The Rewatchables - ‘Dunkirk’ With Sean Fennessey, Chris Ryan, and Quentin Tarantino

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan are joined by writer-director Quentin Tarantino to rewatch the first movie in a three-part Rewatchables series handpicked by Quentin Tarantino. To begin the series, they set out for the coast of France to retrieve their men to rewatch Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk,’ starring Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, and Kenneth Branagh. Where does it rank on Quentin’s best movies of the decade list? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Seeing home doesn't help us get there, Captain. This is the rewatchables, Duncirk. You can practically see it from here. What? Home. We have a job to do. You sign me. Take me home.

Dunkirk, ready, PG-13. See it in 70mm, July 21st. Welcome to the rewatchables, Dunkirk. My name is Sean Fennacy. I am joined by two guests today, the ringers Chris Ryan, and a special guest, Quentin Tarantino. Hello. Welcome to the rewatchable, sir. Good to be here, thank you.

You know, Quentin, you and I were talking a little bit about this show, and you made some suggestions for movies you wanted to do. And before we get into the nitty-gritty of Dunkirk, I think we just got to start with why Dunkirk for a rewatchable episode? This is a movie that only came out two years ago. I guess it was because in the last month or so, I've been getting obsessive about making my top 10 list of the decade, of the 2010s.

So I found myself watching a bunch of stuff like a second time or a third time that I hadn't watched in years and really, really pitting the movies against each other, watching things that I just missed. I'd always heard they were good, but something like Logan, which I never got around to seeing. I finally got around to seeing it to see how it could fit. And it was in watching Dunkirk a third time making my top 10 list that, I think I had had it preliminary at seven, and it jumped up to number two. Wow. After I saw it the third time.

And I was just really kind of caught. So when we started talking about different movies to see, that was definitely one that I had just completely brand new fresh passion for. And frankly, I'm not just, I'm not used to being that passionate about a movie that new. So. Yeah. So I was, so, and I actually thought it would just, it would, it would play great as a rewatchable. And he didn't even know, I didn't even have a whole, like, spiel to say about it either. So that's, that's one of the things I thought would be kind of fun to just really explore it.

Yeah, when you first suggested it, I was a little challenged by it. I have complex feelings about Christopher Nolan's films. Chris adores. Yeah, unabashedly. Yeah. Chris, you want to give me a little bit of, uh, your immediate reaction to the film when you first saw it and maybe where you are with it now? I thought you said, I thought you were saying, well, Chris Nolan. adores Christopher Noon film,

which I think is very true. I'm positive, that's right. I'm positive, that's right. He's within his rights to that. My first reaction to when I saw it, yeah, I saw it down the street of Arclight, and I think I just said, like, it blew my brains out. Like, you just think it's one of the most overwhelming physical experiences I've had at a movie theater,

and it definitely just feels like it's shot on God's tripod, and nothing gives you a sensation of, like, I don't know, there's very few, films that give me this sensation of like, I understand the enormity of the physical setting that this is where this is taking place. And, you know, those first shots of Hardy's trio of Spitfires flying over the channel. And you're like, the earth is fucking amazing and dangerous. And this guy is taking in the elements with his filmmaking. And that really you can feel that the entire time so that once you start actually, like, it's actually on rewatch that you start processing the chronology and all the temporal stuff that he's doing.

I'm going to just do some details of this movie before we dive right into our serious conversation. So the movie is obviously written and directed by Christopher Nolan. The cast includes a series of relative unknowns including Fian Whitehead, Tom Glenn Carney, Jack Loudon, a little man named Harry Stiles, Anurran Barnard, James Darcy, Barry Keown, and then Kenneth Brana, Killian Murphy,

Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy Roundout the cast, very well-known. Scores from Hans Zimmer. It's an important part of this movie. I'm sure we'll talk about it here. Warner Brothers released the movie on July 21st, 2017. with the exception of the occasional recent history classic, I would say this is the earliest we've come to a movie, aside from your sort of a star is born.

We looked at that right away. $150 million reported budget, $526 million at the box office. It won Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing at the Oscars, had five other nominations, including Picture, Director, Cinematography, Score, production design 92% on Rotten Tomatoes,

which of course we know means nothing. Now, you quoted that? You're holding, like, well, I'm just... Don't care, don't care, now you're quoting it. I'm just trying to stick to the script here, you know? There are no Roger Eber quotes, unfortunately, for this film. I'm just wondering why you guys are quoting Roger Eber as if he's Aristotle.

