OT - Dunkirk

[MajorMagee]

I only recently saw this movie, and happened to take a book out of the library last week about how the movie was made. The section on the air fighting sequences was pretty amazing to see the things they did to maintain their fidelity to realism. A lot of it was shot with IMAX from inside real cockpits both on the ground and in the air. The only CGI they used was the tracer effects and that was grafted in from additional IMAX footage shot at a Machine Gun range in Arizona, and then made to match the look of WW2 gun camera footage.



The filming was done both at the actual combat locations over the English Channel, and for scenes involving interaction with ships, on the IJsselmeer. The traditional camera planes were too slow for anything more than straight and level shots. For the more dynamic scenes they had to switch to a jet for the camera plane to let the MkI spitfires get up to combat maneuver speeds.

[mongoose]

The problem with that movie was the time scale where one might imagine the planes were up for hours or days. I found the whole scene switching a bit irritating. Besides the fact the English flying formation b4 they learnt to finger 4 formation was exhibition flying; too close together.

[MajorMagee]

I didn't realize it until I read the book that there were three different times scales running throughout the movie.

The men were representing things that happened over a week.

The ships represented things that happened over one day.

The planes represented things that happened in only an hour.

They jump back and forth until the stories all converge in that hour the planes were in the air, and then they diverge again.

I found it difficult to follow the who, what, when, and where things were occurring until I read the book that explained it.

In this case the filmmakers were probably too crafty for their own good. I suppose that's what happens when you're trying to make a movie that wins awards.

I thought that the tight Vic of Three at the beginning while they were traveling across the Channel, before they were engaged by the enemy, seemed to be accurate enough for that early in the war.

[Threedp]

Indeed, the Vic formation persisted into the Battle of Britain, so that is certainly accurate.

The film is certainly different in its approach, but why not something different for a change? The desire was to show the experience of those going through it and I took the different timescales to represent both the specifics of what was going on and the overall experience of those involved. The drain on the pilots flying mission after mission for instance, even though we only really saw one. I also thought it conveyed, in a unique way, the chaos of the situation at Dunkirk.

I wouldn't want every movie to told in the same fashion, but I thought the approach was sincere and in my opinion, they pulled it off.

Makes a great companion piece to 'Darkest Hour'.

[gecko]

Dunkirk might be my favorite war movie. Loved the flying scenes especially of course, they were really nicely done. I hadn't heard all of those details about the making of it, makes you appreciate it more. Minor inaccuracies as any movie has, but nothing really glaring imo. But yeah, if you missed the opening title for each story that explains the different timelines then it would be pretty confusing.

[mongoose]

It's a sad fact that the RAF persisted in the tight vic 3 formation for such a long time as they saw the negative effects early in the BoF. My other objection to the film is why were the spitfires flying on the deck instead of high up? I agree with Andy's
"In this case the filmmakers were probably too crafty for their own good. I suppose that's what happens when you're trying to make a movie that wins awards."
So one has to accept it as a dramatic representation rather that a do-cu-film. It certainly had plenty of drama and loud effects!

[gecko]

Yeah, I wondered about the altitude too - the real action was about 20,000ft higher! Does anyone know if low level patrols were flown during Dunkirk?