In the opening of Christopher Nolan ‘s Dunkirk, new and ambitious WWII epic, hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are shown as they are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea, they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.
Made on a wide canvas, the multi-layered story unfolds on land, sea and air.
RAF Spitfires engage the enemy in the skies above the Channel, trying to protect the defenseless men below. At the same time, hundreds of small boats manned by both military and civilians are mounting a desperate rescue effort, risking their lives in a race against time to save even a fraction of their army.
Nolan directed Dunkirk from his own screenplay, utilizing a mixture of IMAX® and 65mm film to bring the story to the screen.
The film was produced by Emma Thomas and Nolan, with Jake Myers serving as executive producer.
Nolan has taken audiences from the streets of Gotham City, to the infinite world of dreams, to the farthest reaches of space. Now, for the first time, the innovative director-writer-producer has examined a real-life event, which has resonated with him all his life: the miracle of Dunkirk.
Dunkirk is based on the evacuation that—although it took place in the early months of World War II—had a direct impact on the outcome of the war. But rather than make a battlefield drama, Nolan’s objective was to turn this historical moment into immediate and immersive cinema: a propulsive, ticking-clock, epic action thriller.
He affirms, “What happened at Dunkirk is one of the greatest stories in human history, the ultimate life-or-death race against time. It was an extraordinarily suspenseful situation; that’s the reality. Our aim with this movie was to throw the audience into that with an absolute respect for history, but also with a degree of intensity and, of course, a sense of entertainment, too.”
Nolan’s longtime producer, Emma Thomas, offers, “‘Dunkirk’ is a huge spectacle film, but also a very human story and, in that way, it’s universal. Chris wanted to put the audience in the center of the experience along with the characters, whether they be the soldiers on the beach, the pilots in the air, or the civilians on the boats.”
The remarkable true story that inspired the fictional film is one that has fascinated Nolan for many years “and one I’ve been wanting to tell for quite some time,” he says. “Like most British people, I was raised on the mythical story of the evacuation of Dunkirk, and the victory that was snatched from the jaws of defeat,” he relates. “It’s a massive part of our culture. It’s in our bones.”
The story began in late May 1940, when the British Expeditionary Force, along with French, Belgian and Canadian troops were forced back to the beaches of Dunkirk. Though home was just 26 miles away, there was no easy way to reach it. The shallow-drafted beach, with its 21-foot tide, prohibited the large British naval ships from rescuing the men. But there was hope: a call had gone out for small boats to aid the effort and a flotilla of non-military “little ships” sailed out from the southern coast of England to bring the men home, codenamed Operation Dynamo.
Massive Event
The film’s historical consultant, Joshua Levine, author of the book Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk, emphasizes that the 1940 evacuation is far more than just a British story. “It was a massive event that still has international significance. Everything that’s celebrated about World War II—in Britain, in the United States, and all around the world—would not have happened without the Dunkirk evacuation taking place. It was unbelievably important. If the British army had been killed or taken prisoner, Britain would almost certainly have surrendered, and we’d likely be living in a very different world today. To me, Dunkirk is about the preservation of freedom. Once those ships were underway, the world still had a chance.”
Kenneth Branagh, who plays the British naval commander, agrees. “Your life and mine would have been profoundly changed had that courageous, brave, patient, impossible moment not been lived through by people who stuck at it, and in so doing protected all of our futures. Its place in our military, social, political, and emotional history can never be underestimated. In a sense, you could look at an evacuation as being unheroic, but somehow it adds up to something phenomenally heroic about the human spirit.”
The rescue of their stranded army against seemingly impossible odds gave rise to a term that is a permanent part of the British cultural lexicon: “the Dunkirk spirit.” Thomas defines, “It’s something English people pride themselves on: that sort of plucky grit and determination in the face of adversity.”
Mark Rylance, who plays the captain of one of the little ships, concurs, “It has a deep meaning for the English people. We were the underdogs on that beach, but we rose to the occasion and eluded the superior forces of the enemy at that time. The Dunkirk spirit has to do with that perseverance and endurance and also selflessness.”
Fionn Whitehead, who takes on the role of one of the young British soldiers on the beach, says, “The Dunkirk spirit brings to my mind a sense of togetherness and a show of community—coming together to help out someone in trouble.”
It was with a friend on his small sailing boat—similar to those that formed the “little ships”—that Nolan and Thomas first visited Dunkirk during the mid-1990s. The trip would give them a whole new appreciation for the seminal event they had only read about. Hampered by rough seas and bad weather, the voyage across the Channel unexpectedly took 19 hours. “It was a very arduous crossing,” Nolan recalls, “and that was with nobody dropping bombs on us. What really stuck with me was just how extraordinary it was, the notion of civilians taking small boats into a war zone. They could see the smoke and the fires for many miles, so their willingness to do that and what that says about communal spirit are extraordinary.”