I mean, if it was Andrew Serras or Paul and Kale, maybe. Well, it's because we have an emotional and intellectual war with our common co-host, Bill Simmons, who... Because you can easily go on Roger Eber.com and find out what he said. Yes, right. That is true. Nevertheless, you know, this is a movie about the dramatic... and true story of the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II in 1940, and it's one of the most intense war films ever made.

Quentin, upon revisiting it, did it feel even more rewatchable to you after that third time you'd seen it? Yeah, well, you know, I had a, like Chris, I had a very interesting experience with it the first couple of times. The first time I saw it was one of those special screenings where there's this thing that happens in Hollywood when Chris Nolan finishes a movie. He has his special screening for directors, and he usually has it at the Universal City Walk, IMAX theater.

It's like at 9 in the morning or something. And literally, everybody from the director's guild is there. You know, you go to see it, and Michael Mann is sitting there, and Walter Hill is over there, and Paul Thomas Anderson is there. And so I watched the film then with all those guys. And now having seen it four times, I don't know what I was thinking the first time. because like you said, I just dealt with the spectacle of it all. I couldn't deal with anything else

but the spectacle of it all. And frankly, I really liked the movie, but the spectacle almost numbed me to the experience. I don't know if I felt anything emotionally because of the spectacle. I was just kind of awed by it, but I don't even know what I was awed by,

frankly, to tell you the truth. Did you find it confusing at all? Because it's obviously told in this three-part style, one week, one day, one hour. Were you able to understand the plotting specifically? Not per se, but I don't even think that first time that I was even noticing that much of a plot. I was actually, I was just going from emotion to emotion, you know, and so there was no confusion as far as that was concerned. I kind of had a good sense of the people we were cutting around to. and there was and like I said

I've seen it since then there's like all this stuff that I didn't get all the stuff that I didn't really understand to the degree that I did after I saw it a few other times but you know it was interesting though that that experience I remember talking to the time my fiance about I go wow it was really

that was really something but I didn't really have anything more to say other than that then we went to the arc like the weekend that the movie opened not to see that we wanted to see the last of the Planet the Eight movies And it's like this one little theater. Every other screen is showing Dunkirk. All right.

Yeah. And I was a little surprised by the Dunkirk fever that was going on in the Arklight lobby for sure. That weekend. I mean, everybody was seeing it. Yeah. Everybody was excited about it. And literally was playing in almost every other theater except for the one showing more of the Planet of the Aves. And, you know, all the people along the bar, everybody was there to see Dunkirk.

go, oh, good for Chris, man. That's pretty cool. Anyway, a few weeks later, I found myself in England. And I had a day that I was just kicking around Piccadilly Circus. And I had just bought, because I was, I'll see a show while I'm here in the West End. And I bought a ticket to see the meatloaf juke jukebox musical that they had going on. Bad at a hill? Yeah, yeah.

Bad out of hell. Yeah. And I had no illusions I was going to. like it, but I'd like me. It loves music, and so I wanted to see the thing. And, but if you've ever been to Piccadilly Circus, there's that one huge theater that's at the end of that big square. Yeah. And so Dunkirk was playing there. And like Dunkirk, you know, Marquis was, you can see it from a mile away. And I was like, huh, maybe I'll, maybe I'll see Dunkirk here. This, England sounds like a really, London sounds like a really good place to see Dunkirk. And I could see this again.

And so I went to the box office and there's like no way I'd be able to get to the meatloaf show by the time this thing was over and I decided, F it, I'll forget the meatloaf show. I'm just going to commit to seeing Dunkirk a second time. So. You scalp the meatloat tickets or did you? No, no, no, I just ate it. And so the thing is, there's a young guy at the box office. And I go, yeah, I'm going to see the, what it was like the five. 50 or something of Dunkirk.

And he goes, oh, good one, good one. You're going to really like it. You're going to really like it. You're going to really like it. You know, and so we sold me the ticket. And then I go to the young gal who's tearing the ticket. And she's maybe 19 or something, you know. And she was, oh, so what are you seeing?

She recognizes me. She's excited that I'm coming to the theater. Oh, what are you seeing? I'm going to see, oh, it's smashing. You'll love it, you know. And then, so I'm already walking in the theater with this really sweet vibe of like, wow, these are like young people. There's a British young people, but they really responding to this movie. They're really liking it.

But it's more than they really like it. They're proud of it. Yeah. Yeah. They're proud of it. They're proud that a British movie about a British event was made. And they're just proud of it. And it was one of the sweetest feelings.

