Boy is the second part of this true. You nailed this, @Nesrie.
This was my real problem with the movie. I found the music overwhelming. I freaking loved the sound design and wanted to…you know…actually hear it…but Nolan kept jamming Hans Zimmer into my ear holes and I found that really annoying.
I had forgotten about my objection to that. I know I talked about it on the podcast, even saying I would have preferred silence (I mean, no music at all) during certain parts. The other two disagreed.
I’m extremely sensitive to music–in real life and in movies–so this made a huge impression on me. I collect film scores because I love the way music is used. When it is overused, it drives me batty*.
I think this could evolve over time (as a group effort, I learn far more than any knowledge I impart in these threads). I’m not interested in narrowness though, I think what has been blatantly established is how broad that term is.
And I like me some Zimmer if used properly (see: The Thin Red Line).
EDIT: And I’d argue that the first part of what @Nesrie said was true ( to her perception, and mine) as well. Nolan, by giving me war-automatons, gave me no reason to care a fig about their demise, in any personal way. It’s a choice.
An interesting film that didn’t make the list but I guess I consider kind of unique in the genre is War Horse.
That’s largely a bunch of mini stories connected by only the horse, but each of the stories seem pretty impactful and tell you something kind of unique about the war, about old tech vs new, the use of horses in the war and reasons that is largely the last time they are heavily used in a war like that.
Yeah I love music too. I am moved by it easily and readily and it sticks with me for years. Dunkirk’s music did not work for me. I acknowledge he was trying to do something with it, but that was so distracting I just found it to be… noise.
It’s an interesting one, and a bit of a heartbreaker for as little attention as each of these mini stories get. I think it will be easy to see why it doesn’t usually make these kind of top lists but it’s kind of unique in how they approaching the telling of it from the connection of that horse.
heh, i guess it was weird I added my reply before you posted so I’ll put this down here.
First of all, I really appreciate your thoughtful reply, @Jason_Levine. It was a good read, even if I disagree with most of it.
For instance…uh…I guess the Danny DeVito movie The War of the Roses must have really irked you guys who are all hung up on this title thing. Imagine going to that and finding out it was a black comedy about a couple’s marriage falling apart. How dare they!
I keed. I keed. But I’m kind of not keeding.
You can title something anything you want, and you have no obligation to give any scope of the event (ignoring for a moment that I totally disagree that Dunkirk doesn’t do this; you may not have liked it, and that’s cool–as I’ve said to The Poster of Navarone, if you think the movie is crap or just “aight” that’s fine with me, but you’d better bring something more than gripes about the title…which, to be fair, he has and you have–but I think it really did give a sense of the scope and of the stakes) or even make the movie about the event. I mean sure, if I made a movie called “Emmett Till” and it was a comedy about competitive goat pageants, that would be stupid. And people would have every right to object. So perhaps there is a line.
I just think you guys are choosing the wrong beach on which to draw that line in the sand.
It’s not my “take on history” Jason, it’s my exposure to this historical event. So, for me, this movie clued me in to something I knew almost nothing about, and thus is of value to me. It’s up to me to find out, partly by talking to folks like you and Poster 10 from Navarone, what the film got wrong and what it got right. Finding out why it didn’t work for @Navaronegun has been extremely instructive.
Also, even given my ignorance, I totally got the impact of that fleet of little boats. It was hugely moving to me. So I don’t know what you’re talking about. I suspect it has to do with that ticking of boxes I describe above.
I endeavored to choose movies for my list that had not been chosen, otherwise Gettysburg would have been on my list. For all its flaws and terrible beards, Jeff Daniels makes me cry every time I see it. Also I love the soundtrack, as it turns out.
That said, I do like that you said that movies about epic events are allowed to give you the perspective of individuals. I agree. I just disagree that this movie doesn’t also give you the scope of the event. I was overwhelmed by the scope of it when I saw it in the theater. So we just had a different experience.
I totally agree. Totally. That’s why I love these discussions. You have every right to question it, and I have the right to disagree. We are at an impasse about this, because I don’t think there is an “obligation” in this case, and I certainly don’t agree, even having said that, that such supposed obligation has not been met.
Look, Dunkirk was on my list last year and it was important to me, but I wouldn’t put it on a list of my favorite “War Films”TM of all time. I loved it and I broke down exactly why for a couple of hours online. I’ve thumbnailed it here (I have big thumbs as it happens). You didn’t like it because it didn’t meet some sort of obligation, which I think is a strange way of objecting to the movie, but I absolutely accept your right to question that.
