House of R - ‘Dunkirk’ Revisited With Chris Ryan | Chris-p Nolan Fall

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

It’s Chris-p Nolan Fall! Mal and Jo are joined by Chris Ryan to continue their journey through Christopher Nolan’s filmography with ‘Dunkirk.’ They discuss their original experience with the movie, the unique story structure, the performances, and more! Plus, they give out some superlatives! (00:00) Intro (04:08) ‘Dunkirk’ (56:06) Superlatives and Other Sundries Prepare for one last adventure at Target. Visit https://target.com/StrangerThings Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Guest: Chris Ryan Producers: Carlos Chiriboga and Mike Wargon Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell and John Richter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to House of Our. I'm Joanna Robinson. Mallory Rubin is here and joining us today for our first and I think only installation installment in Crisp Nolan Fall. It's our own Chris. Chris Ryan's here. We're wearing a fall sweater. I thought I would dress up as Tom Glencarnie for this podcast. Because we are doing Dunkirk.

We are doing, Chris, is your favorite Nolan movie, Dunkirk? It's really close. I think it's the movie that I'm most emotionally connected. with. Oh my God. Are we going to make Chris cry on a House of Our podcast? It's entirely possible. Dare to dream. Dare to dream. All right, listen, it's fear, it's greed, its fate pushed through the bowels of men, and it's a podcast right after this break. This episode of House of Our is presented by Target. Have you heard? Stranger Things is back at Target, and it's time to gear up for the upside down. Head back to the 80s with awesome exclusives like the unreal demigmas.

Gorgon popcorn bucket, the fog over Hawkins candle that reveals secret messages, and the demigorgon bundle box that's full of cool surprises. New items are dropping all season long, so prepare for one last adventure at Target. All right, so a couple things, a little bit of business to get through before we start making Chris Ryan cry on a podcast. Really can't wait for that moment in our lives. Later this week, Mallory and I will be covering, speaking of, crying, Wicked for Good.

And the Midnight Boys will also be covering Wicked for Good, perhaps with fewer tears. Also, a reminder that Mallory and I are doing are continuing our best of the century so far series with Best Fights of the Century so far. Next week, we've gotten some great, I already don't know what I'm going to do. There are too many options. And we've gotten some great submissions from our listeners so far. But I'm feeling anxious about it. How are you feeling, Mallory, about Best Fights of Century so far?

You know, I'm on the record from last week's podcasting that I think we might have to consider narrowing our consideration set of it to make this exercise achievable. But we'll see. We'll see. We always say, should we expand to 50 and then we do 10 and it's fine, you know? We're doing 10 each. It's very stressful. Battles are eligible. Dules are eligible.

Verbal fights are eligible. All of those things are eligible. Somehow we're going to do 10 of the last 25 years. So you guys can throw like anatomy of a fall. fight into this fights. We're doing House of Our content only, so like genre properties, but like... So you guys didn't see the post-credit sequence of

anatomy and fall. Exactly. It's all the stinger. The followvers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Hobbits and Dragons at Gmail.com if you have any, you know, nominations for Best Fights and Sentries so far. Mallory Rubin. Yes, ma'am. It's a lot of good content coming from us, not to mention

Stranger Things, is right around the corner. How should people keep track of all of that? Here's what I would recommend follow the pod. follow House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of House of R on the Spotify app. Incredible. You can also follow the Ringervorverse YouTube channel. Follow the Ringiverse on the social media platform if you're choosing. I'm not here to tell you what that should be. It's up to you. And email us because the inbox is open. As Joe noted, your emails have been bountiful this season. Keep them coming for best of the century,

for stranger things, for everything else that we have cooking. What are your favorite moments of the year? That pod's not too far away. Percy Jackson. accent is around the corner. I will be forcing Joanna to see Avatar Fire and Ash in mere weeks. It's all happening here at the Al House of Arc. Keep the emails coming. Thanks for the snort of Solidarity from Chris. I really appreciate that.

If you know, you know. Spoilers for Dunkirk. Yes. Yeah. Spoilers for World War II. Spoilers for history. The Germans lost. The enemy lost, as you would put it in this movie.

this film directed and written by Christopher Nolan Nolan initially wanted to do the entire film Improvised and his lovely wife and producing partner said Maybe not But it's a very It's one of his lightest scripts

In terms of dialogue and just length So That it premiered July 21st 2017 It was an $100 million budget Looks like more And worldwide box office of 5333.7 million, which for a World War II movie in the summer is, I think, my memory,

when this came out in July, is everyone's like, why isn't this a fall movie? Why isn't this like a hardcore Oscar contender? Why are we opening this in July? And then the world laughed at us because this was, of course, right when we needed Dunkirk. And then just on the Oscars front, I'm going to come back. this a little bit, but this is eight nominations, three wins. Got nominated for best picture, best director, best cinematography, best score, best production design, but it won both the sound categories. Remember when there were two sound categories and editing? So that it was like

one of those, we'll give it to you on a technicality, Chris Fred Nolan. But the fact that he was nominated in these sort of heavy hitter categories paved the way for the Oppenheimer sweep that came several years later. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a different With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle

may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. The first question I have for you, and this is, Mallory was so curious about Chris's answer to this. Chris Ryan, where were you in 2017 and what do you remember? about first seeing Dunkirk? I was working at The Ringer and we were based in Hollywood and I believe that when I saw Dunkirk, I saw it with Mallory at the Arclight. That's right.

So happy right now. She was so certain you would not remember seeing it with her. I was positive because, you know, infamously don't remember seeing Infinity War together. I don't, I do, dude, I remember actually, the Mallory reminded me that we got promotional hats as we walked out of the movie theater, which I, while a don't. during the film. You don't wear the hat? Couldn't really envision myself

wearing a Dunkirk hat around town? Yeah. I'm honestly shocked by that. I now wish I think enough time has passed that it would be cool. But there was something sort of funny about like the stolen valor of being like,

here I am at like a 2017-era Eatery wearing my Dunkirk swag. But yes, I did see it with Mel. Have you worn your task hat that you got from the task event that you moderated? Only in the bath. Yeah. Okay.

Great. That's where it belongs, I think. Molly Rubin, what do you remember about seeing Dunkirk with Chris Ryan at the Arclight? I remember the just sheer pleasure of the movie-going experience. We had a crew from The Ringer, go see this movie. I think the day it came out, right, Chris? Yes. I mean, we were there a minute one.

You know the line in the movie, Rolls-Royce, Merlin Engine, Sweetest Sound you could hear out here. It's like that was how everybody felt about just the announcement of another Chris Nolan movie. the fact that Dunkirk was going to be a thing in our lives. We walked over to the ark, like, grabbed our hats, saw the movie. We laughed and Chris was like, I'm forever changed. I don't know if he actually said that, but that's my memory of how the experience felt. It was a banger from Minut 1. I love this movie.

I love Christopher Nolan's movies. Not sure if that's come up in our prior three podcasts during Hot Nolan summer. But this one's a banger. I just think it's an absolute masterpiece in almost every respect. And I'm thrilled to have Chris here with us today to celebrate a film that I know I mean so much to him. What a treat. I know. Chris, thanks for joining us. Of course. No, this is like, this is an easy film for me to talk about, but complicated for me to articulate how I feel about it. It's, it means a lot to me. I don't know why. I think I was like very, very into Nolan Inception's one of

my favorite movies of the century. Like, it's not like a, I think my relationship to the Batman movies is a little bit less like over the top as maybe people would assume, or a lot of people I know, I love Dark Night, but it's not something I spend a ton of time thinking about. This is a movie that I revisit quite often. We got a chance to do Dunkirk with Quentin Tarantino on rewatchables,

which is one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had, but it also opened my eyes to a lot of, like, the technical aspects of it. But Tarantino was like really emotional about this too. I think people respond to this movie on a pretty deep level. Do you think that's everyone, Or is it helpful to be someone who was really into war movies or World War II sort of history or anything like that? I think that it certainly helps if you're a fan of Nolan's storytelling style, especially within this film,

but one that he has employed over multiple movies, which is to manipulate linear storytelling and manipulate time structures and to tell films in a much more musical style rather than a three-act style. if you like that or if you're into that kind of maybe that heavy-handedness when it comes to the way he's constructing his stories then I think it really works for you. I do know people who are just like, I hated that. I did not like, and we'll probably get very in-depth into this conversation about the week day-hour structure of Dunkirk and the collapsing of the timelines.

But I know people who are like that, you know, I felt like he was trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole. Yeah, there are definitely people who I think felt confused by it. One critique I remember is I can't tell anyone apart. And I'm like, oh man, then you weren't in the Band of Brothers trenches with us when you had to like track. All of the actors in Band of Brothers. 31 people named Watkins. Exactly.

Something I thought was so interesting on that note, something I thought was so interesting in reading the screenplay for this, which has been like a really fun exercise in doing these Nolan movies. and then reading the screenplays. And this one is the closest in its original iteration to what winds up on the screen. But the opening of it, it says, like, we see six Tommies. And basically they're all, like, he names all of them Tommy in the script.

And it's just sort of like, just by luck, this one happens to make it over that first fence and into the future. But this idea of like, we start with six Tommies. So this idea of like, I can't really tell them apart.

Or the constant Chris Rennelan critique of are there actual character in these movies. It's like that's, but that's rather the point, especially of this one, like especially of this one. The idea of just sort of these are blank slates with not deep backstories, so you are meant to project as much as you want or can on them, which I think is really effective. Yeah, and like the sheer volume, you know, we get these numbers, right, to 400,000, you know,

is it 35,000, 40,000 that Churchill wants back? How many are there? How many are going to make it off? And so the idea that, like, we spent. time at, you know, land, sea, air in all three of our timelines with a certain set of characters, but like it could have been any of those soldiers. It could have been any of those officers. It could have been any of those people who had their pleasure yacht requisitioned by the Navy. You know, I love that little moment at the end when Bolton and Kenneth Brown's characters,

like calling out to the various ships who do make it there, say, like, where are you from? And this reminder that like, okay, we've been on the Moonstone. We've been with Mr. Dawson and Peter and Dear Sweet Departed George, but all of those other people had stories, too, everybody on the beach, beyond Tommy. And I'll be calling him Gibson throughout the pot. I don't know if we want to consider that acceptable or not, even though that's just stolen name. Just feels like easier shorthand for the discussion, et cetera. And so, yeah, I love that aspect of it, too. And I think that in general, like the spectacle of this movie, which is astonishing.

And the pace of that spectacle and obviously just the, um, sheer gall of like the art of filmmaking and the technique on display inside of that spectacle and the editing and the stitching together and eventual converging of the timelines paired with that heart and the ability that the movie has to, I think, really, really showcased genuine acts of astonishing heroism with also the idea of everyday heroism, right? It's like pretty gobsmacking. Yeah, and fear also now.