I had had going into a movie in quite a while. And then I felt it with everybody in the audience, everyone in the theater. I had a really, we're all watching this movie together. And there was something about seeing Dunkirk in London that really just kind of tip the scales for me. But even then, even that second time, I was still taking in the spectacle. I still couldn't get past the spectacle. But I appreciated the spectacle more.

I saw how the spectacle worked a little better. I saw how the engines worked, and I appreciated that. It wasn't until that third time where I was gauging it for the top of the 2010s, that I finally could see past a spectacle into the people, into the people that story was about. I didn't lose the spectacle, but I now finally could see the four. I could see through the trees a little bit. Well, it's so interesting that you say that because in a lot of ways, no one is a director without a country, or at least had been, right?

Like, this is by far as most British film. For a British native, it's sort of odd that not a lot of his other work deals with the English national character at all or English history. And his American, American, quote, unquote, films have a degree of otherness to them. Like, they don't necessarily feel like the characters in his movies don't feel like New Yorkers. Or, you know, and I don't think that he even has. Well, he spent some time growing up in the States. Sure, I think that that shows, you know.

But, like, there isn't, there isn't, like, a feeling of, like, the recklessness. or vulnerability that you may like ascribe to like an American character or even American director that you know British but there's British director he doesn't quite feel like a British director either and this is such a love letter to I mean when you watch a Sean of the Dead by Edgar Wright I mean that feels like somebody who grew up in London and like they are talking about they're talking about what they know about layabouts yeah you know it's entrenched all the culture is exactly yeah it's a funny thing because I think that the Dunkirk evacuation is a fascinating thing to look at I think in

part, when what you're saying, it's totally true, which is that in a British theater would make much more sense because that event is so deeply ingrained in the character of the people who live in that country, and it's 80 years old, and yet there's still an awareness of it. In states, I don't think we know very much about that, even though there have been movies made about it or tangentially related to it. It had been a long time

since we'd seen it on screen. And I think that that was more that feeling in the arc light that you guys are both describing was Nolan, the Nolan effect, that he has a kind of, there's an awareness about when he does something. It's a big deal. It's meaningful. And this is the first time he had done something in a while that wasn't science fiction or wasn't in the comic book realm.

And that also was kind of portrayed. It was kind of pitched to us as audience members as an event, as a throwback event that we all needed to see. And it really worked. I mean, so many people went to go see this movie. Chris, your father was British. Yeah. Did you have an awareness of Dunkirk growing up? Well, he was born in 42 and his father was in the RAF.

So there was definitely like talk about it. And just in my family in general, there was. I feel like I grew up with a pretty distinct awareness about World War II, both from my mom's side, because her father was a captain in the Red Cross. And then from my dad's side, I never really knew my grandfather that well, but I'm very familiar with, you know, on the fourth time watching this, you start to notice certain types of behavior that you associate with Britishness. Even the kind of stiff upper lipness and in the face of these kind of really catastrophic conditions,

and conditions in which many people are breaking. The Killian Murphy character is going through that. You get those Brana moments, and you get those moments of actual, like, resolve in the face of, like, really difficult circumstances, which, you know, on much, much smaller scales, I recognized in my dad. You know, I recognize as part of the psychology.

And not always for the best, you know what I mean? But, like, definitely, it was definitely resonant. Gwen, I feel like you challenged us a little bit with Dunker, because maybe this movie is not perfect for all of the categories we have here. Upon reflection, I think that some of these categories are going to work really well, and some of them are not. But can you just talk, maybe the three of us can just talk a little bit about Nolan and time shifting

before we get too deep into them. Because this movie is, it forces you to crane your neck. And it is much more rewarding on second and third watch, I think. Even beyond just the in-theater experience, watching it at home, I thought was really helpful for me and seeing the way the pieces fit together works really well. In general, especially as somebody who knows a lot about time shifting in movies, What do you make of the choice to kind of, I don't know, try for Kate the storytelling? You know, a lot of films that work through cross-cutting, which has always been Nolan's bag.

All right. You know, almost to a degree where you could almost make fun of it, actually, because it's like he just builds up to these big set pieces and he cross-cuts between three different sequences going on at the same time with 360 cameras moving. and then Hans Zimmer are doing a Basil Pesodorus like score. And so it's like, that's the middle of the movie. And then there's 15 minutes of other junk. And then all of a sudden, then he works up another big sequence where he's crock cutting the 360s and the Basil Pesodorus shit going on.

