesn’t tell that story. There are plenty of documentaries for that. Do listen to the podcast.