Like that's the thing is I think of people. When I watch the film now, I note, with the exception of Dawson, and you can even say that Dawson allowing George or not stopping the boat and telling George to get off or whatever was also a mistake, everybody in this film is at once like, has a moment of heroism, it has a moment of not cowardice, but deep fear. You know, I mean, and cowardice and self-preservation and self-dealing. and it just goes to show you, like, I think what was important for Nolan while making this was not necessarily to,

you know, tell the entire backstory of a character or talk about emotional motivation for being somewhere, but was more about how each individual can contain so many different stories inside of them. And he does a really wonderful job of conveying that without, honestly, the usual, the sort of envelope of exposition that he drags around in a lot of other movies.

of having to explain everything. I think he really, really, really... This is the film where I feel like he trusts the viewer the most. I think it's interesting, you know, we got one listener email and sort of late in the game and I will bring that up a little bit later,

but this idea that he wrote this without Jonathan or without a collaborator. And Jonathan's who... We talked about this a lot when we talked about the prestige. Like, Jonathan's influence on the Nolan filmography

is really important to me. I love sort of like his puzzle a box brain and I love some of his like his his use of language is is much more intricate than I think a jonathan less script is but there is something perhaps freeing about doing this on his own and just saying um i am going to keep this as spare as possible on the dialogue front on the character front and and nolan has said this repeatedly i'm going to really dive into the visual art of filmmaking Filmmaking is a visual medium, and what can I convey with just the sweep of a plane over the water or, you know, the score ratcheting up? You know, what can I draw from Hitchcock or Murnau or all these other filmmakers who know that, like, yes, great juicy dialogue is great.

Mallory and I love just like two people talking in a room. We talk about that all the time. But the idea of going to the IMAX and seeing Dunkirk and just sort of being awed by the visuals is, something that I love about this film, I think is incredible. Yeah. I think on the dialogue front, too, it's like obviously really notable that one of the, I think the longest, like uninterrupted, I haven't actually like broken out of stopwatch to time it, though that would be appropriate in this movie.

But what seems like the longest or in the running for the longest stretch of like uninterrupted speaking in the movie is reading Churchill's address in the paper at the end. So that's not even like original scripting for the story, which is fascinating and an interesting way to root this in the actual content. context and reality at the time. But I think the thing to me, again, is an admirer of the movie and just like everything that is on display here in terms of like the act of filmmaking is that it doesn't ever feel like the really sparse nature of the speechifying and the dialogue is so that the visual splendor can be showy. I think it feels completely appropriate and actually it wouldn't be believable if it tipped in the other direction. Now, like, I can't say what the conversation is like if you are like running to the mole to try to make your way onto a rescue

vessel. And if you're in like the one destroyer a day and that's it, but stretch of this, who knows? But do I believe that in those moments where their heads are down and they're defeated and they're silent, that that would be the nature of the experience in that moment? Yeah, that feels right. When Farrier will talk, I have no doubt, we'll talk about basically every ferrier stretch and great detail, part of YCR is here, obviously. But like one of the most, not to tip our categories, but like one of the most breathtaking sequences, I think, is after Collins, Fortis leader, down, Collins down, there's literally no one to talk to. Right? And so that silence and the stillness and the fact that all you have to understand and convey the experience is Tom Hardy's breath.

For like the darting of his eyes. His eyes. He's got a mask on. All you can see is his eyes. Yeah. He's like, he didn't like my bane. Let me show you what I could do with a mask. Yeah, there's also the sort of the plot mechanic of we can't hear Gibson talk until the reveal.

And so I think there are plenty of moments like when the three, when Alex and Tommy and Gibson are sitting on the beach watching someone walking to the water or whatever. And they're in another movie that could be like, you know, back home I X, X, X, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, Y, and You know what I mean? They would be talking about their backstory or what they're fighting for or what they experienced or, you know, why Harry Stiles is in The Highlanders, a thing that will play me to the end of my days. But they don't. They just silently, and it's so effective to have them silently sitting out and looking. But I just think that's interesting that it's like you can get away with it because of what you're saying, Melanie.

It does make sense that they would sit there silently and that they would not hear, even though Alex gets suspicious of him, I'm literally not here Gibson speak until he does. So, yeah. Yeah, I also thought, honestly, when I was rewatching it just this week, it just makes sense. They're so tired. They're so defeated.

There's nowhere for them to run. There's nothing militarily that they can do. There's really nothing to communicate. So much of this movie is gestures, looks, like, hey, I'm going to stand next to you. Is that okay? I don't care, you know, but like not said, but it actually renders the film so much more real feeling because you're like, of course, like there's no left turn to make.

There's the channel and then there's the battle behind us and we're squeezed and we're waiting for boats to pick us up. Like that it is like such a pure storytelling device. The fact that it's real just makes it or the fact that it's history just makes it all the more extraordinary. I think especially the sequences with Tommy and Gibson as they're sort of like executing various strategies to stay alive, schemes silently. Like I think that stuff is so compelling. They see the stretcher that was left behind and they don't have to have a strategic conversation about the infiltration plan. There's no time. Pick it up and run.

And the only thing you're running toward is Benedict from Bridgetton telling you that sound means two minutes, you're too late. We got a bunch of emails from people being like, oh, my God, Jack Loudon's in this? I'm like, yeah, I knew Jack Loudon was in it. But Benedict Bertrand was the real reveal for me on this watch. That was a, yeah. Is that Benedict? That was a show. You know, CR always been a Trailblazer, a tastemaker.

But this was, I think, one of the real, like, coming out of Dunkirk and Minute One being like that Jack Loudon guy is about to be like one of the most electric performers in our shared experience. I think you called that on day one. And here we are, Slow Horses Hive. Yeah, and I also just, I'm a connoisseur of your book photo movies. So like movies you can go back to like Black Hawk Down and be like, oh my God, they got every guy who was 23 who wound up making movies for the next 20 years to be in this. And I, you know, I think that Barry Keegan and Tom Clincarney and like all these people that like have kind of been kicking around since Dunkirk. Like it was a real graduation day.

kind of cast. This is my, this is my Barry moment. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. On the Oscar front, I just want to say, so like, in terms of Mallory, is there anything else you want to say about your immediate associations with this movie in 2017,

when you watch this as a bonding exercise with the ringer colleagues, like anything where you were at that time that sort of this struck a particular note? No, I think we covered it. I'll say it's just been, you know, fun to revisit. in 4K and see those IMAX shots. And it's like, you know, Joe, we've obviously been talking about lovingly in terms of the visual style of the movies we have been covering. And then from a position of abject fear when we make the steady march toward eventually

having to cover Tenet. Now, I'm excited to revisit Tenant. But I'm like, I couldn't hear Tenant. And, you know, obviously that's what we've talked about. You guys have my number if you need somebody for Tenet. I'm excited to revisit Tenant, a movie I could not hear a word of when I saw it for the first time. And so like, but that conceptually is, of course, very appealing to me. This is another thing where it's like, and Nolan has talked about this.

Yeah, you know, that whole thing about IMAX cameras being really loud, really not a problem if you're attaching them to a plane that's like supposed to be pretty loud. So everything just really clicks into place here. I am excited to talk about this Academy Awards year, which is loaded with really good films that I love and some, you know, puzzling results. Yeah. Well, this is what I want to say. The 2017 was really the start of me, like, full-time covering the award season at Vanity Fair. So I remember this season so well of, like, this is the shape of water year.

We literally just talked about Guillermo, of course. Not what I would have wanted to win Best Picture, but call me by your name is here. Get Out is here. Lady Bird is here. Phantom Threat is here. This is also the three billboards year, so I had, like, bigger fish to fry in terms of my anti-Certain movie agendas. But this is also the darkest hour year. So it was a real, like, Churchill moment that we had.

in history. And I think if there's, like, one award that I would give Dunkirk that I didn't get, it might be cinematography, but this is when Roger Deacons won for his first for Blade Runner, and it was this real, like, this is the Deacon's career moment. I wouldn't pick Blade Runner over this, and we didn't know that Deacons would, like, then win again so soon after. And then, of course, Hoy van Hoitma won for Oppenheimer, so he has his Oscar. So like the scales of justice on award season,

as long as like that person gets their Oscar eventually, I can sort of calm down about it. And so I'm not worried about Chris Nolan because he's got all of his Oppenheimer gold. But like Deacons, that was like a dominating narrative that year was like it is finally Deacon's time to shine. So I get it. I'm never getting over Guillermo, Deltoro.

Sorry. Yeah, I agree. As just discussed last week, I actually really like the shape of water, but I think, and I think this best director field is astonishing. Like, Greta Gore-Wig for Lady Bird. I think it's one of the best we've had a recent memory. Jordan Peele for Get Out, Nolan for Dunkirk, and Guillermo for Shape of Water. That's incredible. I think it's pretty weird that Jordan Peel or Christopher Nolan didn't win Best Director this year.

And I say that this one who loves Del Toro's movies. It's not what I remember happening. Again, this is like my first year covering Oscars. I was like surely not Shape of Water, surely not the sort of genre, monster movie, surely not this, that, and the other thing. And then I got, when we went to sort of the Vanity Fair Christmas Party that year and all the people

who work in L.A. were there. Every single person was like, yes, shape of water, yes, shape of water. I was blown away. And I think it just fell into that. It's a movie about movies trap that often, less and less these days, but the Academy used to be so dazzled by, right? where they're like movies are, the cinema is important. And that's what the shape of water is about.

And I'm like, I guess so. So it wouldn't have been my pick. But here we are. So. I wanted to ask you guys a little bit about where you feel like this fits in in Nolan's filmography. Because I was giving some thought to this. We just got, when we're recording this, we just got our first glimpses of the Odyssey

production of the set or stills from the production, which. Can't fucking wait for this movie. every single thing about this movie where I'm like, it can't be as good as it's in my head already. And I'm like, maybe it's gonna be as good as I think it's... What if it's better?

All the Matt Damon quotes where he's just like the single greatest experience I've ever had on a set. And when you think, how am I going to act? Like the sirens are in front of me. He just builds the sirens.

That's pretty wild. Anyway, if you take out for the sake of this sort of conversation, Memento, is the debut and is kind of emerging out of independent cinema-ish, even though it has some pretty big names in it, but is like his big

breakout film. And then insomnia, which is kind of his getting drafted into Hollywood a little bit, and he moves into that post-insomnia run. He's essentially done three superhero movies, three historically rooted films, and then three films that

I will say take place in the Nolanverse. And I was curious whether you guys, as you've been talking about his movies, had a kind of a preference, which ones your kind of like happy place to be of those three categories. The Nolanverse being... The Nolanverse being Inception, Interstellar and Tenant, yeah.

Like happening in our world, but not really. Right. Now, you could argue prestige kind of also takes place in the Nolanverse, but I think just because of its historical grounding, yeah. When we did the prestige podcast, I talked a lot of, about how that is my favorite Nolan movie by far. And I think we made a pretty good case

of why it belongs sort of like as a house of our film in terms of the fantastical elements of it. But that one combines, there's something super heroic about it, and I don't know if that's just because Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are there. There's something period-specific about it, and then there's something fantastical about it also.

