A trailer for the movie has been out for a while but Christopher Nolan showed extensive footage to those attending the CinemaCon trade show in Las Vegas. (Not up on the net unfortunately.)
I am really looking forward to this one. I’m English and, as Nolan comments, Dunkirk is in the British DNA. Apart from that I usually love Nolan’s movies (other than Interstellar which was a massive disappointment). I think this will be spectacular and that he will do the subject justice.
One personal point. I hope he takes time, even just one scene, to show the British troops who were in the rearguard at Dunkirk. While their mates were being evacuated these guys, just a few companies of them, were dug in on the outskirts of Dunkirk waiting for the Germans and hoping to slow their advance just long enough to give the soldiers on the beaches a chance to get away.
The men in the rearguard knew for a fact that they would either die or be captured but they were pretty stoical about it. I know because my father, a Sergeant in the Buffs, was one of them. He knew what was coming but he said they gave it everything they had. They didn’t slow the Germans by much but any delay helped. He and his mates (the ones that weren’t dead) ended up in German stalags for the duration of the war, some 4 years. They deserve a mention in Nolan’s film and I will be annoyed if they don’t get one.
I’m looking forward to this one and have seen a couple of trailers since late last year. I know the history, but don’t remember the story being depicted in a move before.
I hope the movie’s a big success, if only because I’ve long felt that Admiral Ramsay doesn’t get nearly the recognition he deserves; pulled out of retirement in 1938, he’s the guy who engineered the Dunkirk evacuation, AND was the guy who pulled off the naval piece of the Normandy landings, as well as having his fingers in the pie of all the other major Allied naval operations.
Plus, the story’s a very inspiring one in pretty much all respects, and deserves to be told to a wider audience. And we apparently get the bonus of seeing Harry Styles sink to the bottom of the Channel! How can we lose?
Something I wondered about the Dunkirk evacuations as I watched the trailer; how was the need for the flotilla communicated and organized? Was there a radio announcement in coastal communities asking for volunteers to sail to France? Did someone just go to the docks and ask people to help? And were some boats or ships just commandeered without the knowledge of their owners?
Interesting that the BBC announcement was was made on May 14, two weeks before the evacuation started on May 26. Looks like they were already aware they were about to be in a serious bind.
There was actually a 1958 film with John Mills and Richard Attenborough called Dunkirk that was successful in the UK but made little impact across the pond. Certainly, the most memorable depictions for a US audience would be there tangential roles in Mrs. Miniver and Atonement.
For people in the UK, the b&w 1958 Dunkirk comes around sometimes on tv channel Talking Pictures (Freeview 81). As do lots of other hoary old b&w films!
It’s black and white. When I was growing up it used to be one of those Sunday afternoon films on BBC1 - Richard Attenbough, the bloke who was James Bond’s M, and a lot of small boats. Tells the administrative part quite well - registration, owners/captains/volunteering for Dunkirk duty, etc.
Great link, up_the_junction, I’ll certainly be seeking that book out. I wish I’d asked my father more questions about the war rather than reading books on it. Although he didn’t much like talking about that time sometimes he would open up. He said it wasn’t so much the long captivity at Lamsdorf, in fact except towards the end when things got tougher it wasn’t really so bad there (except for the poor Russians whom he really felt sorry for). It was the Long March that was among his worst memories, the forced march of the prisoners in 1945 across Poland and Germany in the bitterest of winters with men dropping like flies. He talked sometimes of how they would try to catch cats they came across in order to eat them, of the death of close friends by cold, malnutrition or the bullet of a guard , but mainly of the deathly cold and the road that seemed to go on for ever. My mother said that when she first met him just after his return from Germany he looked like a Belsen survivor.
When I was a teenager, before I was really aware of any of this, I’d gripe to my parents about how tough my life was, they didn’t understand the pressures, the usual teenage crap. How he had the forbearance not to beat the shit out of me I’ll never know!
