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Hans Zimmer's DUNKIRK


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Seeing this in an hour and have been nearly hyperventilating with excitement all day. :woop:

 

The chatter about this one has been absolutely tantalizing, and it sounds like music is really important in this film in a rather unique way. 

 

(Perhaps it's bad to be excited for a war film, but I can't help it)

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1 hour ago, Will said:

Seeing this in an hour and have been nearly hyperventilating with excitement all day. :woop:

 

The chatter about this one has been absolutely tantalizing, and it sounds like music is really important in this film in a rather unique way. 

 

(Perhaps it's bad to be excited for a war film, but I can't help it)

Temper your expectations. Hype that like ruins experiences. 

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6 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

Considering its derivation from the longer, very Zimmerish tune heard here, as an example,

 

 

I'd say it's Zimmer.

 

 

Oh okay. That sort of defies the talk that Zimmer handled the Batman stuff while JNH did the BW scenes. Maybe they were more fluid in their crosstalk than I thought? Can @Koray Savas offer a second opinion?

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Just got back. Really well done. The suspense is built so perfectly. Music and picture fit together like a glove, culminating with the beautiful final scene. 

 

I suppose if this film has one flaw it's that it doesn't seem to "go" anywhere. Because the location never really changes, even among the different storylines, it just feels like one extremely long action set piece that doesn't really have a clear arc. Then again, that may have been the point - it pretty accurately captures how the soldiers must have felt. And I guess we can be glad that Nolan didn't change the story a ton to force it into a structure it didn't have. 

 

I did love the interlocking storylines thing, though. Created a haunting moment with the night lifeboat officer scene. Although, again, it had the meandering problem. In many scenes, the audience hadn't been with a character long enough to really identify with them -- or, because of the time jumps, was wondering what the heck they were even seeing! 

 

Let me be clear, though, this was a terrific, heart-pounding film. 

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8 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

 

Meh.  Myself and others of reasonable and sound mind have dealt with him before, I believe.  Such drive-by posts aren't worth the effort these days - I'd say the haughty pretense and dismissiveness speaks for itself.

 

 

I don't remember "dealing" with you either.  I'm not on here very often, but when I am I have good conversations with others.

 

Sorry if my opinion on Zimmer hurt your feelings.  Haughty pretense?  Just posting my opinion of the film and score. Isn't that the purpose of this thread?  

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45 minutes ago, Eric_JWFAN said:

I don't remember "dealing" with you either.  I'm not on here very often, but when I am I have good conversations with others.

 

Sorry if my opinion on Zimmer hurt your feelings.  Haughty pretense?  Just posting my opinion of the film and score. Isn't that the purpose of this thread?  

 

Quite petty to resort to the "did I hurt your feelings?" strategy.  You did not hurt any feelings, dear - you posted your opinion, and I posted my opinion of your opinion, which is that it is founded in haughty pretentiousness.  Savvy?

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5 hours ago, Will said:

Just got back. Really well done. The suspense is built so perfectly. Music and picture fit together like a glove, culminating with the beautiful final scene. 

 

I suppose if this film has one flaw it's that it doesn't seem to "go" anywhere. Because the location never really changes, even among the different storylines, it just feels like one extremely long action set piece that doesn't really have a clear arc.

 

That's pretty much the point, yes. A slice of 'action', as it exists on three different timelines within one particular setting. An extreme focus, if you will. So I don't consider it a flaw, but an ingenious way of capturing WW2 action that we haven't really seen before (somehow both detached and involved at the same time, unlike say -- the very involved opening sequence of SPR).

 

I love this pyramid, which explains the three different narrative planes of DUNKIRK:

 

20228533_1823939867621205_47419380411630

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Did zimmer write the Elgar arrangement cue when the civilian boats are seen?  I thought the film credited someone else for that music.

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25 minutes ago, karelm said:

Did zimmer write the Elgar arrangement cue when the civilian boats are seen?  I thought the film credited someone else for that music.

 

I assumed it was Zimmer, yes. I didn't sit through the credits.

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37 minutes ago, publicist said:

Benjamin Wallfisch.

 

Cheers.

43 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

I assumed it was Zimmer, yes. I didn't sit through the credits.

 

Nope.

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That diagram is more convoluted than actually watching it. The structure is hardly fascinating enough to warrant much attention in my opinion. I'm not sure what the fuss (both positive and negative) about it is all about. 

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22 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

^Movie talk in 2017.

 

FFS.

Must go deeper!

 

It looks like that chart would fit the plot of Inception more than Dunkirk!

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1 hour ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

 

It's lame and unnecessary.  The kind of thing that gives Nolan fans a bad name.  

Let the god speak for himself.

 

 

Karol

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6 hours ago, Hurmm said:

That diagram is more convoluted than actually watching it. The structure is hardly fascinating enough to warrant much attention in my opinion. I'm not sure what the fuss (both positive and negative) about it is all about. 

 

Agreed. It's well done and it's clever but it's very easy to follow and doesn't need any for of explanation. 

 

 

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On 24/07/2017 at 0:19 PM, Stefancos said:

Chicks don't like warfilms!

 

I think Katherine got more out of this film than I did.

 

On 23/07/2017 at 2:17 AM, karelm said:

 

I had never considered that allies would reject each other out of desperation.  I know I am not explaining this as well as the film did but that the Brits were desperate to save Brits even though allies were desperate. 

 

This was an obvious commentary on current immigration parallels, succinctly handled by Nolan.