I mean, you could almost, you could parody that almost to a degree. But in Dunkirk, he figured out a way to do that for the entire movie and actually have it work. I think it's one of those things where oftentimes you see a film where the style is about the adrenaline of it. The style is about this immersive experience. And then by the third viewing or even the fourth viewing, you get past the style at a certain point. And you realize, you're seeing the magician's tricks a little bit. I actually think in the case of Dunkirk, it rewards, it rewards his efforts to see it more.

I mean, there's a, there's a point, the fourth time I watched it, watching it last night, knowing I'm coming in here now, it's, by mid-movie, it's like, he can't do it wrong. I mean, it's just every cut to, every moment that he stays with the guy crashing in the water who can't get the, uh, the, uh, the Cotpit open. Collins. Yeah. Yeah, Collins, too. I actually like the fact

that I don't know anybody's name in the movie other than George. I wrote them all down. You're not supposed to, though. You're not supposed to know who that dude is. Who kind of is our lead character. The Scottish guy. There is a general anonymity to everybody

because they are all of the British fleet, basically. I don't know who Kenneth Brada is supposed to be playing. General, what of the general exposition? It's fucking Bane and a plane. It's Bane and a plane. Chris, what about you? I feel like you're all very.

open-hearted to the Nolan style. I've been candidly a little more critical in the past. Yeah, I think that, you know, one of the things that was interesting was when I think I remember having this conversation with you when it came out, which was whether or not this particularly worked for something that was, you know, is a real event. This is a real historical event that took place and whether or not manipulating it like that makes it feel that way. But especially on also the 4-3 watch, and I watched it last night and sinfully watched it on a laptop. with AirPods. But I will say, same effect.

And the same effect, more because of the cutting and the music than it was because of the cinematography and the scope, I think that what happens is, and he's talked about this, is essentially the entire film is a third act. The entire film is the tension you would feel in the last 15 minutes of a movie or the last 30 minutes of a movie sustained throughout because that's what it would have felt like to be there. Yeah, I mean, it has the, it has the, it truly has the effect of, the entire movie is a huge action scene. The entire movie is the trailer to the movie. Yeah. Truly. And it feels like a trailer,

except it actually a trailer that has weight and has depth and that you actually care. One of the things I love about it too is its length. It is one of the briefest of Nolan's movies. And it feels worthy of its runtime in a very specific way. When it's over here like, oh man, I actually would like to go back, even though it's the most harrowing possible sequence you could have.

Well, I actually think that, I actually think that's one of the, things that should be talked about is the idea that my whole feeling is that every movie is a genre movie. Eric Romer movies are genre movies. They're Eric Romer movies. You know, and you can try to make a movie like that, like Claire's knee, if you want. And the big battle movie is a genre that's very well established in cinema, you know,

whether it's the, you know, the phony belloniness of Battle of the Bullion. or if it's the longest day or Waterloo or whatever. But it's a pretty Elephantine genre. Midway. There's a new midway coming out now. I remember the Jack Smith, Jack Smite midway incense around. It was actually incensed around.

It was the second one after earthquake. But the Tor, Tor, Tor, Tor, you know, they were all, you know, they had big dusty cast and they were like three hours long. And the whole idea, whether they got it right or wrong, was to kind of tell you what happened. That was the story of the battle, the story that led to the battle.

They were dramatized Wikipedia movies in a way. They kind of were. They kind of were. It was, yeah, and right enough, all right? Some of them are good. Yeah. Now, actually, I think, frankly, the only one that actually goes to the level of art

would be Alexander Neski. And maybe if you really like the Russian, guy who did war in peace. Maybe you might think of his version of war in peace, or think of his version of Waterloo as an example. Or maybe you could throw in there Zulu or Zulu Dawn. But, yeah, at the end of the day, you still go back to Alexander Nesky

when it comes to an artist doing it and kind of blowing you away. But with Dunkirk, it seems like he made it for reasons different than anybody's ever made a big battle movie before. It is far less important to him to tell you the story of exactly what happened. and Dunkirk. And I think the reason he wanted to do it is less important than the story.

He figured out how he figured out how to make a movie about it. And it's not a Wikipedia thing. It's not a history lesson, even though some history has learned. It was he figured out how to tell this as a movie. And he tested himself. He didn't let it get big. He didn't let it get bloated. He kept it, he kept it a movie.

