Dunkirk Christopher Nolan

Development

The empathy for the characters has nothing to do with their story. I did not want to go through the dialogue, tell the story of my characters ... The problem is not who they are, who they pretend to be or where they come from. The only question I was interested in was: Will they get out of it? Will they be killed by the next bomb while trying to join the mole? Or will they be crushed by a boat while crossing?

— Christopher Nolan[13]

Director Christopher Nolan conceived the film in the mid-1990s,[14] when he and his future wife Emma Thomas sailed across the English Channel, following the path of many small boats in the Dunkirk evacuation.[15][16] Nolan considered improvising the entire film instead of writing a script, but Thomas convinced him otherwise.[17] In 2015,[15] Nolan wrote a 76-page screenplay,[13][15][18] which was about half the length of his usual scripts[19] and his shortest to date.[20][21] Its precise structure necessitated fictional characters, rather than ones based on eyewitnesses.[22]

The story is told from three perspectives—land (one week of action), sea (one day of action) and air (one hour of action).[23] Nolan structured the film from the point of view of the characters, intending to use visuals rather than dialogue and backstory.[24][25] He wanted to incorporate throughout the film what he calls his "snowballing effect," where several seemingly disparate storylines connect, that he had previously used only in the third acts of his other films.[18] Nolan said that he approached research as though it were for a documentary,[26] and was attracted to the project because of its inversion of the "Hollywood formula": the Battle of Dunkirk was not a victory and did not involve American armed forces, but nevertheless demanded a large-scale production.[20]

Nolan postponed Dunkirk until he had acquired sufficient experience directing large-scale action films.[22] To convey the perspective of soldiers on the beach, for whom contact with the enemy was "extremely limited and intermittent", he did not show Germans on screen (several Germans who take Farrier prisoner are out of focus).[27] He omitted scenes with Winston Churchill and generals in war rooms, as he did not want to get "bogged down in the politics of the situation".[28] Nolan showed key members of the crew eleven films that had inspired him: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), The Wages of Fear (1953), Alien (1979), Speed (1994), Unstoppable (2010), Greed (1924), Sunrise (1927), Ryan's Daughter (1970), The Battle of Algiers (1966), Chariots of Fire (1981) and Foreign Correspondent (1940)—only two of which are war films.[15][29] The historical consultant was author Joshua Levine,[20][30] who also wrote the book adaptation, Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture.[31] Levine accompanied Nolan while interviewing veterans.[16][32][33] During these interviews, Nolan was told a story of soldiers seen walking into the sea in desperation, which he incorporated into the screenplay.[32]

The production team and scouting locations were chosen before Nolan and Thomas solicited Warner Bros. Pictures to make the film.[15] Nolan and his production designer Nathan Crowley toured the beach of Dunkirk while location scouting, and decided to film there despite the logistical challenges,[20] discarding Suffolk as an alternative. Crowley set up a makeshift art department in Nolan's old garage, as is tradition, and colourised black-and-white photographs to better understand the visual representation. The design aesthetic was made to look as contemporary as possible.[15][34] Hoyte van Hoytema, who had previously collaborated with Nolan on Interstellar, was chosen as the director of photography.[35] The Hollywood Reporter stated that Nolan made a deal with Warner Bros. to receive a $20 million salary plus 20% of the box office gross;[36] however, Vanity Fair reported that Nolan agreed to a low upfront salary in exchange for a large backend percentage.[37]

Pre-production began in January 2016.[15] For the uniforms, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland aimed to balance historical accuracy with aesthetics that would favour the film stock. As the original heavy wool fabric had not been produced since 1940, it was made from scratch, tailored for the main cast and over a thousand extras. Uniforms were made in a factory in Pakistan and the boots by a shoemaker in Mexico. The costume department then spent three weeks ageing them at Longcross Studios. Each garment was made to look distinct in regiment and personality: Tommy wears a large greatcoat, while Alex dons the Highlander cut. Kurland found references at museums, in contemporary magazines, photo archives and books. The mole was rebuilt over four months from the original blueprints.[nb 2] Sand was brought from Dunkirk to create make-up consistent with the environment. Oil and tar were specially made and prosthetics were water and fire resistant.[14]

