'I knew I didn’t want to make a film that could be dismissed as old-fashioned, something that wasn’t relevant to today’s audiences'
A new Christopher Nolan film may seem like an automatic sale for your average movie fan, but the director's journey to Dunkirk wasn't exactly plain sailing.
Writing in The Telegraph, Nolan states that his quest to document on screen the Dunkirk evacuation, in which 338,226 soldiers were rescued from the beaches of France after being surrounded by the German army, was burdened by one major issue: its scale required a Hollywood budget, but Hollywood is rarely interested in funding stories where no Americans are involved.
The director won them over, however, thanks to one simple pitch: "We’re going to put the audience into the cockpit of a Spitfire and have them dogfight the Messerschmitts. We’re going to put them on the beach, feeling the sand getting everywhere, confronting the waves. We’re going to put them on small civilian boats bouncing around on the waves on this huge journey heading into a terrifying war zone. It’s virtual reality without the headset."
"I knew I didn’t want to make a film that could be dismissed as old-fashioned, something that wasn’t relevant to today’s audiences," he elaborates. "What that ruled out for me immediately was getting bogged down in the politics of the situation. We don’t have generals in rooms pushing things around on maps. We don’t see Churchill. We barely glimpse the enemy. It’s a survival story. I wanted to go through the experience with the characters."
Having jumped that first hurdle, Nolan was soon to find that Dunkirk would be his most challenging production yet, particularly in his insistence on utilising real ships and planes as opposed to relying on CGI creations. He was particularly interested in expressing to audiences exactly how complex and difficult aerial dogfights actually were.
Films to get excited about in 2017
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Lupita Nyong'o
Plot: No details yet, but it will continue directly on from Rey coming face-to-face with Luke at the end of The Force Awakens.
Release Date: 15 December 2017
Thor: Ragnarok
Director: Taika Waititi
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, and Mark Ruffalo
Plot: Story details are minimal as of now, but Thor's third return to screen has already been teased to feature a loose adaptation of the famous 'Planet Hulk' storyline.
Release Date: 27 October 2017
Song to Song
Director: Terrence Malick
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, and Cate Blanchett
Plot: Two intersecting love triangles. Obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas.
Release Date: Unknown
Wonder Woman
Director: Patty Jenkins
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, and Connie Nielsen
Plot: After leaving her all-female island, Wonder Woman discovers her full powers and true destiny while fighting alongside soldiers during World War I.
Release Date: 2 June 2017
The Circle
Director: James Ponsoldt
Cast: Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, John Boyega, and Karen Gillan
Plot: A young female tech worker takes a job at a powerful internet corporation, quickly rises up the company's ranks, and soon finds herself in a perilous situation, which that involves privacy, surveillance and freedom. She comes to learn that her decisions and actions will determine the future of humanity.
Release Date: 28 April 2017
The Beguiled
Director: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, and Angourie Rice
Plot: A Union soldier is held captive in a Confederate girl boarding school, and begins to con himself to each of their hearts.
Release Date: 23 June 2017
You Were Never Really Here
(image from Her) Director: Lynne Ramsay
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola
Plot: A war veteran's attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong.
Release Date: Unknown
Annihilation
Director: Alex Garland
Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac
Plot: A biologist's husband disappears. She thus puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor.
Release Date: Unknown
Wonderstruck
(image from Far From Heaven) Director: Todd Haynes
Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Amy Hargreaves
Plot: The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Release Date: Unknown
Suburbicon
(image of director George Clooney) Director: George Clooney
Cast: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Josh Brolin, and Oscar Isaac
Plot: A crime mystery set in the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, where the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and betrayal.
Release Date: Uknown
Okja
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Paul Dano
Plot: A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend — a massive animal named Okja.
Release Date: Unknown
Dunkirk
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Harry Styles, and Mark Rylance
Plot: 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.
Release Date: 21 July 2017
Mother
(image of Darren Aronofsky) Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, and Ed Harris
Plot: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Release Date: Unknown
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
(image from The Lobster) Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Alicia Silverstone
Plot: A surgeon forms a familial bond with a sinister teenage boy, with disastrous results.
Release Date: Unknown
Blade Runner 2049
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, and Jared Leto
Plot: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
Release Date: 6 October 2017
Lady Bird
(image of director Greta Gerwig) Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Lucas Hedges
Plot: The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year.
Release Date: Unknown
The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
(image of director Steven Spielberg and star Mark Rylance) Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Mark Rylance, Oscar Isaac
Plot: The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara recounts the story of a young Jewish boy in Bologna, Italy in 1858 who, having been secretly baptized, is forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents' struggle to free their son becomes part of a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification.
Release Date: Unknown
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Cast: Elle Fanning, Ruth Wilson, and Nicole Kidman
Plot: An alien touring the galaxy breaks away from her group and meets two young inhabitants of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon.
Release Date: Unknown
The Dark Tower
Director: Nikolaj Arcel
Cast: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor
Plot: Gunslinger Roland Deschain roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world.
Release Date: 28 July 2017
The Shape of Water
(image of Guillermo del Toro behind the scenes of Crimson Peak) Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer.
Plot: An other-worldly story, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963.
Release Date: Unknown
Alien: Covenant
(image of director Ridley Scott behind the scenes) Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Noomi Rapace, and Guy Pearce
Plot: Headed toward a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew members of the colony ship Covenant discover what they believe to be an uncharted paradise, but it is actually a dark, menacing world in which the only inhabitant is the synthetic David, a survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Release Date: 19 May 2017
Baby Driver
Director: Edgar Wright
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Kevin Spacey
Plot: A young, music-loving expert getaway driver is coerced into a heist for a mob boss, which threatens his life, love and freedom.
Release Date: 18 August 2017
"But however challenging our process became," he concludes. We were always aware that our trials were nothing compared to what people experienced in 1940. The idea behind Dunkirk that we’re trying to get across is that it’s not about individual heroics. It’s about communal heroism. It’s about the tremendous sense of community that was vital to the operation."
"That’s what makes the story unique and that’s why I think it has always served as a rallying point for British people. I also think it’s a universal story – about the individual drive for survival. And the fundamental concept of a desperation to get home."
Dunkirk hits UK cinemas 21 July.