And it just feels like the best of all of the things, plus the Jonathan Nolan aspect woven in there. So that's my preferred space. But if you didn't count that, I would say the Nolanverse, this idea of Inception, and even though Tenet is not my favorite or interstellar, that sort of idea of...

Joe, you do know what freeholds are, right? Like, you want me to explain where you can keep your art? Talk to you about the turnstiles. Like, at length, please, I would still love to hear. Meller, what's your answer to that? It's a great question. So I think my answer is that that variance is the appeal for me. Like, I think if he only lived in one of those spaces, he wouldn't be, I mean, he'd be an accomplished filmmaker, but I don't think like he would quite have the grip on the culture that he does.

I think the fact that he can be so, he can operate at such a high level of not just execution, but I think ambition inside of each of those. buckets is like what makes him such an interesting creator. So if I, I mean, Inception is my favorite Nolan movie. So like if I had to pick, I would pick the Nolan verse as well and, you know, prestigious in the top three for me. I think I'm really, I'm going to, I'm really curious to see how much my like power ranking changes over the course of revisiting these and fairly, uh, close proximity to each other. Because I think my top three still feels, my top four, I think feels pretty fixed, Inception, Dark Night, Prestige in Dunkirk. Could something else with, like, closer study, knock one of those out of the top four?

I don't know, but then I'm like, that next tier is still full of movies that I really love and love thinking about and love spending time with. So I like the fact that he's interested in trying different things, but that there's still a through line in his interest in playing with time, in the examination of the achievement of men emboldened to try to make an impact on the world around them through their art or their craft. And in the mythic, you know, I think that's present in some capacity in almost every movie. So it feels like they're of a peace with each other in terms of some sort of sensibility,

even though there's a lot of stylistic variance. What about you, Chris? Yeah, Chris. I think that at this point in my life, I would say my top, my top tour are Inception in Dunkirk, in some order. don't have like a clear, clear favorite. I got to admit in the last year, Tenet has been like racing into like the top four or four for me.

Wow. Wow. One of like multiple rewatches or contemplations? And not because I'm trying to solve it, but because I am letting it happen to me. No, no. Because you watched it with the captions on or no? No, but like I, you know,

the Patinson performance and the Aaron Taylor Johnson performance, Those two characters are two of my favorite characters in Nolan's whole entire body of work. And I also have found Interstellar gaining spots on me too because I think one thing that really has charmed me is the emergence of Interstellar as like a modern classic to younger people. And seeing like at the Prince Charles in London and I think in many places, like they'll do pretty regular interstellar screenings that are beyond. out and line down the block and people going to see it for the fifth or sixth or seventh time. Like, I think people feel like about interstellar the way maybe like I felt about Star Wars growing up in a lot of ways in terms of like the kind of wonder that it creates, you know? I think it's, I think it's interesting to talk about the larger filmography as we've been doing.

We've been talking about, you know, we did a Batman movie. We did Inception the Prestige, which are movies he made between Batman movies. So I think it's interesting to think about Dunkirk is something he made. between interstellar and tenant. Interstellar made $770 million worldwide, like an incredible massive hit. But I think there were arguments that people would make that,

well, that's still in the genre space of some kind, like, you know, still thinking about Nolan inside of that box. And I think it's really important and interesting that he made Dunkirk, even though, again, we're about to make an argument about why it might fit

under the House of Our umbrella, but just sort of like a much more straightforward, as straightforward maybe is he's capable of being since Momento and its Omni. war movie, a classic right down the middle kind of I Want an Oscar movie and it makes all this money

and that just sort of cements him as he can do anything. I felt like this is a real my memories, this is a real proving ground for him. Yes, there was some skepticism about this going into it.

Yeah. Mallory, how about you in terms of like where this comes in the filmography? I don't think I have really anything to add beyond what. what I just said about that kind of variance and what you just said about, like, maybe what that particular moment in the filmography

and timeline does to reinforce that. I mean, I think what's increasingly interesting to me now is just thinking about why he's doing the Odyssey right now and, like, you know, the idea that somebody who is so fascinated, and this is certainly president in a lot of his movies, but very president, Dunkirk, the idea that, the choices anybody makes can feel like grand and like the kind of lore you would pass down

to go back to like, what if I just did the original myth? You know, the myth that is at the top of the coaching tree for all myths is so fascinating. The thematic connections between the Odyssey and Dunkirk are going to be very strong, but we can hit that later. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. In that case, Mallory, do you want to make the case as to why Dunkirk belongs on a house of our podcast?

Well, I think that... Other than we do what we want. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, it's our podcast and fuck off if you don't think we should come in this movie. Are we entirely sure Bain is not in this movie? Exactly. It's great question. Exactly.

I mean, the mumbled garble is still there when he speaks to the back. They do expect one of us in the record, brother. You know? There are many House of Our, like, House of the Dragon actors here. Exactly. You know, lots of their own spaces. At least one Targaryen is here looking very Targi. Our boy, Agon is here.

Chris's boy, Agon is here. You know, I think, look, we're going to do, we're going to do all the Nolan movies before The Odyssey, and so that's all the explanation we need. But I think, undeniably, the timely-wimey timeline shenanigans. And I say that as a complete and total compliment, it makes this valid as something for us to cover. Because it is time travel of a sort. Are the characters time traveling? No, but are we as viewers time traveling in our understanding? of how these narratives connect and how the threads of this tapestry stitch together.

We are. And I think that is a fascinating, potentially disorienting, but I think mostly like riveting and awe-inspiring experience when you watch it the first time. And then something that really rewards further revisiting and study where you can have like the clarity of, okay, when we're glimpsing the minesweeper in this moment, we know, you know, it's a puzzle. It is a puzzle. And it starts to fit together that way, too.

So I think it belongs here. And if anybody disagrees, then hopefully the fact that Chris is present is enough to distract them. Chris, how does the time structure work for you? I have thought about this a lot, especially after this last viewing. So I'm a huge World War II film fan. I've watched as many as any one person needs to and then more. And a couple of examples of movies that I think are beloved by me, but would be a lot more of a chore

for a modern viewer especially are movies like The Longest Day or a Bridge Too Far, which are two films about, one's about D-Day and the other is about Market Garden, which was the sort of D-Day before D-Day. It was the attempt to invade Europe that failed

in the Netherlands. And those are TikToks. Those are, here we are on the ground. We're going to go. No, we're not going to go. No, let's go. Okay, so we went, and now everybody has gone over and now here are 30 characters incrementally moving through a landscape chronologically until success or failure. And those movies are awesome and have a lot of

to be recommended about them, especially in their scope. But what Nolan has decided to do is rather than tell a TikTok of about Bolton or cut to the Churchill war rooms or the cave in Dover where he's making these decisions or bring in all these other POVs, he's going to limit his POVs but expand the aperture of how time works in terms of his story.

And I think it's just a really brilliant inventive and frankly like a breath of fresh air in this particular genre. And I think that you can also make an argument that if you were experiencing something like this

which I never have and I hope I never do, that time would start to expand and contract anyway. So for the guys who are flying, even though they're up there for an hour, it feels like a week. It feels like they can see the smoke in the distance. They can see the boats on their way. They can see everything that's coming and leaving that beachhead.

But the guys who are on the beach who have been there for what feels like they're stranded on a planet somewhere else, I can't imagine how long that took, but the time that it takes to run from the beach to the mole with the stretcher is just a minute. And the way that he plays the accordion with how these stories get told. And yeah, of course, to build momentum

and to build up to these crescendos that have these explosive cathartic endpoints and then bring it back down. It's much more about musical composition than it is about narrative act structure to me. And he's talked about that. He diagrammed this movie. I think he thought about this movie much more mathematically than poetically,

but the visual aspect of the film is all poetry for me. I... Something I was surprised to find in this screenplay, and I actually... I was so surprised to find it, I was wondering if it was a typo, but perhaps... Is that they're saying Harry Styles is Scottish? Reading the day-to-night, sort of day-to-night...

I think originally it was land and sea were both a week. And then he changed C to a day. So like in the script it says, you know, see one week. So thinking about the Moonstone out there for a week in some version of this before he's like, no, we'll just do it in a day. And like, it could, depending on where you're departing from England, it could take, you know, from the UK, it could take a number of days to cross over to Dunkirk. But like I'm so, if that was originally the plan, I'm so happy that he changed it because I think it matters that it's just like such three distinct experiences, not one week, one week, one hour. I think that would be like just sort of harder. And then the only, I mean, this is a knit to pick and it's dumb, but the beach doesn't feel like a week to me.

It feels like three or four days to three days maybe something like that, you know, because you get a couple day to nights. There's only also like these casual references. I think Bolton's like we've waited. at an entire day. Right, right. And I'm like, but just one, right? Like, there are some moments, I think for me, what you're talking about, it's the nitpick is I find the moments where things are converging out on the water to be pretty confusing

about what day it is, how, you know, how long has, has Tommy been kind of like running around and eating jelly sandwiches and versus like where Dawson is versus where the planes are. like that's where it starts to get a little jumbled and then obviously unknotted when the tanker blows up. I didn't mean to cut you off there. No, no, no. I agree with that. And I think that like I love what you said about the way in which time would feel unreal and subjective. And I think it matters.

You know, we've been talking. We talked about this a lot, of course, with the way the prestige is arranged. You know, Memento, of course, and are stellar. Like this idea of like time and put. and putting you in a surreal space, this idea of like, how does memory work in memento? How do dreams work in inception?

Like, what is the sort of unreal space we can put something as real as the evacuation of Dunkirk, which of course literally actually happened? You know, so like, but how can we disorient you even more than the action already disorients you? And then I think also there's the rising action of the unbearable tension of Jack Loudon, drowning in a cockpit or something like that.

And like in some cases, there's respite. We'll cut back over to the Moonstone and, you know, Peter's brewing a cup of tea or something like that. Like sometimes there's like an escape from that. And sometimes as we get closer and closer and closer to everything converging, it's like Jack Loudon's drowning and oh, no, now the boys, the lads, the Highlanders are also drowning. You know what I mean? Like it just all sorts of sort of comes together.

