Age of The Nerd
Warner Bros. has released a new featurette for ‘Dunkirk‘ in anticipation of the Oscars in just a few weeks. The film was nominated for 7 oscars, but that isn’t stopping the studio from promoting the film, despite a summer 2017 release. I’ll say that it’s rare for what is effectively a summer blockbuster to be getting so much attention, but it tickles me to no end that Christopher Nolan was able to garner so much awards-season love for ‘Dunkirk‘ (along with the first directing nominaition of his career).The featurette itself provides a pretty in-depth look at what it took to make a film like ‘Dunkirk‘, delving into the practicalities of shooting a film that takes place in the air, sea, and the ground. While Nolan has always told complex narratives throughout his career, this featurette does a great job of conveying how Nolan has refined this complexity into the simplified narrative that he presents in the film.
In addition to all of this, the featurette looks into how Nolan immerses the audience in the minds of the characters through the use of large format cameras such as IMAX, the intuitive and impulsive way they use the camera and weight of the IMAX cameras themselves, the complexities of shooting on the sea, how the in-camera effects help the realism of the story, and how the tension of Hans Zimmer’s score creates a viseceral experience throughout. Although I didn’t love the film entirely, I do respect and appreciate the work that Nalon puts into the craft of filmmaking, and this video does a great job of expanding on that idea to appeal to academy voters this year.
Here’s the thirty-minute featurette, titled “The Dunkirk Spirit”.
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/qw0G_ddYoPs”]In case you haven’t seen it here’s the (brief) synopsis for ‘Dunkirk’ :
Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.
