Finally got to see ‘Dunkirk’ on the big screen last week, courtesy of Warner Brothers.  There was a dessert service after the Q&A with Nolan, so yes, ‘For Your Consideration’ season has begun!

I’m not a World War II buff by any means so Dunkirk didn’t hold a strong meaning to me beyond doing a cursory Google search on why it’s important. After I did that though, it made complete sense to me why the British hold it in such high regard, and why Nolan wanted to make this movie.

Interested to note during the Q&A, how they decided early on to ‘not’ try to be ‘Saving Private Ryan’.  A, because he considers it a masterpiece and B, in true Christopher Nolan style, he wanted to focus on the practical details of ‘how would this happen in real life?’ as opposed to ‘this is how these things play out in a movie’…

(Prince of Gotham nodding….)

Relating directly to war (without spoiling some of story points of ‘Dunkirk’), Nolan also says he was attracted to doing a different type of war movie, because, in talking to veterans, war is very much like life in that, death often happens completely randomly, and the ‘good guys’ or ‘heroes’ may never get the credit they really deserve, and ‘the bad guys’ may not always suffer in proportion to the damage they’ve done.

(cueing up the Hans Zimmer as my eyes mist up…)

As far as ‘Dunkirk’ the movie goes, I personally wouldn’t call it Nolan’s best, but it’s solid.  With the studio backing him up, I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t finally get a Best Director nomination this year.