Mallory, what did you want to say? Yeah, I think it's actually like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, moments where sometimes real metrics and units of time are conveyed to us, it's almost disorienting. Like, for example, the conversation, the three hours or six hours for the tide, right? Which is there so that we understand as we head to the beach trawler, they're going to be in there for longer than they think. Like, it's an important aspect of mooring for us, but it is almost like, wait a minute. Well, that means if this is a week, how many times of the tide has the tide come and gone and in and out? You start to do the math, and then that's, I think, not actually like a great way to watch the movie to the point.

you both are saying. I think the other thing, like, why the, the mole timeline, in addition to just the fact that it is so much longer, so we have to believe and feel that passage of time, it's like there are less clear countdowns there. You know, for the sea, for the Moonstone, even though that vessel ends up being separate from the rest of the, like, surging, arriving fleet, we are heading toward the plumes of smoke, right? We are inching closer toward goal that we can actually see changing. The fuel gauge is such an incredible way. You know, you get the, it's ticking down from Collins,

and then the Collins updates are gone because he's downed. And then the flicking of the reserve fuel, it's like, we don't have to be tracking, okay, what would each maneuver have been inside of the hour? Time is running out for Farrier. there's not as clear of an equivalent in the land timeline. All that said, one of the things that I really like about the triple timeline aspect of this is that I think, Joe, we've talked about this with, I think we talked about this in some capacity with both Inception and the prestige. I think you can kind of calibrate the level of like sleuthing and tracking you want to do as you watch this to like your personal preference. So if you're paying really close attention

and you're trying to understand where does it go, okay, that's a rewarding way to watch the movie, I think. If you're not doing that at all, there are going to be undeniable markers where, like, suddenly you see Killian Murphy's shivering soldier on the little rescue rowboat at night, and you're like, right, okay, we are just in a word,

the passage of time in that storyline is moving radically differently than in the other one. Yeah. Oh, go ahead, sorry. I just think that the other thing is like there's something about the horror of the inevitability of the timelines merging. Like to use the beach trawler as an example again, we're watching this desperate attempt. You know, the bullets are piercing the hull. It's starting to fill. Can they plug it or not?

The Dutchman has come on. Alex has revealed that Gibson is not who he thinks he is, right? All of this stuff is happening. And we're like, will they be okay? Will they make it? We already know that that. ship is going down. We've seen it. And we've seen the men swimming away from it as it recedes under the under the water. So I think that that heightens this sense of like calamitous inevitability

that you are carrying in your mind with the need to hope that things will be okay, which is, I think, a pretty cool balancing act. Also, just for what it's worth, it's an ingenious solve for continuity because he can't, you cannot predict that weather. You wouldn't be able to shoot successive days on those beaches and be like, okay, so like we need the light to look like this. Now you can fix stuff and post and, you know,

the VFX in this film are extraordinary because they're so seamless and invisible. But I think that what he did was rather than worry about whether the sun is covered by a fog bank today or something like that, I'm just going to lean into the disorienting. There's several sequences where you're cutting between like three different weather systems. Like it's sunny over the channel when the planes are approaching.

It's a relatively clear day for the boat. It's absolute hell on earth on the beach. But it's 25 miles from dock to dock. How does that work? And I think it just puts you in this place where the weather and the light and the time are all expressions of the personal crisis that people, are going through rather than like, oh, no, I don't, yes, it's noon and then it's 1215 and then the sunsets, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's, it's just sort of like, no, go with it.

It would just, you learn from tenant. You just got to go with it. It gives, I want, yeah, it gives you that legibility too. We talked about this a lot and we talked about inception and the way in which intentionally inception is like, it's raining on this level. The light looks like this on this level. It's snowing on this level. So like anytime you cut back and forth between the levels, you know where you are because of, not just because Mark Rylance is here, but because it's sunny and calm out here. And on the tenant front, I am interested to revisit it. Yeah.

But I will say I have yet to be able to get to the point where I can watch Tenet and just, like, relax, don't worry about it. It's like, it's just on the edge of, like, worrying my puzzle brain too much that I'm trying to figure out. And it's not like I need to solve Tenet. It's just, there's just something about it that, like, unlike something like Dunk Kirk where I can let it sort of wash over me. This is like something where I'm just like, it's agitating.

I think Tenet also becomes especially tough when the movie, the story of the movie itself asks you to solve it because that's when they're doing all the turnstile stuff and when they have the battle of time basically. Well, you have to understand what the hell is going on to get like who's there and what their relationship to each other is. Right. But for the first two thirds of the film, it's like a Bond movie told in an alien language. And anything is sort of possible.

and this music is awesome, and the opera raid is rad, and the freehold thing. They crash a plane. Come on, guys. They crash a plane into the warehouse. I mean, I saw Tenet three times at the drive-in during the pandemic, so I am like, I am with you on many aspects of it.

Can I say one more, like, broad thing about Dunkirk before we get into it? Well, I'm trying to figure out, like, whether I can fit this into categories, but I just wanted to say, personal anecdote time, I just was over in England, and I got to go to the cliffs of Dover, which is not exactly where everybody takes off from. I think there's like Dorset and a bunch of a different places. But when I was there, I was walking out along the cliffs and you keep going out and we had a clear day so we could see France.

And our data plans changed to French while we were on this walk. Oh, wow. Just to say it's fucking real how close they were. And the most amazing, it's a storytelling. thing in the film, but it's also about history, is that all these guys in France are like, I will do anything to get off this beach. And all the guys coming from England are like, we will do anything to help them because we have to stop Hitler from jumping the channel. It's over if that happens or we're going to have to fight in the streets if that happens.

And the idea of these two forces like kind of meeting in the middle because they have this almost biological imperative to survive, but in opposite directions, you can really, really feel it. There is just this strip of water dividing it. And I, you know, I mean, obviously, like, my dad was English, she was born in 42. Like, it's kind of, like,

beaten into me the heroism of this era. But it is amazing to see just that, like, the landscape is not like, oh yeah, and all the way over there is California, but you just can't see it. It's like, no, it's right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. One thing I was thinking about, okay, so we have one more thing, which is a listener email before we get into our categories. But one other thing I want to note is that what I brought into this movie, like, you know, a working knowledge of the little ships and that whole thing that happened based on all of the period English content that I like to consume, chief among them, one of my favorite movies, Atonement, and just thinking about the fact that, like, James Mac, Spoilers for Atonement. Spoilers for Atomit. Spoilish for Atomit. That James McAvoy's character dies waiting to get like air lifted. And like the Dunkirk sequence in Atoment is incredible. I will never forget my wife throwing that book across the room and bursting into tears.

Ian McEwen has a lot to answer for. But, you know, just thinking about that like as a sort of failure of evacuation in relief to sort of this very success. stories that we get to watch inside of this movie. Okay, on that sense of like your dad was English and the heroism of the time or something like that, we got this interesting email from our listener, Nick, about, I don't think of Christopher Nolan as a political filmmaker necessarily, but this idea of moral clarity inside of something like Dunkirk where we don't say Germans, we say the enemy and like all, you know, all that sort of stuff like that. Nick wrote about, he said, an under-discussed aspect of Dunkirk is that it represents a pivot point in

Christopher Nolan's filmography. Previously, all of his more political films, the Dark Night Trilogy and Interstellar. I don't think of Interstellar is political, but I guess so. We're co-written with his brother Jonathan. Obviously, much has been written about the politics of those films, yet Christopher wrote his next three projects, Dunkirk, Tennant, and Oppenheimer all by himself, and I'd argue we see a noticeable shift in their political outlook. Nolan's protagonists now battle Nazis, Russian oligarchs, and the American right wing. Obviously, it's impossible to ignore the fact that all three of these films also happen to be made after Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign in the summer of 2015.

So my suggested topics would be, one, how does Dunkirk fit into the larger hashtag resistance filmography? And two, do Chris Mal and Josie such a difference in the politics of Nolan's 2005-2014 work and the politics of this film since Dunkirk 2017 to present? I don't think we need to get bogged down in this. But I guess the top line question I wanted to ask you, Chris and Mal is like, do you think of Christopher Nolan as a political filmmaker? Chris, what do you think? Not until his email. Right. I mean, obviously, I think that he is concerned about what machinery does to humanity.

You know, I think he's obviously like somebody who is enamored with the industrial kind of arm of the world and, like, the way that we can build things and we can imagine things and we can envision things. And then those things can turn around to destroy us. I think that's present in the Batman trilogy. I think that's obviously present in Oppenheimer. And I think that Dunkirk, for me, is just about the heroism of survival. So, you know, it is a romantic movie, but I do not think it is romantic about war. I think it's romantic about pulling together. And it's romantic about sacrifice.

And it's romantic about duty. And it's romantic about things like that. I had not thought about it in the context of the rise. of Trump and where he's decided to take his filmmaking. I'll be very curious to see if Odysseus releases the Epstein files, you know? I hope he's not in, frankly. I wouldn't be surprised. Odysseus got up to so much on his journey home.

All right, Mallory, how about you? Any thoughts on this? Yeah, it's a fascinating email. I like the turn of phrase early in the email, like moral clarity. That feels right. And I think there's an interest in morality and the role that obligation and responsibility play in our lives and also where power can lead you, like the responsibility that you can pair with power if you have it, if you have resources, if you have the ability to help other people, but also obviously the terrible places that that advancement can can lead individuals and the collective. And yeah, I think that he is interested certainly in what people do for each other and should do for each other. That feels very present in his works.

And I think what's interesting about that is like pairing the impulse to study that and think about it with what is often we have a great man recurring category for like a reason, right? Like stories that are very rooted in the singular achievements of a. of incredibly accomplished or important individuals, like solitary figures who shaped the course of history, fictional or otherwise. And that's one of the things I love about this movie, too, and plenty of his other films, is like the ability to pair those desires

to examine both of those things. So I think he's very afraid that we're going to destroy ourselves. Yeah, no question. Movies that are very skeptical about where the world, has gone in different times in different ways. And sometimes he translates that through, you know, dealing with like a pre-existing piece of IP, like the Dark Dight trilogy. And sometimes he's just like, you know, we were tempted and we bit the apple.

Look what happened here. We made a bomb. I do think of his Batman movies as very, even though they come out into the Obama years, like Bush era movies. And I do obviously Oppenheimer, like, is a very political film. but I hadn't thought of him sort of broadstrokes as a political creator, so I will be interested, maybe even chiefly interstellar looking at that upon rewatch. But I think it's interesting that idea of what we can achieve together pulling it together.

But I guess, and we will get to our categories. But I was thinking a lot about The Last of Us when I was thinking about this because we talked so much about the who is the us and who is the them. And how it sort of dials in and expands out. So like no French, English only evacuating, no French, get out of here. but or Highlanders only, you know, like the factions inside of the factions and how narrow your scope can become. Yeah, these are British ships. You have your own ships.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. I found myself writing us or them in my notes quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. Which, uh, that's also like a huge thing in England right now is obviously like the since Brexit and like a lot of the political turmoil that they're having right now is about British identity. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm interested to keep this in mind.

We're watching Interstellar as we plan to in the spring as well. Like, I guess I, without in real time being able to pause the podcast recording, go rewatch it right now and feel assured that the statement is correct. Like, I don't necessarily think these things have to be different. They're not mutually exclusive. And in fact, are often inextricably entwined. But I think that it feels like as much or maybe more so societal than outright political to me in terms of maybe. be a focus or an interest. But again, those aren't always different, right? Because where do your countries or your militaries? You live in a society. This episode is brought to you by Target.

Listen up, Explorer, Stranger Things has returned to Target and the upside down is calling. Don't miss your chance to grab some epic exclusives like an AirPods case shaped like a mixtape cassette, the totally tasty Doritos' Stranger Pizza and Cool Ranch chips, and the Demogorgia. Crunch cereal. New items are dropping all season long, so prepare for one last adventure at Target. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling?

Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, gusalcumab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques psoriasis. who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections in tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information.

This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts.

Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweet Green wraps hit different.

Order now at order.sweetgreen.com. All right. So usually we do sort of top 20 of these categories, but to spare Chris Ryan a three-hour house of our podcast. And also there are a couple categories that wouldn't work because there are F-bombs of this movie. And I also decide to not do a funniest line category for Dunkirk. So, you know, we made some cuts.

There was a funny line. There's one very funny line in this. That's why it's good that I'm Navy in your army then. Exactly. That would be the one, I completely agree. That draws a chuckle. Okay, so here we go. We're going to do 15.

Let's start with, and they all, as we always do, we have a Nolan quote for each of them. So you either die here or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. Who is the real villain of this movie? Chris Ryan. I think it's the channel. Yeah, I was going to say water.

Water is my answer. I decided after watching this, I don't want to drown. But you were undecided until you revisit this film. There's just lots of ways I don't want to go, you know, but dying, drowning, and freezing water that is also just like foaming up into the beachhead. And the water flights on fire. The water prevents them from getting home. The water, you know, is where they crash their planes.

There's just, it's just, it's an evil body of water. And, you know, obviously, I guess you could, you could give a show. Shout out to old Adolf, but I think drowning was in the... Good old. Yeah, I said water as well. I think watching Jack Loudon in that cockpit, trying and failing to break the glass. That's terrible. You know, like all of the Highlanders, the Highlanders under the water on fire, all of that.

You know, Highlander, one, not my favorite character, but didn't want to watch him die. in flames screaming, you know. Positively Blackwater, Battle of Blackwater ask there. I got to say, the CR heads who have spent years citing the Sea is Dope as their favorite piece of writing are shook right now. No, I didn't.

This does not go against C is dope doctrine. Tell us, okay. The sea is dope, but it is dangerous. Okay. You want to be on it. Healthy respect. On it, not in it. Maintain this.

I have never said that I want to live a life aquatic. I love watching movies about it. Look at your outfit today. Look at your outfit today. This is stolen valor. I'm not saying. Steve's his new core, honestly.

This is stolen valor. Yeah. I'm just saying I like watching movies about it. I do not want to be in Master and Commander. You know, I don't want to saw my arm off. Spoilers for Master and Commander. And deal with all that stuff. Okay.

Fair distinction. Malie Rubin, what's your answer? we've talked about this unsurprisingly a good amount and just the big picture thoughts on on the film but my answer is like desperation and what it can do to shatter the thing that ultimately we are celebrating and championing and striving for you know when a sense of abandonment sets in and that hopelessness takes root i think to chris you know your earlier point about how for almost all of the characters we are glimpsing all sorts of impulses and instincts and actual choices and decisions.

You know, you have so many characters and moments in the movie that celebrate the spirit of alliance, what you can achieve through unity. And then it's, you have to see what happens when you break under the weight of the opposite of that. And when your target practice for the Germans. When your target practice. Yeah. And like I think that, you know, obviously just like the, you know, you know,

the buttresses of the film and so much of the really like a cornerstone on which the movie rests is like the mythic nature of conviction, right? Determination to help your fellow man, to try to move forward, et cetera. So you have so many examples that fit in that bucket, like, Farrier, knowing that he is going to doom himself if he stays in the air longer, et cetera, et cetera,

on and on we could go. And so when you have the moments where that impulse like falters and you glimpse what it looks like. It's just very powerful and harrowing. I really like, you know, like kind of bookend in terms of placement in the film. You have something like the beginning. We're about to see like that first kind of aerial attack on the mole, not the first one actually, but that we're witnessing in the film and the soldiers just have to kind of lay flat. There's nowhere to go. What are they going to do? Right. And there's that like, where's the bloody Air Force line? And then you bookend at the end where they're finally back?

And that soldier passes by Collins and says like, where the hell were you? Right. The sense of of like, where were you? Even though we've seen where he was, where Farrier was, et cetera. And so all those moments were like that, Joe to what you were saying a few minutes ago, where the us that is this beautiful, holy thing that we are celebrating inside of the us at fractures.

Like, Tommy first trying to join one of the cues on the beach, and it's like, it's Grenadiers, mate. Grenadiers only. You can't get out of this line, right? Or, you know, Benedict from Bridgeton turning away the French. He's like, you have your own ships, right? The, like, really, I think, heroin conversation between members of command, like, you know, out in public, the line is arm and arm with the French. Well, what about in private?

We need our, are we back, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, obviously the stretch inside of the trawler where they just need to make weight. Can't wait to get Gibson out of there. Better him than me. We just get it, like, literalized from our guy Harry Styles from Alex there. So, yeah, I think seeing how you can, through totally understandable reasons and circumstances, lose the ability to hold on to the thing that is the differentiator is, that's my pick. But, you know, choppy water also, it did seem bad.

I would not have made it out of there. Honorable mention for villain is Alex. Harry Style is kind of a narc in this movie. Harry Style, but, like, I think it matters that it's Harry Styles. Do you know what I mean? Like, that even though Nolan's like, I didn't really know who he was when he cast him. Like, it matters that he's, like, so charming oozes charisma. So then when he does this terrible thing, you're not then, like, really, really mad that he's on the train at the end.

I'm a little mad, but I'm not like, you know, get him out of here. I love that anecdote that he's like, yeah, you know, just a great old-timey face, right? And it's Chris, it's like, to me, the opposite of the scouts when Darnold went to the Jets who were like, bad face. Yeah. That's right. I do love that Alex moment, horrible moment, when he turns on someone who has saved his life, like no fewer than three times,

is when he says he's a German spot, he's a Jerry, he's a Jerry, right? And then he's like, oh, he's a frog. Like, this is dehumanizing, right? Like, he's not a human. He's a Jerry, he's a frog. He's like, you know, whatever. Okay. Are you watching closely, most exquisitely gorgeous

shot Chris Ryan. Okay, how do we not do Farrier for every one of these categories? It's Ferrier's plane running over gas over Dunkirk. It is obviously Ferrier's plane running out of gas over Dunkirk. Gorgeous. Honorable mention to me

to the first moment when Tommy is like running through the streets and then you first see the beach which is sort of like blazing light and you see it through the sides of the building and then like you open out into the beach. That's also the When the first beach sequence is over and at the two poles that are kind of standing and like the camera coming through, I mean, they're so in their bag in this movie.

It's like to just freeze any frame and it's better than most filmmakers' entire life. I have a different pick. It's also a fairier pick, but it's a different one than the, though I have no qualms at all with the drifting over the beach at the end stretch, which is astonishing. And the sound design in that stretch is unbelievable. but like 35 minutes into the movie this is one of the really like breathtaking iMacs shots when okay fortis leader

is down right just to because people listening are like I don't remember with 35 minutes into the movie is so some context Ferrier's kind of taken over command right he's guided Collins to do the like bank left maneuver he's realized his gauge is broken he's ordered

the climb to 2,000 feet he's done the incredible bane like mumble if we can dive down on the from above over, and you can't understand a word that he's saying, unless you have subtitles on, it's just like, we're all in on Farrier at this point, right? They're down to 40 gallons, and Collins spots the bomber and the two fighters who are targeting the minesweeper, and then the planes turn and the shot rotates. And we go from sea and sky as horizontal halves to vertical. Like, it's just gorgeous and breathtaking to have the sea on the left and

the sky on the right. And I think also to like, Chris, what you were saying earlier about the weather and the light and kind of the cheat of the continuity, there's something about that shot. And we get other similar shots throughout, but like this one is the most kind of like, oh my God. The water looks almost like tropical. Like it's so turquoise there. And it's, I think, a really effective way, even though they are so close of really making them feel worlds apart from the people they're trying to help just visually. So I fucking love that. I think that's amazing.

I also, one of my runners up, I don't know why this hits me so hard, but when Tommy and Gibson are running with the stretcher to try to get on the rescue vessel in the first place, that like the sea foam, the collection of the sea foam there is, it's all scummy. Yeah, it's like God tear to me. This incursion of the natural is just undeniable there. think it's also just like it underlines, you know, as Chris said, there's a lot of great VFX in this movie, but like Chris Nolan's insistence on reality and just like the scummy sea foam of Dunkirk is, is, I always pause on that. Also, I would say all, and this was like in every single trailer, actually, is it the poster? Like all of the helmeted heads sort of like ducking down together during the past. Or just also it's in the trailer and it's the single shot of the guy walking into the water. Yeah. Oh my God. That I have for a different category.

Me as well. Yeah. Me as well. I like, too, the shot of the Highlanders marching toward the beach trawler. Yeah. Because you just get a sense of like the vastness of the space and how small they all are. In the screenplay, it says it's seven miles, they're seven miles away from the mole in the trawler, which, you know. And that's why, like, you know, on the perimeter.

Yeah. Yeah. Their target practice. Okay. Speaking of someone just walking into the ocean This is my pick here too I can't remember to forget you The scene you think about the most

To me it would be Someone just walking into the ocean And the three lads watching him do it So yeah I'm gonna go with like a That but like I'm gonna make it part of a duology With the thing that comes right next to it Which is so you have the Tommy Gibson Alex moment

Where they watch this Soldier just walk into the sea Incredibly affecting and disturbing But then you have it right next to the conversations about the engineers building the makeshift peer. And how do you know where the tide is? Will the bodies start coming back? And they have to like just kind of brush the bodies away. And like what that does for the clockwork aspects, but also just like thinking about all aspects of what it would mean to be there and feel like you couldn't get out.

And the reminders of how hopeless it can feel are just washing in at your feet. Like, the inescapability of that despair. So those scenes are right next to each other. And yeah, that's my, it gets in the old head. It doesn't really leave. Yeah. Stop. What's your pick here, Chris?

Chris. I would probably say the stretcher run. Yeah. Just because that encapsulates the idea of heroism being born out of a con, basically, these two guys pretending to be stretcher bearers. But then also is like, what's a stretcher bearer? Isn't it just somebody who picks up a stretcher? You know, do you have to be certified by the Red Cross to do that?

And I especially loved the run across the plank this time around. Yeah. Because English people are always looking for something to cheer for. Yeah. And it's like, I'm sure it was almost just like guys were taking bets. Like, you know, but I love give a run at it, you know? And the other thing that I talked about this at length on rewatchable, so I didn't want to get too, you know, far into it.

But the other runner-up scene I think about the most is Farrier standing in front of his burning plane and getting arrested by the Germans because Christopher Nolan, it's not too late. Tom Hardy, P-O-W movie, please do it. Oh, my God. Farrier in The Great Escape. Come on.

Dunkirk, too, the search for Farrier. I would watch it so quickly. quickly. What I also, you isolating the stretcher run, I think, is also really good place to talk about the fact that like you watch them, even though it's a con, all that effort to get that body on that ship only for that ship to sink and that guy to die. And also for that guy to be like, what are you doing like resting? Get the fuck off the boat.