Nolan notes, “In looking at how to tell the story, I came fairly early on to the idea of showing events from the land, sea and air: seeing the action from the perspectives of the men on the beach, the people coming to help on the boats, and the pilots trying to protect them from above. I was immediately struck by the need to use a different time scale for each strand of the story because the guys on the beach are there for the better part of a week in the film, while the boat crossing takes place over the course of a long day, and the action in the Spitfires involves a single hour. Each of those storylines—one week on land, one day at sea and one hour in the air—had different temporal characteristics, so in braiding them together editorially, I had to plot them out very carefully. Intertwining these stories leads you through the events in a very subjective way and allows you to understand the journey each of the characters is on, while always trying to suggest that there are many other unseen journeys. In an event of this magnitude, you can’t possibly get a comprehensive understanding of so many individual experiences in a single film.”
Researching the Script
Nolan read several books and firsthand accounts. He also consulted extensively with Levine, whom he says, “very quickly understood the tricky balance between entertainment and historical accuracy that we were trying to strike. He also arranged for us to meet with some surviving veterans of Operation Dynamo. It was a great, great honor to meet those people and hear about their experiences and discover what Dunkirk meant to them.”
“Nevertheless,” Thomas notes, “Chris felt strongly that he didn’t want to put words in the mouths of these real-life heroes, or have to change their stories for reasons of time or dramatic effect, and decided that the best way to approach the story was to use fictional characters inspired by those elements he discovered in doing his research.”
Seeing the event through the eyes of just a few individual characters was something that struck Branagh when he read the script. “Chris managed to weave together a very human story that brings all those personal moments together within this epic dimension,” the actor states. “He is quite brilliant in my view, a master filmmaker.”
Rylance adds, “I don’t imagine anyone else could have done a more faithful and essential telling of this story in a more thrilling and exciting way. I think it makes for an extraordinary movie-going experience.”
Cast in his third Christopher Nolan film, Tom Hardy agrees. “Time and time again, Chris consistently manages to raise the bar. He is a true professional who doesn’t leave a stone unturned or dismiss an opportunity. He’s always in control and set in his volition, but he is not inflexible. That’s extremely powerful for an artist. He’s generous, sensitive, funny and incredibly intelligent, and I trust him—if he says he’s going to do something, he will.”
To help him achieve his time-bending, threefold vision for the film, Nolan collaborated with his creative team, including director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema, production designer Nathan Crowley, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, editor Lee Smith, special effects supervisor Scott Fisher and visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson.
Nolan’s primary goal was to put the audience directly onto the beach, onboard the boat traversing the Channel, and in the cockpit of the Spitfires. He had been the first to use IMAX cameras in a major motion picture, for “The Dark Knight,” and has employed IMAX cameras on all of his subsequent films. But for “Dunkirk,” he expanded the use of large format—shooting the entire film with a combination of IMAX and 65mm film, something, he confirms, “I’ve never done before, but ‘Dunkirk’ is a huge story and it demanded an enormous canvas.
“The reason we were shooting on IMAX film,” the director continues, “is that the immersive quality of the image is second to none. When you sit in the movie theatre, the screen disappears and you really get a very tactile sense of the imagery. That lends itself to incredible panoramas and large-scale action. But we’ve also found over the years that if you use it for more intimate situations, it creates an immediacy that’s very engaging. So our feeling was, if we could find a way to do it physically, the payoff would be well worth it.”
Another hallmark of Nolan’s films is his preference for capturing the action in-camera and eschewing digital effects and CGI as much as possible. “To me,” he clarifies, “it’s always very important to try and work with real things and real people. The resulting effect of that is very visceral and enveloping, and draws you into the story.”
That was equally true for the cast. Cillian Murphy, working with the director for the fifth time, asserts, “I can only speak for myself, but I do think the rest of the actors would attest to this as well: when you’re in the environment and things are happening for real, it leads to a more honest, truthful portrayal of your character’s journey.”
Adding to the verisimilitude, the filmmakers, cast and crew were honored to have the opportunity to film a portion of “Dunkirk” on the actual beach and at the exact same time of year that the miraculous evacuation happened. There were some logistical challenges, including inclement weather, rough seas, and the construction of the mole: a narrow, kilometer-long, wood-boarded breakwater that poked precariously out into the cold waters of the Channel. Nevertheless, Thomas says it was the best possible choice. “The beach at Dunkirk is a singular place,” she states. “We looked at other options, but it became clear that it would be difficult to replicate exactly the look we needed anywhere else. We all felt very lucky to be able to shoot at the location where the event occurred.”
Cast
Dunkirk features an ensemble cast, including Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy and Barry Keoghan, with Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy.
Crew
The creative team on Dunkirk included director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema, production designer Nathan Crowley, editor Lee Smith, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson and special effects supervisor Scott Fisher. The music was composed by Hans Zimmer