And then he ends up telling you the story. of Dunkirk. But that's a secondary thing to the sensory experience of watching Dunkirk. I think also one of the things that a movie like this does is rather than feel like you've learned everything, you want to learn more after you've seen the movie, which is also really powerful. Yeah, it's the one that I was thinking about, because I was going to ask you, Quentin, about how you saw this in the sort of tradition and legacy of World War II movies, which is honestly, those are probably like my favorite kind of movies to World War II movies. And this one, I kind of like relate it to a bridge too far

because it's also about a failure, essentially, but it's about finding some sort of hope in the failure and averting total and complete catastrophe. But that is a Wikipedia. It's like a three and a half hour. Painstaking detail of, okay, they took the bridge, then they lost the bridge, then they took the bridge back. Well, William Goldman even mentions about how the fact that the most

heroic moment that he could find in the entire story of a bridge of a bridge too far. He couldn't put in the movie because it didn't make movie sense. Yes. Which is not Robert Redford going across the channel. All right. It's, it's

because he's going across the channel. It's the fog, then the fog lifts. And then they get shrafted. He could use that in the movie. But the bravest thing is the guys who have to come after him. Yeah. And there is no fog. And that was the bravest thing that happened during that entire

battle and he couldn't use it because well after redford did it who wants to see the other shit to do i got other shit to do and i feel like this movie i feel like no one's movie resets the calculus on what you can do in a big battle war movie because it's it's a loss it's a movie about a loss well i mean one of the things about it i mean in its own way it's very britishness is what makes it so special especially this kind of britishness attached to this kind of adrenaline which is not usual yeah right no coward didn't do this yeah But yeah, and a lot of the British war films seem very, very dusty now. Tunes of Glory, the Cruel Sea.

Ice Cold and Alex is still has a lot of juice. But a lot of the more classic British movies in which we serve seem really dusty compared to the American ones, which seem, you know, have a little bit more juice. Bare knuckled. But one of the things, though, is the national identity of the, battle movie. Like, for instance, well, one of the battle movies, it's not even a battle per se, but I was always a big fan of was Renee Clements, is Paris Burning. And that definitely has a real French kind of quality to it. And it tells the entire story of the resistance in I think a

really, really cool way, especially with great black and white. But Dunkirk, you know, there's a long been said that, and Dunkirk is the example that they use, is the British romantic their defeats even much. The British romanticized their feats the way other countries romanticized their triumphs. And that very British quality of doing that in this

tale in particular, I think, is one of its defining qualities. Yeah. In the last 600 years is the story of England becoming increasingly less powerful in the world. So it's only appropriate that they feel that way. But they're probably the definitive line not to jump on best quote because it's like

like we were saying, it's hardly a best quote, but it's the guy saying, well done. That's kind of the theme of the movie is, you know, well, we just survived, but it's like, well, that's all you have to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we do some categories? Yeah, let's see it. Before we move on, let's take a quick break.

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Learn more at Americanexpress.com slash green from Amex. Terms apply. Most rewatchable scene. Now, this is kind of a pickle for us because of the hard cutting that you're talking about, all the cross-cutting. We can redefine this if we want to, but I'm going to try to stick to individuated moments. Yeah, but let's talk about what we were talking about before we started. Okay.

You know, like, so that was a question we had about like opening, about, about, about best scene where it's like, and I agree with you. I think we should keep to the movie, but it's a question that needs to be asked because of his stretching time out and because of his slicing and dicing these moments. So it's like Tom Hardy losing running out of gas. That travels for about almost 20 minutes of the movie. So are you going to edit that out of the movie and just make that. its own section or do you deal with the three different sections he has it in? We three are in charge of this podcast. So if we want to set the rules anew, we can do that.

I think it does make, I mean, it's tricky because Nolan captures great moments frequently in the movie. That's not exactly a scene. A lot of times when we talk about what we define as a scene, it's two characters in a room and they're having an extraordinary conversation and then something wild happened. Someone gets shot or someone falls off a building or someone just says something clever. this is a quieter movie, even though it's one of the loudest movies you could ever see. Yeah, I broke it down into the sections that they appeared in the movie.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I'll kick a couple of your way and you guys tell me what's missing. I think undoubtedly one of my absolute favorite opening scenes in the last 10 years, the leaflets falling from the sky as the Germans are pressing down on their backs is just incredible. But I think, and I think it goes all the way to the beach. Yes.