But all the times that they get on a ship only for that ship to like, you know, sink, I think is all that effort. And then back to, and you know, it's like in Jurassic Park, we're back in the car. back on the beach. All right. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Best use of a Nolan versus regular, Chris?

Sorry. Barrier time. I'm with you. That's actually not my answer, but I'm actually okay. Yes, very, I will say, Branagh does,

has a very difficult role in this movie. He's essentially like the only person giving exposition. He has got to express the filmmakers, ideas about what was going on here thematically about like you can almost see it you know

yeah and he's fucking kenneth brana so he can get wet eyed and stay at the sky and look through binoculars and he does a really good job of it and since i've basically spent my entire like last ten years talking about tom hardy in this movie i'll shout out kenneth brannas i'm glad to welcome brana into the full because you know we've been we've been doing this category for three films and This is Brenna's entrance into the Nolan verse, and he's been in three films, so he counts as a regular. But it's nice to mix it up from Hardy and Murphy and Kane, et cetera. That being said, Mallory Rubin? I'm going with Tom Hardy as well here.

I still think Eames and Inception is my favorite Hardy in the Nolan filmography. And I say that as the world's biggest Bain enthusiast. But those are the top three. I mean, I love him in this movie, and I think an incredible amount of the success of the movie hinges on, like we were talking about earlier, what he can do with the dart of an eye or the scribble of a piece of chalk

or a heavy breath or the absence of any sound entirely. And I love, like, there's something about Hardy has this incredible, really Hardy-esque ability to, like, pair the reckless with the methodical, in a way that you really need with Farrier for what he does. And so I just like, yeah, I love it. I think there's a great case to make for Killian Murphy here, which I assume you're about to do, Joe. You would think I always do, but not today.

Even though I think he's great in this. And I actually think it matters that even, you know, when you have, you know, some actors we might be less familiar with, like Fionne Whitehead is like, you know, I think it matters that Killian Murphy is a face we recognize so that when we get that moment that you mentioned Mallory, where we see him in greater control of his faculties earlier. We can easily say, like, oh, that's Killian Murphy, like, you know, et cetera.

My answer is actually, oddly enough, Michael Kane. Yeah, Fortis won. Fortis leader. Yeah. Okay, so you talked about, you know, what it's like for Farrier to, you know, we lose Fortis leader, then we lose Collins and he's up there all alone. But the moment before, when Ford's leader goes down, the fact that it's Michael Kane's voice and we just hear it.

And there's something so comforting about, like, Michael Cain is here. We don't see him because he's too old to be an RIF pilot. But, like, Michael Cain is here and there's a sense of authority and comfort. And it's like, Alfred from the Batman films is here. Michael Cain is here to, like, make sure everything's going to be okay. And then he's gone. And that voice is gone. And I just think that that's, like, a really effective use of him.

You know, he could have been, you know, an officer on the ground. But I think, you know, I don't know if he just did not want to do that or if they were like, you know, this is actually more effective, but I thought that was really good. I think that's a great point about just giving us a little drip of what has become such a source of comfort for us only to rip it away.

I want to present you guys with a headline I discovered in the internet and prepping for this podcast and see what you think about it. Was Googling Kenneth Branagh and Christopher Nolan, you know, they've now collaborated on many films in recent years.

The first Google search result that comes up is this. It's a red-end. headline. Kenneth Branagh is Nolan's new Michael Caine. Discuss. What do you think? Absolutely not. Have you heard his accent in Tenet?

No, I couldn't hear anything in Tenet. Do you know what I hear of myer about the tiger? I have a little man. I've got a lot of it. No, but a nice try. Absolutely. A lot of engagement with that post, you know, really high up in the results. Fascinating.

A lot of redid karma. All right. Speaking of Michael King, why do we follow, sir, so we learn to pick ourselves up. Best stunt, Christopher Ryan? So I interpreted this slightly,

like, rather than, you know, bane-breaking Batman's back kind of stunt. It's more of a set piece, but I watched it three times this week and still can't figure out how he did the oil lighting on fire

and all the guys. I know it's, I just don't know. I can't. I can't say for sure that that's fake fire. I mean, it's Christopher Nolan. It's probably not. He's like, I'm going to build a bomb to make Oppenheimer.

So whatever it was, it was pretty convincing when those guys lose their breath underwater and have to come up in fire and die probably the worst death you could possibly imagine. That's the thing because, like, you were saying earlier drowning now, it's topsier like ways they don't want to go list. But I think it's still, it's neck and neck with burning alive. Would you rather... You combine the two? Would you rather die... It's a note for me.

And you come up and it's on fire. Or you think you're drowning and you come up and the lake is frozen above you. It's ice. Oh, ice is worse to me. That's horrible. I'd rather burn, honestly. I don't know why. Maybe because I've seen way too many movies or someone's trapped under ice versus

like, it's only the guy who says tell that to Kansa Club from Star Wars of Force Awakens who gets really roasted and toasted here. So, you know. I think the fact that they're... like they've had to go through this oil. So like they're coated. Once the fire hits, it's,

you know, there's no. It's almost sweet relief. There's really awful, like their shrieks and their screams as we pan for their back. But the shot that I love in that stretch is when we're under. And like, they can see the fire there.

He knows. If he goes up. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great picture. It's a surprisingly ungoory movie. Like, it is not a lot.

There's not a lot of blood. Yeah. There's no, like, guy holding his stomach, you know, Allop Saving Private Ryan. It's really more to the imagination, but I also think it's the key reason why this movie, you can rewatch it.

You know, it's like, I can't rewatch saving Private Ryan as much as I, or the first 40 minutes of it at least, as much as I do Dunkirk. Yeah. Molly Rubin, what's your answer here? So, just a bounty of sinking ship set pieces to pick from, and I will be going with the torpedo hitting the vessel at night. Because I think that's a visually, really interesting sequence, but it's also a part of the movie where story beats are happening that are really interesting

to me. Like, you know, Gibson has not gone down into the mess because, as Tommy will try to explain to Alex, it's like he wants a, you know, he wants a quicker escape. He doesn't want to have to speak down there, right? So, like, we're bringing all of this heightened tension. The soldiers down there feel like, okay, I have to. a bite. I had some tea. We hear the engine go on and they're like cheering. You know, there's this brief moment. Chris's point. Any excuse? And then boom. And the way that the water rushes in and the

scene goes dark. And then Gibson, who's like, I don't know all of my seafaring terminology. I'm not CR, but like, you know, holding onto the rope bubble. And then like he knows they're down there and he doesn't have to do this. But he makes the decision to crawl and climb up to open the hatch. And then we see from their view the little speck of light to shoot out. And then you pair that with like when he drowns in the troll, he doesn't get out. You know, and like Alex is like, let's go, but it's like he doesn't turn around and grab his hand to make sure he pulls him out. So as kind of paired sequences, I think that's really fascinating and upsetting. But I just like, the seeking ships are not, I don't want to be hyperbolic here. Nothing rises to the level of like hallway fights and

inception. But there is interesting stuff happening with like, the camera's spinning and, you know, how they're conveying the way that, like, the water would flip to suddenly be on top of you and stuff like that. So, yeah, the torpedo hitting at night is my pick. That scene, RIP to one of three women in this movie. Absolutely. How much more time could we have had with that nurse? Who's played by a Nolan cousin, actually. Miranda Nolan, I believe. Okay, so I, because usually we have another category that's, like, best set piece. So I like that you guys have sort of like blended those two together because it isn't

a very like I can think of this particular stunt. But for me on my second rewatch, thinking about that idea of six Tommy's and this one made it over the wall, when that first strafing of the beach, when you see a bomb go off and off and often, there's like the one guy who's right next to Tommy who's been shooting at the sky and he gets blown all the way up in the air. Like that guy didn't survive that. And the VFX supervisors have talked about how that was the hardest shot for them to do because removing the wirework on that guy was really, really hard. So they like, again, that's like a guy they sent flying up through the air. You can tell it's not a digital double. And it just like, it underlines. There's all this like luck or camaraderie or all these other things that, that, you know, cunning and camaraderie, but there's also luck that has to do. Like Tommy's one, just a few feet away from just being his stories done at the beginning of the film. So, you know, I really like that moment. Great pick. Amateurs seek the sun, get eaten, power stays in the shadows, stealth MVP of this movie that not enough people talk about. Chris? Rather than people, I'll just say, I don't talk

enough about it. Okay. Rylance. Perhaps the soul of the movie. And, you know, obviously is a big name and I have some other nominees here. But this time around, I found his performance performance to be so lovely and beautiful. And, you know, even his moments of frustration are still, like, buttoned up. He still has his sweater vest on. And I forgot about the move. I forgot that he learned the move from his son. From his son.

That kills me that part. Or whoever, like, Collins asks Peter, it's just like, oh, were you in the Air Force? And he's just like, no, not me. Yeah. My brother, third week of the world. A few hurricanes, yeah. When you think about that when Dawson is telling his son Peter, like, you know, to try to help Collins. And he's like, I didn't see a parachute, he's got to be done.

He's like, he could be a lot. Like, that's sort of the most, like the harshest he gets. And it's, you know, because he's thinking about his own son. Could someone have saved his own son? But it's such a beautiful act of heroin. He's like, we have to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great pick.

Mallory, what's your answer? We've already talked about mine. But it is definitely Emma Delano is selling for this partner and husband. You need a script for this movie. Come on, man. Can you guys imagine? Did he just want the dialogue improvised? Or was he like, we're just going to go out there and just let it rip?

I think the dialogue. But like every aspect, this is genuinely like a movie that is akin to the inner workings of a clock. And so one piece is off or one prong on the puzzle. Is it there? and it's like you can't complete the puzzle. So it's actually, I think often these alternate histories about how a movie came together are really fascinating to think about. This is a terrifying one to me to contemplate,

and I'm really glad it didn't happen. So thank you, Emma. Thank you. This might sound silly, but my heart is my heart. I'm going to give it to the knitwear. We like George's sweater vets. Great fucking thick. Yes.

Tongling Carnie's iconic sweater. My God. Just like, you know, again, like, you know, you've got all the infantrymen in their, you know, in their same, same, different same uniforms. You've got the RAF pilots, you know, we'll talk. I have another place to talk about Jack Loudon in his RAF, like, you know, uniform or stuff like that. But then you just got like the lads from home in their, you know, Georgia's sweater vest, most of all, even though Tomlin Gardi's red sweater is, I think, like, the. Icon. Yeah.

Vision of this movie. But, like, short, like, when Barry Cune, like, just starts running up in his sweater vest and there's just something like, So immediately you understand who George is, even before, like, he's like, I never was anyone. Maybe I'll be in the local paper. Like, I feel like that's all in the sweater vest. Yeah. So that's my answer. An incredible pick.

