10 DUNKIRK ESCAPE TO VICTORY
How Nolan’s suspenseful thriller won over audiences.
Dunkirk was very new territory for Nolan. A movie of pure suspense set during one of the most remarkable moments in World War 2, it was a period ensemble based on true events. “Every time you put out a film, you don’t know what to expect, and it never gets any easier,” Nolan told TF in 2017, after Dunkirk had been named our film of the year. “We were very nervous about what the reaction would be.”
He didn’t need to worry; Dunkirk became his biggest film ever at the UK box office. “We were really delighted that the film clearly resonated with British people,” he continued. “You don’t make films entirely for box office, but as an expression of the film having connected with audiences, it’s really, really rewarding.” The film grossed a total of $527m worldwide, no mean feat given it’s not based on existing characters, and features an unknown cast front and centre.
The sparse script made Dunkirk a different proposition to Nolan’s previous work. “In stripping away the dialogue, you’re confronted with how much the dialogue defines your process on other films,” he said. Without the lines to track the progress of a day’s shooting, Nolan and co had to take a new approach. “In a sense, you were freer,” he explained. “But in another sense, it really made you have to analyse very specifically, visually, creatively with Hoyte [van Hoytema, cinematographer] and Nathan [Crowley, production designer] and everyone: what is the fundamental element that we have to achieve today that progresses the story, purely in visual terms?”
In terms of pure cinema, there’s been little else like Dunkirk: shot on large-format film, it demanded to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Its most important audience, though, were the Dunkirk veterans (including some of those Nolan had spoken to during the writing process) who attended the first screening. “It was a very, very nerve-wracking screening. I sort of nervously told them all at the beginning that when I made the Dark Knight films, it was like I would have to screen those to Bruce Wayne – which got a chuckle. It sort of speaks to the real sense of responsibility I felt to them. And I don’t want to speak for them or put words in their mouths, but in talking to them afterward, there was a great emotion. And overall, the thing that I would be comfortable saying is that I felt they were very glad that their story was being told.”
DUNKIRK IS AVAILABLE ON DVD AND BLU-RAY.