The opening, the first credit, the mole. Absolutely. That is that extended period. And that's one of the most extended periods of the movie, I feel like, before the cross-cutting happens. And before we realize we're in a different kind of movie, remember that feeling we had when we first saw him. We were like, oh, he's going somewhere else. And what does one day mean versus one week? It's confusing.

But that's interesting. And I didn't actually, to be completely honest, know that the mole was the name for a jetty like that. So I was like, is there a spy? Like I actually was like, oh, it's like a mole hunt, you know, which it actually is in some ways. I also have saving Killian Murphy. Hey, can you swim it? You get closer. Can't risk it.

Hang on. Discovering him, sitting on a plane, and we realize that the movie is, it's unclear what time frame we're operating in, but pulling him off and then realizing that we have a character, one, who's a very recognizable actor, two, someone going through PTSD instantaneously that changes the biochemistry of all the people on that boat. Three, Commander Bolton sees 800 chips in the distance. The triumful. The Armada showing up? Yes.

Okay. Wow. Yes. That's incredible. And then I'm going to just put four. I'm sure we have many more, but Farrier sets his plane ablaze at the end of the movie. Hardy watches it burn and then is taken off. So that's my four.

You guys, what else? What else is on your list, Quinn? Well, it's like for the whole first 45 minutes, okay? If you're just going to, okay, this. You're breaking the rules here. No. No, no, I'm not breaking the rules. I'm saying, okay, you got the first 45 minutes.

So it's just, where do you, where does this? sequence start and where does that sequence begin? All right. So, okay, so if it starts with the leaflets and what's, and the guy who shall not be named, who is apparently our lead. Fiona Whitehead?

Yeah. Is that his name? Yeah. Okay. Got it awesome. But like, look, is he ever called by his name in the movie? I don't think so. I don't think so. He's Tommy, but I don't know when he's gets, does anybody ever say Tommy? Who the hell? He doesn't meet anybody who knows him. That's true. It's true. It's amazing to be a stranger and a

Strangeland, but be surrounded by thousands of people that look just like you. Yeah. I mean, but, I mean, like, not to get too off, but, I mean, that's also one of my favorite things about, like, the movie. I mean, one of the things, we were talking about my review for Escape from Alcatraz. And there's a crafting of Clint Eastwood's character, Frank Morris, in that movie that's really, really fascinating. And you could actually kind of feel like Eastwood and Siegel working together, like,

how long can we go before Frank says? anything. Yeah. it's not self-conscious the way it is with McQueen and Le Mans. All right. It actually seems like, no, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's like, how long can we go before he says anything and then, how long can we go before he says this next thing. Mm-hmm. And I feel that that that is, uh, a quality that he brings to this kid that you end, who ends up becoming you in the course of the film. And it's also very interesting about the fact that the kid's not necessarily heroic. Tom Hardy is heroic as fuck all.

Yes. All right. But the kid's not necessarily heroic. He is just trying to survive. He's trying to take a dump. Like that's like he's like scared shitless, literally. Yes. And that's one of the things that makes that opening scene brings it around.

Yes. Is, oh, the whole scene has been him trying to take that dump. Yes. Which also a classic thing. that I just didn't get the first two times I watched. And then the third time I was like, oh my God, he's trying to take a shit

in the first two minutes of the movie, which is not something you expect in a Christopher Nolan war movie. But it's, I mean, it is one of those things when you're watching a war film. You miss that director's cut of inception where the video was just like,

I got to go to the bathroom. I mean, honestly, I would appreciate more scenes like that. But you know, but like I said for the first 45 minutes, okay, so if it ends with him getting to the beach and seeing the mole credit, right after he meets the French guy for the first time, well, then the next thing

would be the air attack the air attack on the beach with one of the greatest, maybe the greatest shot in war movie history. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, them dropping the bombs and just with him in the foreground.

Help us understand how that happened. That's one of those, that is one of those rare shots where when you see it, you're like, I don't get how he did that. There are multiple shots in this movie that I was going to say, like, please help me understand

how anybody can make that shot happen. Like dog fight shots where the camera is still. And I'm just like, I don't get it. How did this happen? Well, it's like, I think, you know, well, one of the things about Nolan is, you know, if he can do it in real life, he's going to do it. If he can do it practically where all he has to do is send it to the lab afterwards.