Casting

After first-hand accounts of the evacuation revealed how young and inexperienced the soldiers had been,[39] Nolan decided to cast young and unknown actors for the beach setting.[40] He was also adamant that all of the cast be British.[20][nb 3] John Papsidera and Toby Whale were the casting directors for Dunkirk.[15] Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance were in talks to join the ensemble as supporting characters in late 2015.[42][43] Fionn Whitehead was cast as the lead in March 2016,[44] while Jack Lowden, Aneurin Barnard and Harry Styles were added shortly after.[45][46] Cillian Murphy joined the following month.[47] James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan and Tom Glynn-Carney were included later that May.[48][49]

Michael Caine had a voice cameo role as Fortis Leader, as a nod to his role in the film Battle of Britain (1969).[26][50] According to D'Arcy and Nolan, Winnant and Bolton act as a Greek chorus to give the audience context.[15] Whitehead went through a secretive auditioning process lasting several months.[51] His character was named after the slang term for the ordinary British soldier.[52] Styles was cast for his "old fashioned face", as stated by Nolan.[53] He won the role after auditioning against hundreds of candidates,[20] when Nolan was unaware of his renown as a singer.[54] Murphy spoke to Nolan and read about the psychological trauma the soldiers endured, to understand his character's PTSD.[55] Nolan chose Rylance for his work in the theatre and performance in Wolf Hall.[15] As research, Rylance piloted his character's boat every day,[20] listened to audio recordings at the Imperial War Museum,[56] and read accounts of men like Mr Dawson.[15] Between takes, he encouraged rehearsal through improvised scenes.[22] The principal cast members did their own stunts.[57] John Nolan, uncle of Christopher, played Blind Man.[58] Will Attenborough played the Second Lieutenant who orders Tommy and Gibson off the hospital ship.[59]

Filming

Principal photography commenced on 23 May 2016 in Dunkirk, planned so as to avoid Bastille Day and coincide with the dates of the real evacuation.[14][60][nb 4] Production continued for four weeks in Urk, Netherlands,[14][62][63][nb 5] one week in Swanage and Weymouth in Dorset, United Kingdom,[14][65] and for two weeks at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center and Lighthouse in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, United States.[14][66][nb 6]

Filming in Dunkirk took place at the location of the real evacuation,[30] while the street scenes were shot in nearby Malo-les-Bains because most of the buildings in Dunkirk were destroyed in the war.[67] Shooting times on the beach and mole were determined by tidal patterns. French labour strikes and regulations also affected the schedule.[14]

To minimise the need for computer-generated imagery (CGI), cardboard cut-out props of soldiers and military vehicles created the illusion of a large army.[68] Real or scale-model fighter aircraft, and real warships and private boats, provided realism that could not be achieved from CGI.[69] Scale models were created via 3D printing. The mole set was frequently rebuilt after being damaged by bad weather. Because French authorities had prohibited pyrotechnic charges to protect marine life, air cannons were used instead.[14] Six thousand extras were needed in France.[68][70]

Early scenes of the film were shot at Weymouth harbour, and the final scenes at Swanage railway station.[14] Universal Pictures' Falls Lake studio in Los Angeles was used for interior and exterior sets of a sinking ship and plane, with the ship interiors filmed in a water tank using stuntmen.[14][30] To get acclimatised to cold water scenes, Styles and Whitehead underwent training sessions at Point Dume.[14]

Crowley and marine coordinator Neil Andrea located nearly sixty ships,[15][69] which Nolan had reconditioned for the shoot.[30][71] These included the retired French Navy destroyer Maillé-Brézé,[72] which was made to look like a 1940 British warship[20] as there were no wartime British destroyers left with working engines.[15] Three retired Royal Netherlands Navy ships were also used: the minesweeper HNLMS Naaldwijk portrayed HMS Britomart, HNLMS Sittard portrayed HMS Havant and HMS Jaguar, and MLV Castor (a Royal Netherlands Navy armed pilot vessel) portrayed HMS Basilisk.[73][74] The motor torpedo boat MTB 102 and the 1930s Norwegian steamer Rogaland were also used.[15][75] Over fifty other boats included twenty actual Little Ships of Dunkirk, piloted by their owners.[15] A small 1930s motor yacht called Moonstone served for six weeks of filming; its most demanding scenes, with up to sixty people on a boat designed for fewer than ten, were shot on the Dutch lake IJsselmeer[20][30][69] to avoid the challenge of the Dunkirk tides.[14]