While you're on Fitwatch, is there anything you'd like to say about Accent Corner? Or will you be returning to that in other categories? Oh. This would be like the anti-MVP, I guess. But any accent takes, you want to get off? No, I mean, everyone's like, I love a regional accent. I think everyone, you know, like, Rylance is incredible. I think all of that is wonderful.

We alluded to this a couple times, but I did text you guys last night frantically trying to understand why Harry Stiles was in the Scottish Highlanders unit. But Chris did like a very light Google that I guess I was in Kimball of doing to find out that someone with a Midlands accent, which is Harry Stiles accent,

could have been in the Scottish. They threw open the doors for the Highlanders. Generous of them. The mission's standards dropped. All coming. including Harry Styles. Okay. This is going to be a short category.

You're waiting on a train that will take you far away. This is usually our best dead wife moment. Yeah. But I've changed it to one. Do you guys your favorite dead wife in this in this whole filmography? Oh, it's tough to top inception.

We've learned some very special things. Like the fact that in the prestige, every dead wife that's in the prestige was added by Christopher Nolan. It's not in the original book. all of dead wives were additive by no one. Look, Emma Thomas won the one fight. She got a script for Dunkirk.

I also forgot that Liam Neeson has, like, randomly as a dead wife and Batman begins, just like kind of randomly. It's just in there. So once you start looking for it. It's really fun. Anyway, the answer, the change of the category is, was there a spot to put a single solitary woman with more than one line in this movie, do we think? I think that the lady with the boat from Dartmouth who's like, we're from Dartmoor? could have said like one more like and it's quite rainy oh yeah that sounds

oh man that's a good one I'm going to go with Mrs. Dawson so there is a moment at the end of the movie when Peter and his father Mr. Dawson are looking at sweet George's clipping in the paper

because he has perished and when Peter moves from the kitchen I believe into the foyer, there is a woman standing in that room, who I assume is his mother and Mr. Dawson's wife. In the script, it says Mrs. Dawson does not turn around. So I would pause it to you. She could turn around. It's been 50 years. She doesn't have a face, honestly. What if she, now I think it would rob the movie of a little of what Chris just beautifully articulated in

the Rylance MVP case of like this reveal about his dead son that then enriches some of those prior moments. But could his wife and Peter's mom have like been there as they're rushing, as they're pushing out to see to beat the return of the naval officers to requisition the ship? Could she have said, I've already lost one boy. I can't bear to lose another? I think that that could have happened. And then at the end, she could have turned in the kitchen and said, Peter, what a beautiful soul you are. You got to. George on the paper. That would have been two lines. Wow. Yeah. Now run down to the chippy and get

one cod, one chips, chicken flayburger. Bring it back. Is that your order? I've been watching, I watched dairy girls on the flight. I rewatch dairy girls and there was a really good chicken order. Yeah, I mean where are you a mushy peas? Not bad. Not bad.

Yeah. It's agreed. I have two options. One is make blind man, blind woman. Sure. You know, that's like an actual character who has meaning in the... And then also maybe man with a bottle of beers

into the train room. A lady. Newspaper boy could have been newspaper girl. And she could have said, haven't you had? I think a comely lass with some frosty beers would have turned Alex's spirits

around even faster. They're going to spin on us in the street. Wait, here's a hot, babe with some beers for me. I think he would have been thrilled. It's almost like I'm in one direction. This is weird. Okay, they won't fear it until they understand it and they won't understand it until they've used it. Clearest great man moment. This has been a really fun thing for us to track, sort of inspired by Oppenheimer, but sort of seating it back. There's some great Thomas

Wayne stuff we talked about, et cetera, et cetera. Chris, how did you interpret this category? I did Branagh staying for the French and really kind of honestly like milking it, like letting the guy used to get halfway down the ladder. He's like, I'm out. He's like, I'm leaving. He's like, have fun in England. Yeah. I'm staying for the fridge.

Very good. Very good. This is actually my pick too in part because I just thought we would have talked about Farrier's sacrifice so much by this point. And in fact, we have. But that could certainly be the pick. But yeah, Bolton's staying behind. And the very intense way that he delivers that is my pick as well.

I think also just the movie ending on the reading of Churchill's address. This is my answer. So, like, we have Tommy reading one of the most famous speeches that was ever given. And you can hear if you, I don't know, if you're me, you can hear Churchill's voice saying, we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them all the landing grounds, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So when you hear that, do you hear Lithgow or Gary Oldham? I was going to say I hear a Lithgow.

I met an episode of the Crown, always. Very jowl forward, whatever it is. But the absence of Churchill here, even in his absence, I think, is like something, you know, because Nolan has talked about how he considered, like, putting Churchill in here somehow and then decided not to. So I think including him anyway, having Tommy read it, Alex not pay attention to one of the best speeches of all time being read to him. But Churchill being here, even when he's not here, I thought was my answer. Okay. That would have been great if Alex is just like, that's a bit shit.

He's like, what? What were you saying? It's so good. Okay. It's not who I am underneath phrasing, but what I'm? I do that defines me. Nolan is not known for a sexual content, but let's go ahead and try to excavate the horniest moment

of this war film where many people die. I have but one clear answer. Chris, what's your answer? All the Highlanders on the trawler. Okay. Let's make a memory, guys. What did they do for the last six hours waiting for the tide?

Who cares when the tide comes in? Yeah, great one. My pick is Harry Styles, Alex, very lustily eating a piece of jellied toast. I say, I see your watermelon sugar and I raise you a strawberry jam sugar. That is my pick. For me, it is when, in his red sweater, Tom Glencarnie breaks open the top of the cockpit and Jack Loudon, cool as a cucumber, says, afternoon.

You guys are the best. Those two. Those two Aryan poster children. I feel like I see a future for them. Okay. And ideas like a virus, resilient, highly contagious. The line that hits hardest 15 years later. Mallory, what do you have for this?

Can I give you guys some like rapid fire contenders? I don't have necessarily one pick. Let me just do mine just so take it. It's I'm on him. It's the hardest shit anyone has ever said. Isn't Jackland's like, he's on me? He's like, I'm on him. Should that have been hornyth?

Horniest moment? It's the horniest for me. We know. We know. Joe, what's your pick? And then I'll hit you guys with my contenders and you can help me decide. No, no, no. Go for yours.

I don't have like a great answer for this. Okay, here are some contenders. When Bolton is like, you know, we got to start thinking about how many wounded we can take. One stretcher takes the space of seven standing men. That one really boles me over. It's like that hideous calculus of war boiled down to one line. He has to cut the medical ship loose. Yeah.

Yeah. The everything that we've already talked about with just like the, I mean, you can practically see it from here. What home? Like, we know why those lines are there, but they really work. We get a few versions of that. But maybe this is a good spot to talk about a little bit more about the, the Killian Murphy character, the shivering soldier and his interactions on the Moonstone with Mr. Dawson and Peter, dear sweet George will probably all be coming back to George shortly in another category, I assume. Maybe not. I will be. But we have a job to do. Job? This is a place. pleasure yacht, your weekend sailors, not the bloody navy. And then that builds in a short order to, you should be at home. Well, there won't be any home if we allow a slaughter across the chat on. Then Mr. Dawson says, it's not just us. A call went out. We aren't the only ones to answer, you know. I just think that's a good way to, like, distill into a single conversation, the idea of the heroism and the sacrifice of common men. And like, we've talked about Mr. Dawson. And, like, he has this, like, he's driven by personal loss and grief. He has personal reasons, but also there's

the sense of duty and the love of country, Amy, and all of those, like, that a person could bring, I think are conveyed nicely in that line. But this is maybe a weird nomination, but this really gets me every time is when Peter tells George be brave lad. And he's not like, you know, hey, my mate, my lad. He's like saying it because he's like, George is so young lad. And I'm like, you guys are like peers, but George is like, he was 17, right, as we see in the newspaper clipping. So that just makes Peter feel so old and like war-weary already at such a young age to look at George and say lad, it really kills me. And then I think the last nominee I have is, um, again, Bolton, the battle is here. What the hell are they saving them for when

Wittenesson? He says, the next battle, the one for Britain. Like there are just, there's, the dialogue is so sparse, but the lines that are here tell us what we need to know quite effectively. So on the, on the like Peter George interaction front, this is like one section that was cut from the very few was cut from the script that I read. But there's a, there's a moment when when we first understand like, oh, I can't see, like that interaction between Peter and George. There's a section where Peter's kind of like making fun of George. Like, I think trying to sort of keep things normal. You know, and George is like, don't laugh at me, like, blah, blah.

And like, they cut that. I was like, I think it's good that you cut this like ribbing between these two guys as he's bleeding out onto the life vest. Another thing I learned from the script, they say something about like, I think Collins and they say his, his May West, which is RIF rhyming slang for. life vest, which I found out from this script. But I was like, I love that he put RIF slang

into the stage directions of his screenplay. I will give this to also Dawson and the Shivering Soldier interaction when he says, men my age, dictate this war, why should be allowed to send our children to fight it? It's also cool when Tom Hardy's like, I'm on him. Yeah.

That was honestly I've had some ups and downs with celebrity guests and when Quinn Tarantino was like, and then He's like, I'm on him. And I was like, you and I are brothers. Okay. You think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it molded by it.

Most devastating moment. I'm going to clear you guys, if Mallory to talk about George if you want to. I'm going to give it to when Gibson is on outside and he can hear the men in the dark saying, like, come back. Don't leave us. Come back. Come back. very like Rose and Titanic

come back you know like that's just like absolutely gut wrenching so yeah yeah I just referenced it

but I actually it's for me it was Bolton watching everybody leaping off of the medical ship once it's been hit and he's like

push it out cut the line and he's like we have to cut the lines like because he's basically can't sacrifice the mole

and he can't have like a huge fire there but like you get enough in the shots of the stretcher run and just like

Bolton getting the ship ready, you get enough shots that you see like a nurse there. You can see like faces of people and then like they're gone, you know, or have to leap into the cold channel. Yeah. And just watching him be like, this is like what it feels like to see a decision go wrong in real time. It's just really heartbreaking. Yeah, and everyone's on that stretcher for a reason. So the people on the stretcher certainly were not able to jump ship. Right. Mallory, want to talk to us about our guy George? George, sweet George, dear George.

It's just so sad. And I think obviously what happens to George, the injury, his death, is sad. But all of the aspects of how that unfolds, I think, like, really heightened the devastation. You know, you have that, like, you know where we're heading to France and to war, George kind of set up for it, which is really good, obviously. But the fact that, like, for the characters on the Moonstone, but then for us as viewers, there's like a little bit of a delay. and realizing, you know, because he's got like the shivering soldier, the tussle, he's trying to take control of the vessel and like elbow to the head. And we kind of see him fall out of the shot. But it's a beat before we realize that he has hit his head on this like metal prong, right? He's bleeding out. The very tender way that Peter cares for him, building toward the I can't see moment.

But then when they're rescuing all of the oil slick soldiers and they're all pouring down into the cabin. and Peter's shouting like careful, careful down there. And then it's Alex. He's just like, he's dead, mate. Like, and be careful with him. And then the way that Peter says, so be bloody careful with him. That's the part that really gets me. And like just kind of, it's so sad.