That's how he's going to do it. That's what makes it a good shot as opposed to a paint set that you can paint anything you want. So things might have been sweetened later, but I would imagine that, you know, he put the kid in the ground. He created his frame and then created a series of. explosions. That got closer and closer and closer. And then he probably, and my guess is he probably had a dummy for the guy that explodes, but he animated it later after the fact. That was my feeling. It would be hard to do this without just a little bit of, a little sprinkle of touching at the end. But it's, I mean, it's, it is incredibly effective. But the thing that, you know, but the thing that's, and, and, and he has about,

he has about four or five in this movie. And, you know, just of, of great shots of a, of artist of a great director, artist shot whether it's like when the ships are tilting and the weird angle that he gets that shows the ship tilting and the water rushing in. I mean, he just keeps doing that all the time. He keeps making it an

artistic experience. Even in something like Saving Private Ryan, all the great shots that blow you away are all in that opening section, which is just amazing. The siege. But I don't remember any of the shots afterwards. They're just kind of telling the story

from that point on. My favorite part about anything involving Tommy, and I noticed it this last time, is that it's, and it's funny that you guys mentioned Alcatraz, is it's a series of jail breaks, and yet every time he gets out,

he winds up at another prison. It's like, he escapes something, and he's like, I'm on the boat, and now I have my jam sandwich and my tea, but fuck, now we're, this boat's going down. Yeah. And he knows it's going to go down

because the French kid is outside, and the French kid doesn't want to be stuck inside, even though he's also probably, like, nervous that he's going to get caught. So you've got the opening scene, you've got the, the bombs on the beach, you've got the stretcher scene. And to some degree, I would even say, especially for a rewatch,

the first shot of George running up to the boat, gets you because you know George is going to die. What are you doing? You do know where we're going. France. Into war, George. I'll be useful, sir. And a rewatch, when you see him with that pug, you know, kind of pug beautiful,

face that he has. He'll be useful. He'll come running up. It grabs you very poignantly. It's heartbreaking and it's a sliding doors thing. And the other thing, too, Chris, but what you're saying, one of the things that was so effective for me, rewatching and thinking about the movie, which is, I would not, maybe not something I was doing the first couple of times I was

watching it, but could there ever be a movie that is more vast and more enclosed at the same time? You've got the vastness of the ocean, and then the beach and a city on lockdown. Those are wide open spaces. And then everything that is happening is Ryleance on a boat.

ferrier inside the cockpit being trapped inside of a ship that is sinking slowly being trapped on the mole which is very narrow and tense like that is a spatial strategy that is so effective and they reinforce that with like Brannis saying we're so fucking close to whole like I can see Dover

you know they know that they're close and the hopelessness of just well every big ship that comes is just going to get bombed and the guys are going to drown yes it's like there was only one solution and they found the one solution Which is 800 boats from England.

Chris, what about you? Most rewatchable scenes? Anything you want to add? The first dog fight. Yeah. So when that's fairier saying, I'm on him. Yep. You know, he's on me.

I'm on him. He's on me. I'm on him. That's my best quote. And he comes in and the three of them, and that is really you get to like pretty primal like I'm playing with toys feeling. When you see that, you're just like, I'm now, I'm just six again. Yeah.

And I was going to mention the scene. of fire scene, which is not, there's a bunch of scenes in this one. Tough rewatch. Not call like, hey, honey, can we just hang out for a second? Because the channel's about to light on fire. I just want to see that before dinner. But that whole sequence of the guys on the Moonstone being like, we have to get out of this. And then all the stuff he does with POV of Hardy, seeing like the bomber going towards

them and knowing he's running out of gas and re-engaging. And just that also happens in a very confusing temporal. way, but that fucking scene is unreal how good that is, man. Yeah, and I clocked it as the first real dog fight that happens. And it ends officially when the flight commander

a plane gets nicked. Yes. And he doesn't go down yet. Yes. But he's in trouble. Yes. He knows he's going to have to land at some point. What other scenes? Quentin, you got more? The sinking of the ship. Yeah. Tomato! The sinking of the ship is amazing. Has to be.

