Reviews of Christo­pher Nolan’s new film on Dunkirk, which take quite oppo­site points of view.

Dunkirk without Context

Dorothy Rabi­nowitz, in The Wall Street Jour­nal, pro­claims “the dumb­ing down of Dunkirk.” Mr. Nolan, she writes:

…con­sid­ers Dunkirk “a uni­ver­sal story…about com­mu­nal hero­ism.” Which explains why this is—despite its impres­sive cin­e­matog­ra­phy, its mov­ing por­trait of suf­fer­ing troops and their rescuers—a Dunkirk flat­tened out, dis­con­nect­ed from the spir­it of its time, from any sense even of the par­tic­u­lar mighty ene­my with which Eng­land was at war.

When an event in his­to­ry has become, in the mind of a writer, “uni­ver­sal” it’s a tip-off. the warn­ing bell that we’re about to lose most of the impor­tant facts of that his­to­ry, and that the sto­ry-telling will be a spe­cial kind—a sort that obscures all specifics that run counter to the noble vision of the universalist.

No won­der those Ger­man Stukas and Heinkels bom­bard­ing the British can bare­ly be iden­ti­fied as such. Then there is Mr. Nolan’s avoid­ance of Churchill* lest audi­ences get bogged down in “politics”—a strange term for Churchill’s con­cerns dur­ing those dark days of May 1940. One so much less attrac­tive, in its hint of the igno­ble and the cor­rupt, than “com­mu­nal” and “universal”—words throb­bing with good­ness. Noth­ing old-fash­ioned about them either, espe­cial­ly “universal”—a mod­el of socio-bab­ble for all occasions.

*Churchill’s post-Dunkirk speech is read by a sol­dier at the end. See my review.

Another view

Mean­while, Manohla Dar­gis in The New York Times calls it a “bril­liant” film. “Dunkirk,” she writes, “revis­its a har­row­ing, true World War II mis­sion in a sto­ry of strug­gle, sur­vival and resistance.”

Dar­gis’ review, one friend says, should reduce my con­cern about Churchill being heard but not seen in the movies: “It seems clear about who made the big deci­sions. ‘Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan’ side­lined the politi­cians, and prop­er­ly so.” Joshua Dis­tel, a learned friend who saw “Dunkirk” agrees:

Churchill’s words were used to great effect. The WSJ review does not under­stand the film as it under­stands itself, so to speak. The film is about sur­vival, in the air, in the water, and on land.  The film does not cov­er con­duct or strat­e­gy or the war. It is about the hero­ism of the indi­vid­u­als at Dunkirk. The script relates the moments where they did or did not do what they ought to have done. It is about fear and danger.

Sure­ly this one can’t be more his­tor­i­cal­ly inac­cu­rate than the three recent bio-pix which did fea­ture Churchill. “The Crown,” “Viceroy’s House,” and “Churchill” speak for themselves.

Port without Stilton?

If Mr. Nolan wished sim­ply to dis­play the courage of troops and their res­cuers, fine. But for­give us Churchillians for being a wee bit sen­si­tive after the afore­men­tioned bio-pix.

For us, Dunkirk with­out Churchill, or oth­er valiant heroes who direct­ed the oper­a­tion, is like Port with­out Stil­ton, as Sir Win­ston once remarked. “Those whom God hath joined togeth­er, let no man put asun­der.” Con­se­quent­ly, the sto­ry is half-told, one-dimensional.

“Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan” did fea­ture George Mar­shall (Harve Pres­nell) mak­ing a dif­fi­cult choice. Should he save the last of four broth­ers in the midst of a des­per­ate bat­tle across France? This empha­sizes the trau­ma of a com­mand deci­sion involv­ing lives, which could not have been easy. “Pri­vate Ryan” is a mov­ing piece of dra­ma, one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

But “Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan” was the sto­ry of raw courage by a small unit of sol­diers. It was not the epic res­cue of entire armies. Many wise col­leagues around Churchill thought the attempt fool­hardy. Churchill ignored them. His words and speech­es sparked a “spon­ta­neous move­ment which swept the sea­far­ing pop­u­la­tion of Britain.” As he wrote in his memoirs:

* * *

Every­one who had a boat of any kind, steam or sail, put out for Dunkirk. [They were aid­ed] by the bril­liant impro­vi­sa­tion of vol­un­teers on an amaz­ing scale. The num­bers arriv­ing on the 29th were small, but they were the fore­run­ners of near­ly four hun­dred small craft which from the 31st were des­tined to play a vital part by fer­ry­ing from the beach­es to the off-lying ships almost a hun­dred thou­sand men. In these days I missed the head of my Admi­ral­ty Map Room, Cap­tain Pim, and one or two oth­er famil­iar faces. They had got hold of a Dutch schuit which in four days brought off eight hun­dred sol­diers. Alto­geth­er there came to the res­cue of the Army under the cease­less air bom­bard­ment of the ene­my about eight hun­dred and six­ty ves­sels, of which near­ly sev­en hun­dred were British and the rest Allied.

And make no mis­take. Had it gone wrong, Churchill would have been exco­ri­at­ed. By all the less­er pyg­mies who nev­er had to face such decisions.

No Role for Churchill?

It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly bad that the Prime Min­is­ter doesn’t appear in per­son, giv­en the way he’s been por­trayed else­where recent­ly. The pro­duc­ers no doubt observed the erup­tions caused by the afore­men­tioned “bio-pix” that so bedi­zened the media. What­ev­er the rea­son, they missed a chance to add full depth to the story.

Carmine Gal­lo in Forbes writes in his own review that “words can inspire a nation.” Nor were Churchill’s words pure­ly inspi­ra­tional. He also told the truth. He dished out hard facts, requir­ing Britons to face real­i­ty. In fair­ness, the movie quotes some of his words:

Wars are not won by evac­u­a­tions.… Our thank­ful­ness at the escape of our army and so many men, whose loved ones have passed through an ago­nis­ing week, must not blind us to the fact that what has hap­pened in France and Bel­gium is a colos­sal mil­i­tary disaster…

He also had words of hope and encouragement:

I have, myself, full con­fi­dence that if all do their duty, if noth­ing is neglect­ed and if the best arrange­ments are made, as they are being made, we shall prove our­selves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to out­live the men­ace of tyran­ny, if nec­es­sary for years, if nec­es­sary alone. (4 June 1940, Churchill by Him­self, 273).