This is so fascinating to me, because I don’t see them as war automatons. They aren’t recognizable actors, and I think I have the exact opposite response that you two do because of this. These are grunts. The world might see them as expendable, but they are desperate to survive. Every one of them. Just because Matt Damon’s face isn’t the one being saved doesn’t make me any less interested in their fate.
In point of fact, I became more interested because I was forced to see them as humans, not just stars getting out of a tight spot.
Oh, I was interested, just not invested in their fates. As I said, I didn’t think this was a bad film. Just average. Not interested in a re-view. And certainly not “Great”.
EDIT: And that is what I meant earlier about the “Binary Choice” thing. In the interwebs, there is a tendency for debates to become about extremes. Someone who cannot understand why a particular film isn’t thought of as an “All-Time Great” by others starts to become perceived by that person as others thinking it was trash, for example. It just happens. No room for nuance (a pet peeve of Dive’s, on any topic…peeve of mine too).
Dunkirk is just average in many opinions, but I don’t think anyone (least of all me) is saying it was Pearl Harbor. THAT man has a sin that he not answered for on HIS conscience.
My hope is that we’ve brought some nuance here to this discussion, at least in our back-and-forth. I see some of the things you and others don’t care for in the movie, and see those as reasonable objections. Other objections I find odd. I might find the movie’s timeline structure to be strange and wonderful, Jason agrees with only the first part.
So I don’t think it’s binary in this regard, because I feel like we’re listening to each other. I don’t know that in five years I think of it as a “Great” film either, but I’m pretty sure I won’t see it as average (which is the greater sin than being terrible, to me). But who knows? I’m open.
I just appreciate the chance to discuss something I love at length with you folks.
I actually didn’t have an issue with the timeline jump, and I had no issues with what some critics falsely claimed that reasons people didn’t like that was because we had to pay attention to follow it. I did pay attention the entire time. I also didn’t take issues with how they showed three planes and their struggle with fuel limitations. I thought it was interesting to see the soldiers get angry at them even.
Sometimes you have a movie that falls in the middle of your rankings or enjoyment or review because the sum of all it’s parts are mediocre or average. I think this is where the good stories told via an average movie fall in, or maybe a not so good story falls with a pretty good or great telling of it.
I would say, for me, the reason Dunkirk falls into the middle is because of the sum of the stuff I valued and appreciated was overwhelmed by the stuff I really, really didn’t like. It doesn’t matter to me if it was a stylistic choice or an artistic vision or an experiment or who the actors are. if you stuck a Brad Pitt in there it would have made no difference… at the end of the day, I just didn’t like it, it being the choices they made and how they shared their vision.
I try to go in to every movie like a teacher who says to her students, “All of you start with an ‘A’ grade in my book. It’s up to you to keep it. I hope you will.” I have people close to me who disagree with me on this, but when I go, no matter what, I want the movie to succeed. I want the movie to wow me.
Sometimes, however, I cannot help but go in skeptical. I think I was on that side of the spectrum in going to see this. So maybe the surprise helped me in this regard. There are elements of this movie I just haven’t been able to get out of my head since I saw it last year.
This doesn’t mean it’s “Great” (to @Navaronegun’s point). It just speaks to its impact upon me.
I respect that on balance the scale tipped the other way for you. And again, I’m glad you reminded me about the music.
Dang it. Now I need to listen to this again.
I think Hans Zimmer seems to get in the way too much. That said, who can forget his Spanglish score. Amirite?
But seriously folks, I do love his Black Hawk Down music.
To loop back around to Jeff Daniels in Gettysburg, I could not agree more with @ChristienMurawski.
I’ve got no particular feeling about Daniels as an actor. He’s fine in my book. But there is a reason my (almost unused these days) Twitter avatar is Joshua Chamberlain, and it’s because of Daniels performance there.
I mean watching this scene in the movie, and I’m ready to follow him down the hill
It helps the real Chamberlain was decidedly a brave commander, and the decision to charge had a real impact on that part of the battle.
Meditation 1 The Thin Red Line, Music and then an exploration of POV and the “Other”.
OK, first let’s see how Malik (the director) uses music here:
Now to see Malik’s attention to detail regarding POV and portraying “the Other” watch these two scenes. They are identical, but one is without subtitles and one with. Lets see how your perception changes.