Aircraft were equipped with dual cockpits for filming in flight.[78] A Yakovlev Yak-52TW[62][79] was modified to resemble a Supermarine Spitfire,[14][80] and two Supermarine Spitfire Mark IAs, a Spitfire Mark VB, and a Hispano Buchon painted to look like a Messerschmitt Bf 109E, were also used for the combat scenes, flying to Urk from Lelystad Airport. Large-scale radio-controlled model aircraft were filmed crashing into the English Channel.[20][76] The real Spitfires were provided by the Imperial War Museum Duxford,[15] and owner Dan Friedkin piloted the one that was filmed landing on the beach in Dunkirk.[81] These takes had to be done within forty-five minutes, before the tide came back in.[14] IMAX cameras were attached to the fighter planes using specially made snorkel and periscope lenses—in the back and the front[14][20][30]—and large-scale mockups were submerged with cable rigs for a crash scene.[30] Scroggins Aviation and Gateguards UK performed period aviation reconstruction.[82] Aerospatiale Ecureuil G-WHST, with IMAX cameras front, and a Piper Aerostar enabled filming from the air, also with IMAX cameras front and rear. Dogfights over the Channel were shot by an aerial unit based at Lee-on-Solent Airfield and one at Lelystad Airport in the Netherlands.[14] Hardy and Lowden spent the final stages of the shooting schedule on a cliffside in Palos Verdes, inside purpose-built cockpit gimbals, with limited contact with the rest of the cast and crew.[14][15][30][83] Dunkirk wrapped on 2 September 2016, after sixty-eight days.[14]

The film was shot in natural lighting[84] using both IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large format film stock in Panavision System 65,[42][85] with more IMAX footage than in any of Nolan's previous films[86]—an estimated seventy-five per cent.[20] The sparsity of dialogue made it possible for IMAX cameras, which are notoriously noisy, to be used as the primary format.[14] Panavision and IMAX lenses enabled filming at night.[22] For the first time in a feature film, IMAX cameras were used hand-held,[87] which Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard advised as the best way to shoot on vessels.[32]

Post-production

Nolan's regular collaborator Lee Smith returned to edit Dunkirk,[22] beginning in September 2016[14] after Smith had assembled shots unsupervised while filming was still in progress.[88] Editing took place in Los Angeles with an audio mixing team of eight people.[20] Nolan singled out the editing of the aerial sequences as a particular challenge,[88] likening this to a chess game.[19] Limited computer-generated imagery was applied to improve some scenes, but none consisted entirely of CGI.[88] Weather continuity presented less of a challenge than was expected, with filming both in Europe and California. At least ten to fifteen feature-length versions were cut to further refine the dramatic impact.[14][89] Once a cut was completed, only then did they apply music.[90]

Post-production had fifty-four hours of raw footage to work with.[38] The only usable sounds from production recordings were voices—everything else was recreated.[91] Sound designer Richard King sent two sound mixers to audio record the Spitfires at the Imperial War Museum Duxford using twenty-four microphones. Unable to find an actual dive siren of a Stuka dive bomber, King reverse engineered one from old photographs in an attempt to replicate the sound. For scenes in which ships gave out sounds of people in distress, voices were captured using an ADR "loop group". C-4 and liquid propane were blown up to record sound for the explosions. Also featured were the whistles attributed to German bombs during the Second World War.[14][38] Bomb noises were made to increase in pitch the closer they got to impact, to stay true to reality.[91] Double Negative undertook the visual effects work. FotoKem, the film laboratory, also handled the release prints.[92]

Music

Hans Zimmer began working on the score in 2016,[93] continued for eleven months, and eventually created a 100-minute demo.[94] For intensity, the script was written to accommodate the auditory illusion of a Shepard tone, which had previously been explored in Nolan's 2006 film The Prestige. This was coupled with the sound of Nolan's own pocket watch, which he recorded and sent to Zimmer to be synthesised.[88][95] Zimmer also heightens the tension with subtle Risset rhythms throughout the entire movie—seemingly endless increases in tempo[96] (however, these effects were removed for the official soundtrack release). Additional music was provided by Lorne Balfe, Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro and Benjamin Wallfisch.[97][98]

"Nimrod" from Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations is part of the theme,[99][100] which was slowed down to six beats per minute with added bass notes to avoid it sounding sentimental. Instrumentation included a double bass and fourteen cellos played in high register. King relayed to Zimmer the sound of a boat engine, which served as a reference for the tempo.[98] Zimmer visited the Dunkirk set for inspiration, taking back a jar of sand,[101] and chose not to view raw footage whilst composing.[14] The music was recorded at AIR Lyndhurst Hall with mix engineer Geoff Foster.[14][102]