And then I love that Peter who was like so angry with the shivering soldier. It's like, no, he's not going to be okay. When George is actually gone, when he's dead. And the soldier asks him again, like how George is doing. that he doesn't lash out at him and say, you killed this boy who was just trying to help because it's like it wouldn't be right to put that extra burden on him

when he's already carrying so much and that little look that his father gives him, that little nod of approval, like that was the right decision to make. And then you thought you couldn't be devastated enough. They're home and they're carrying George's body out, covered in a sheet, and we see Killian and Murphy look back and see it.

And like he knows, it's just very fucking sad, all of it. No. And then Mrs. Dawson just like, doesn't even turn around, man. Just like, is there? Is he in the paper? Local boy, George Mills, just 17, hero at Dunkirk? Did you go to the chippy or what? Can you hear the music, Robert?

Most unforgettable sound design score moment. Christopher Ryan. Hans, you son of a bitch. The clock ticking, which is the first thing I ever heard in association with Dunkirk because we haven't mentioned the iconic teaser trailer. We surround you pamphlets falling from the sky. So good.

And the tch, tick, tick, tick. Because it ties in to the storytelling device that Nolan uses is the idea of like winding a clock, you know, basically letting it go to stopwatch of this battle. I just thought that and the way that it informs the entire sort of score, it's a little bit of a cheat, but I'll go with clock ticking. That's not a cheat at all. And this might be apocryphal, but I read that that was his pocket watch that he, like, recorded and gave to Hans.

I'm going to go with that. Damn. That's sick. And I'm on him. All right. Mallory. So I'm with Chris. I'll pick a specific stretch of the, the, where you feel the score functioning as a countdown inside of it, which is when Tommy, a stretch we've talked about a lot already, when Tommy and Gibson have picked up the stretcher and are racing to try to get onto the ship in time.

the way that the score there is like a timer, but like a pulse, and it's kind of like punctuating each step they take. And it's like a little bouncy, but like really, really urgent. And you also have it as the score functioning as clock with the Dawson's trying to push off in time. But man, there's like something really frenetic about the scoring and that stretch in particular that I really love. My answer is this is the movie where I learned what a shepherd's tone is, which is that oral a UR-R-A-L illusion of the rising tone that never resets. And that's what's like a lot of this score is just this sort of like you fade in the

base note and fade out the high note. So it's like never resolves and it just constantly feels like it's going up. Which is how the script is structured anyway. Yeah, exactly. And Nolan says like that the shepherd's tone, but I distinctly remember watching a YouTube video about it. Like, what is this thing in the Dunkirk score that I don't understand how it is accomplished? He said that was like the core, you know, to your point early on, Chris, about this is musical. Like that was the core of this. And it just becomes unbearable, the tension of that.

Because the tension of different storylines is meeting and these various other points of other storylines. So it's like the end of the plane is, you know, yeah, it's, it's great. So good. All right. We're almost done here. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship actor who never returned to the Nolan verse, but should have. This is easy for me. It's not too late to get Jack Loud in another Christopher Nolan movie soon.

Where would you put him in The Odyssey? I think that it's okay that he hasn't been in another one yet, but he needs to be in another one soon. like has to be. I mean, could he have been in in Oppenheimer? Maybe he could definitely be in the Odyssey. He could definitely be an tenant. Could you for sure be in tenant?

Mine was going to be Tom Glencarnie and I think that Collins and Peter could lead the search for Farrier. Then Peter boyfriends? Collins and Peter wearing sweaters in the Alps looking for the prison camp off the Swiss border, you know? riding motorcycles.

I'm there on night one. I'm giving it to Rylance. He could have been in Oppenheimer. We were in a Rilin'clock a real Rylent's era for a while, and he was making some poor choices. Ready Player 1 comes to mind. There's some just baffling Rylent's choices, and he got his Oscar and all the sort of stuff like that.

But I was like, where has Rylent's been? He's in Bones and all, which I love him in that. But like, so I looked up what he is coming up. Did you guys know that he's in an upcoming Terrence Malick film, The Way of the Wind, playing Satan? It's never coming out. I know, but when it does. Wow. It's like 30 hours long.

I put upcoming in like the deepest of air quotes. But yeah, Mark Rylins playing Satan for Terence Malik. Or he might get cut out of it entirely as many actors have in the Malik Uvro, but that's exciting to me. But anyway, put Rylands in the office. Odyssey. Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. You know. Okay.

The most no one thing about this movie, some men just want to watch the world burn. Molly Rubin. Just my pick is something we've talked about a ton. Just, again, the timelines. I think that's the easy pick for me here. Just the way that the structure of the film reinforces the idea of how these experiences are entwined,

even though they take place in different locations or over different time spans in different contexts. I think that feels, it feels simultaneously like the, only way Nolan would make this movie and like a movie only Nolan could make it this way. Chris? I think it's his home field advantage. I think the reason this movie feels personal is because I feel like he has been to that strip of water before.

I think he's been on those beaches, I think, or at least he has been on beaches like them. And I think, you know, there's times in his career where he has applied his eye to something like Gotham or the New Mexico desert or what have you. And it's like he's seeing that in a specific way. This almost felt like he was replicating a memory of a place or a place of experience. And so I felt like I was watching a movie made by someone who had been to this place before and thought about this place for a long time. I love that. I'm going to give it to the sort of like the heroic thing you do when no one's really watching. Farrar, like, Collins is watching

Farrier, right? He's like, come on, Farrier, like, all this sort of stuff like that, but like, Ferrier's alone in that cockpit when he makes that decision to turn back around. You know what I mean? And Collins is like, come on, God, you can go back, and he's like, no, no. Yeah, you go back. Like, you can go back and he decides to stay. And so it's that, like, it comes, I think

of it mostly in his sort of Batman, but in interstellar, there's just like these moments, these decisions that people make and the acts acts of heroism that happen when no one's watching or no one will give you accolates for, necessarily, but you do it and it matters that you

did it. Can I ask the two of you a question? Please. Is there any work? How long do you think it would take you to calculate how much fuel you had left based on how much fuel someone else has left, based on how long you've been in the air? I only have one rule.

Am I an RIF pilot? No math. No, you're a podcaster. My only rule is no math, so I'm done. I don't make it to the point watching him do you like shockboard long division? I was like, dude, I'm dead. I'm so dead.

I should have said an accent corner, by the way, Tom Hardy's like super plummy R-A-F, like upper-crest accent is really fun and funny to me. I think it's really good. All right, last and not least, we've been doing this the whole time. You would think it's just for Chris, but actually this has been our singular mission,

which is our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us. What aspect of Nolan's upcoming The Odyssey are you thinking about slash most hype for this much? month, I am starting the counter. It is 241 days until the Odyssey. Oh my gosh. So as Chris mentioned, we got

an Empire cover story about The Odyssey. We've been sort of tracking bits of information is coming out. So Chris, what are you most hyped for this week as you think

about The Odyssey? Mia Gough. And Mia Gauth, just being like, maybe not in this movie very much, but her being like, this was the best thing

I've ever done. I'll take this for every movie. I mean, every single person who has talked about their experience on this movie is like nobody is ready for how mind-blowing this is going to be.

So just like that one shot of her in Anne Hathaway and I was just like, that's me a car, dude, that's crazy. I watched a very nitpicky. Like, I love when people who know a lot about a specific thing get nitpicky even if I don't have to like absorb that nitpick. And I will say I saw like an ancient

historical Greek scholar be like, this is why the fashions are off and this is why Tom Holland drinking out of like a dirty piece of pottery is so weird because of course it would be like new and fresh and nice back in the day. And I liked that analysis and I was also like, this looks sick. It hathaway looks great. Mallory, what's your answer here? Okay, because we were talking about Dunkirk today.

This is the quickest I've ever filled out this category and it is filming on the open sea. And I would like to read you a stretch from the aforementioned Ben Travis. empire piece. Here it is. Quote, such a seismic story required Nolan, every practitioner of practical filmmaking at a grand scale to level up. Big locations, big stars, big spectacle. Quote, we shot over two million feet of film, he reveals of the 91 day shoot, and much of that was out on the ocean where Odysseus set sail with his battle-hearted men. It's pretty primal. Nolan laughs of the open seas. I've been out on it for the last four months. We got the cast to play the crew of Odysseus' ship

out there on the real waves and the real places. And yeah, it's vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent as the conditions shift. We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people in the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world. Our guy is back on the ocean. What more can we want?

The sea, I believe I heard him say the sea is dope there. I think that's what he said. I agree. He said benevolent, but what he meant it was dope? This is the thing I sort of teased in the beginning is that both of these movies are about going home about getting home and it's Inception's about getting home

and Interstellar is about getting home and he's been making this movie his whole career without making this movie and so to just strip it all away and be like I'm going to do it I'm going to say the thing I'm going to say the line is pretty great

that leads me to my answer which is like it we were just talking about this when we were talking about Guillermo del Toro and Frankenstein, right? Like, this is the movie that he's been wanting to make. This is the myth that has preoccupied. Guillermo del Toro is Frankenstein. So I actually didn't know that Nolan was hired to direct Troy originally, right?

But he says there's a bit of everything, and I mean, it truly contains all the story. As a filmmaker, you're looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven't been done before. And what I saw is that of all of this great mythological cinematic work that I'd grown up with, Ray Harryhausen movies, and other things. I'd never seen that done with a sort of weight and credibility than a budget and the big Hollywood IMAX production could do. So he's like, Odysseus deserves to be seen in the biggest screen possible. And there's like 10 filmmakers in movie history who could have pulled it off. I know. It's like him and Kubrick and Spielberg and David Lean and I don't know. It's just so amazing that we're going to get this next year. I'm really excited about it.

So as I said, 241 days until The Odyssey premieres. I will say this. I love seeing a Nolan film on the biggest screen possible as he wishes and stuff like that. I remember when Dunkirk came out, you know, I saw it in the theaters a couple times, and then I was on a plane and Dunkirk was on the plane. And I watched on a plane all the while knowing that Chris Olin would be so mad that I watched Dunkirk on a tiny little screen on the back of someone's seat in front of me. But these are the things we do for cinema. Okay. Chris Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for talk about Dunkirk. Thanks, CR. You're the best, man. You are the best. Thank you to everyone who worked on this show today. We've got Carlos Chiroboga's here. Our Jr.: Ramca Powell worked on this.

We've got Jomey a dinner on on social. Am I missing anyone, Mallory? Anyone else? Mike works here today. I didn't see him. Thank you to everyone. Winston Churchill. Sure, but not here.

Always in our hearts. And to Mallory Rubin herself and to Chris Nolan. Thanks so much. We will be back for Wicked for Good. And we'll see you then. Bye. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th,

the powerful vocals of Demi Levato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute.

Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allotion. You're welcome. Columbia. Engineer for whatever.