 

On 21/07/2017 at 4:56 AM, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I think this will inevitably be compared to Gravity, perhaps both film and score actually, but what we have here is far, far superior.  

 

I disagree. There's a stark contrast in visual ID between these two films, and the silent vacuum of space was a far better pairing with its own encircling score than what Zimmer put against Dunkirk, which was already a very loud soundscape to begin with. Gravity, in my view, was more successful in melding the separate sound design elements together in a way which felt homogeneous; compared to Dunkirk, which ended up sounding like a blaring contest, with Zimmer determined to win.

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The more I think about this movie the more it pisses me off.

 

I keep reading how Nolan boasts about his refusal to use CG extras, how he's proud he did it with real crowds. And you can really tell.

 

The larger shots in Dunkirk, for all the real extras in shot, are still all weirdly very small in scale. There's not that much in the way of large scale stakes to be seen on those sands, if at all. It's almost like TV numbers of extras and some small naval movement on the ocean. Weird and inaccurate. Dunkirk was a massive operation. That is not depicted in this film whatsoever. It fails to portray anything on that desperate level, and that bothers me. It's made all the more bothersome by the fact that the numbers of evacuees involved are spoken of on more than one occasion, but that is not visually depicted by Nolan in the slightest. 300,000 souls is shown as being a few thousand and a handful of vessels on the sea. Indeed, one of the things which first struck me about the experience as I walked to the car after the film is just how inadequate a historical retelling it is.

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You just pointed out one of the film's main strenghts, IMO -- the decision to keep it all minimal, up-close and claustrophobic. There are big "vista shots" in it (especially from the air), but most of the action is kept within a tight space. Just brilliant!

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I like a handful of shots -- the shot near the end when the spitfire is slowly descending/crashing with the town flashing by in the background was great. But by and large like Quint says this movie more than any of his others showed what a poor visual storyteller Nolan is. He may have one or two good shots (or stills), but he can't string them together to form a cohesive, entertaining sequence. Yeah, the scale is oddly tiny in this. In no way is that a good thing. Claustrophobic in small spaces yeah. But even the vista shots feel small. Nolan tries hard, but the more he tries the more disparate the setup is with the final images. 

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This goes to the core of  my criticism of (most of) the negative  criticism I've seen in regard to this film; i.e. evaluating it for "what it could have been", not what it actually is: "It should have had a more traditional score", "it should have had a grander scale", "it should have been told more straightforward" and so on. Why not rather ask and investigate what it is Nolan is trying to accomplish? Meeting the film on its own terms?

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12 minutes ago, Thor said:

This goes to the core of  my criticism of (most of) the negative  criticism I've seen in regard to this film; i.e. evaluating it for "what it could have been", not what it actually is: "It should have had a more traditional score", "it should have had a grander scale", "it should have been told more straightforward" and so on. Why not rather ask and investigate what it is Nolan is trying to accomplish? Meeting the film on its own terms?

 

This was about the evacuation at Dunkirk.

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I agree with Quint. Dealing with such a crucial and celebrated moment in history does entail some expectations concering certain things

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No need to imagine anything when it's all so well documented (and photographed). This isn't medieval history.

 

"Never let the truth/facts get in the way of a good story", goes the saying. Dunkirk is what happens when Christopher Nolan gets in the way of an amazing story.

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9 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

 

I disagree. There's a stark contrast in visual ID between these two films, and the silent vacuum of space was a far better pairing with its own encircling score than what Zimmer put against Dunkirk, which was already a very loud soundscape to begin with. Gravity, in my view, was more successful in melding the separate sound design elements together in a way which felt homogeneous; compared to Dunkirk, which ended up sounding like a blaring contest, with Zimmer determined to win.

 

I thought the score and sonic environment here were totally matched - something I didn't feel with Gravity, as it turns out. 

 

As pure cinematic thrillers, Dunkirk works partially because it doesn't do so many of the things that made me feel Gravity didn't work.  There are no incredulous moments or sense that things are contrived just to ratchet up tension, no divas hamming it up with 8th grade dialogue, no heavy handed pseudo philosophy or symbolism, and no score that is basically a textbook of trailer music cliches.  I think for this kind of film to work, you need detachment, sparseness, and perhaps, yeah, an avoidance of the "big shot."  Just my two cents. 

 

That last point, by the way, is something Nolan seems committed to.  Interstellar avoided big space money shots as well, which annoyed me at first, but obviously he doesn't like too many perspectives that feel detached from what characters would actually see, hence the aerial mounted camera, documentary approach, etc. 

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22 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

There are no incredulous moments or sense that things are contrived just to ratchet up tension, no divas hamming it up with 8th grade dialogue, no heavy handed pseudo philosophy or symbolism, and no score that is basically a textbook of trailer music cliches. 

 

Gravity isn't a particularly great film in my view, and I could have done without its corny melodrama. Its visceral space scenes though were excellent, especially with the accompanying soundtrack. But I'd never have mentioned that movie nor thought about it if I hadn't seen it brought up and compared to Dunkirk in the thread.

 

19 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Plus it was designed to show it from the perspective of few select individuals. Not so much about larger vistas.

 

I know and I totally appreciate that intention. I just don't think it was very successful in execution. Parts were very effective, but overall I was unsatisfied by the storytelling. And Hans Zimmer CONSTANTLY ripped me out of the immersive quality the film often had.

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I can't say my viewing inspired much of an emotional response but part of me is grateful for this dry and detached approach.

 

I wonder how it plays in IMAX. Will find out on Sunday night.

 

Karol

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