Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017)

No, I'm a big Harry Styles fan. I always loved how One Direction was this independent voice in the music industry and how they made music no one had ever touched upon.

I mean, loving and logical lyrics like “I’m blinded ’cause you are everything I see”, “Hole in the middle of my heart like a polo”, “Her light is as loud as many ambulances” and “You can’t go to bed without a cup of tea and maybe that’s the reason that you talk in your sleep"... all are simply a whole new standard for the industry, you know?

YES of course I'm talking Nolan! He was probably annoyed how he had a little trouble getting those whiney teenage Beliebers to his screenings... And BOOM! Harry Styles is cast!

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The guy makes $200 million movies about dreams inside dreams and obsessive rival magicians, but because he gets people to actually watch them he's "mainstream"?

Being mainstream is good if you get there by broadening the definition, rather than narrowing the film. He's gotten non-cinephiles to watch weirder, more inventive movies than they used to watch.

He is mainstream, I guess, but that's not a bad thing.

Never mind about Harry Styles, he'll just be there to get the youngsters to see it and y'know why not? WW2 is all our histories after all, involving sacrifice of many lives and the ruin of many families. It's much further back in history now to when I was a kid, then it was a recent memory so the stories were much more alive. It doesn't hurt to have youngsters attracted to a film to see a pop star, providing Nolan presents a story with the facts in a truthful way. There's thousands of stories to be told there of the ordinary lives of so many people, and having actors of the integrity of Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Cillian Murphy you hope will give the film some depth, and well the kid Styles will at least learn something!

I'm making a distinction between "mainstream" as a description of someone's popularity, and as a term of denigration. To call someone mainstream in a negative context is to suggest not just that they have a large audience, but that they've watered their films down in order to attract that audience. But if they're making films most audiences wouldn't usually watch, but are now willing to watch because of them, then it's no longer an insult: it's a compliment.

I'm glad I started what could be a great discussion, but I hope y'all know I was merely kidding. There weren't no layers upon layers of hidden meanings here, folks.

On the topic though, I always admired Nolan for being one of the few (if not the only) director working today, who can deliver movies that are original and do so on a big budget. I doubt a lot of directors get the same "go-ahead" from studios like Nolan does. His movies are not as deep and multilayered as true independent/arthouse/whatever movies, but he insert more originality and edgy stuff than most mainstream directors and I admire him for that - and sometimes - even love him for that.

I feel like he has fallen off past TDK-fame though and even despite how I liked Inception a lot, Rises was a messy miss and Interstellar was a hollow, overlong, unbalanced though partly entertaining affair. I hope Dunkirk will be a solid, tense and dramatic 2-hr film that will hopefully bring him back to form.

I'm careful to believe that Nolan has ever actually watered down any of his films, at least in any amount that matters. On the contrary, I think he's a special case where he has kept his vision with each film and slowly garnered acclaim to the point where he could really make the films he wants to make. Actually, my favorite Nolan might be Interstellar, his last one. Say what you will about Nolan, but I have a hard time agreeing with anyone suggesting he has ever strayed far from his original vision for a film just to satisfy others. I would certainly say he is trying to entertain people, but the cool thing about Nolan is he tries - and succeeds - to do that without losing too much of his vision. And yeah, as you might have guessed, I think the backlash against Nolan among cinephiles is bogus.

I disagree about Interstellar, but wasn't a fan of Rises either. Actually, it's the only Nolan film I don't really like.

I Guarantee there will be other elements, if not I will be sorely disappointed

‘So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence. In that harbour, such a hell on earth as never blazed before, at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that had hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendour, she faced the enemy, this shining thing in the souls of free men, which Hitler cannot command. It is in the great tradition of democracy. It is a future. It is victory.

New York Times, 1 June 1940

‘For us Germans the word “Dunkirchen” will stand for all time for victory in the greatest battle of annihilation in history. But, for the British and French who were there, it will remind them for the rest of their lives of a defeat that was heavier than any army had ever suffered before.’

Der Adler, 5 June 1940

Actually, saving 338,226 Private Ryan's...

in 8 days...

how long did it take Tom Hanks to save 1 Private Ryan ?

a month?

Ditto. And it's wildly counterproductive, anyway. If we want more people to watch more inventive movies, then slapping them down the moment they start to do so doesn't seem like a great way to achieve that. Which makes me think that it's less about pushing new ideas into the mainstream and more about self-identifying through exclusion.

My opinion of Nolan is a bit more mixed than that.

He is excellent from the technical point of view, makes huge and ambitious entertainment films that always look visually stunning and that have a great impact on the viewer.
But his movies are empty in content, badly written and his endings are more than often forced so everyone can understand what he meant.

It may be good mainstream, but it's mainstream.

Empty in content?

Yup... I think everything he does is pseudo-mind challenging.

I don't know if 'empty in content' is the correct wording, but 'Interstellar' is a good example of that. There is a lot of talk about a lot of things, but there really isn't anything to it imo.

Here is my old review for Interstellar, which was a rewatch I enjoyed because of the entertainment, but the writing and story really brought it down http://www.movieforums.com/community...44#post1274144

In my best Leo voice, "we need to go deeper", at least if I want to really discuss this film. But that review still sums my thoughts up rather well I guess.

Still a better dialogue than Interstellar.

Did anyone notice none of their reactions were synced?

I disagree. I think Interstellar is his most meaningful film.

Please share.

It's been a while since I've seen it, I just remember it resonating with me the most of his films on an emotional and intellectual level. That is my basis for saying that.