Dunkirk The Rewatchables
Dunkirk poster
Dunkirk

What’s Aged the Best?

The structure; Hans Zimmer's score; the sound design; Mark Rylance; Nolan's virtuosity; the casting of authentic faces

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:18Read transcript
  • The structure is brilliant, still elusive in its construction, and rewards rewatching; nothing is out of place in the first half and the middle is a symphony.
  • The film deserved its Best Editing Oscar and it is a crime the score did not win; the score may define the decade.
  • Zimmer recorded the ticking from one of Nolan's pocket watches and processed it through synthesizers; the clock does not stop until Alex and Tommy sit safely on the train.
  • Zimmer and Nolan are compared to Leone and Morricone; the score works as sound filling a palette left open by sparse dialogue.
  • The film is framed as a Hitchcock movie masquerading as a war movie, a suspense puzzle about who will survive, with the question whether that had been done before.
  • The closest predecessor offered is It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: cross-cutting held together by the "earnest gold" theme, Hardy's plane recalling Buddy Hackett and "Mickey Runy" (transcript spelling), the trapped boat recalling Sid Caesar and Edie Adams in the basement, and both being convergence movies.
  • The sound design, especially the dive-bomber overhead, is separate from the score and visceral.
  • Mark Rylance, seen in Wolf Hall and known for female Shakespeare roles, brings stillness to the old man going to sea.
  • Nolan's virtuosity: Dunkirk, rather than The Dark Knight, is called his Apex Mountain; it dealt him in as a great filmmaker beyond Gotham and science fiction and brought Warner Brothers along as Kubrick did; Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet are original big-budget studio stories.
  • It is hard to imagine the film imitated or topped; a linear cut would not hold together; the faces look like photographs of British soldiers in 1940. — Chris Ryan
  • Harry Styles, covered in oil, plays the soldier most aggressive toward the French character and is good despite being a huge pop star.