The shot of the torpedo, too. There's not a lot of like, because usually they get caught unaware with whatever's happening. I think there's a lot of like the plane flies out of the sun or that's when that's the one time, I think, because they're going from quote-unquote Gibson's perspective and there's the guy who sees torpedo

and you see it coming like jaws towards them. Yeah. So what's your vote? Most rewatchable scene? I would have to say for the emotion of it all, It has to be the British soldiers seeing the armada. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's good. I would agree with him. I would probably throw a vote on to the stretcher run. And one of the things about the stretcher run, that's where the score is truly introduced. That's when the score,

that's when Hans Zimmer's score kicks in and you realize that this is how they're going to tell the movie from that point on. Check your pulse when that scene ends. Because it's going to be racing. Because like when that kicks in, exactly right. It's like that hole and there's several tracking shots and that they run

across the one board of the of the mole. Remember like they're like make a run at it? And then like they get there and they're like get the fuck off the boat, you know, it's... And also it's and also what's really great about it too is like they're doing it for mercenary reasons. Yeah. Totally. They're trying to get on that damn boat. F the guy

in the stretcher. He might even be dead, probably. It's heartbreaking when they get booted off and you know they're going to get booted off but they're very straightforwardly booted off. I'm going with the leaflet scene just because I've never seen something so peaceful and yet so terrifying at the same time. Look, if I was going to if I'm going for I guess

my favorite scene in the movie, I guess it would be the opening scene. All right, but I think you're You want to rewatch the Armada. No, but yeah, but yeah, I, you know, it's the emotional payoff of everything you've been watching. So I, you know, if that scene doesn't work, then the whole movie does it. It's one of those, you know, I mean, I can imagine, like, him walking into a theater just to watch that scene.

You see how the audience reacts to it. And truthly, it was one of those moments watching that in London. When the Armada happens and you see the different little boats and then the music for the first time, actually, you know, becomes like movie music. What do you see? Home. As opposed to this driving theme, because more like a regular movie music. You know, I looked around the theater. and like all the Brits were crying.

Yeah. Every single one. And they all were just wiping tears out of their eyes. It's amazing. And that's why you cast Brana too, I feel like, is for that payoff there. But there's also something else that's kind of really wonderful. The neat thing about the theme that gets mentioned. And I think this would probably apply to every country making a warm movie.

But there's something that seems so perfectly British about it is old men coming to take their boys home. So it's boys who are fighting this war. It's boys. And in this case, you have old men getting their fishing boats and their luxury, their luxury little yachts and their, you know, their little dinky things. And, you know, we're going to go get our boys back. We're going to get our lads. Yeah. And there's something just, and, you know, that could be in Italy.

That could be in America. But there's something so perfect about it being British. And even that final moment at the end when the blind man is handing out the blankets and the food and it's the same sort of pride. There's a national pride that is sincere. Yeah, it was also self-preservation because they knew this was happening, what was it? How many miles away was it basically from England to France? I mean, it's, they knew this is down. I think it's 29 miles swim.

So it's like down the street. They can't afford. If the army gets vanquished, they are next. That's what Rylans is saying on the boat. What's age the best? Now, these categories are going to be a little bit tricky because about two years and four months have passed. But I think that there are a couple of things that we can point. out. As I've said, I've been a little bit tough on Chris Nolan in the past. And I think structure

is an interesting conversation with all of his movies. But the structure of this movie, and Quinn, you kind of already summed it up in describing it at the top. But the structure of this movie is so brilliant. And it still kind of eludes me its construction. I can't quite see how it came together. And it works so well on the rewatch that I would encourage people, if they haven't seen this in two years, just watch it tonight. Watch it. You will be rewarded. for it, literally. Yeah, I mean, it seems like, I don't think he makes it,

I don't think he puts a foot wrong in the whole first half of the movie, but by the time you get to the middle of the movie, then it's a symphony. Yeah. I mean, it's just nothing, nothing doesn't work. Everything works. You know, when he cuts back to somebody for 30 seconds,

those are the right 30 seconds. I mean, the film absolutely deserved to win the Oscar for Best Editing, but I think it's a crime. It didn't win for best editing. score. I mean, it's probably the score of one movie particular that you could define

the decade by. The next thing on my list is Hans Zimmer's score. Some data points on that. The ticking sounds that serve as a crucial theme in the score were recorded by Hans Zimmer from one of Christopher Nolan's own pocket watches. He then put the sounds into synthesizers and altered them in different ways for the soundtrack. The clock in the soundtrack

doesn't stop ticking during the whole movie until Alex and Tommy are sitting safely on the train, which is a great touch. Yes. Yes. Hans Zimmer obviously is a huge part of Nolan's legacy as a filmmaker. They have an amazing collaboration. It's very well known at this point. I think the Dark Night theme similarly and the Inception theme similarly are burned into the brains of movie obsessives.

This one, though, is something where, and maybe you can help us understand this a little bit. Well, to me, this has that Leoni Morricone, you can't imagine one without the other. In fact, they don't exist without the other. It's just a shot of a guy in a desert if it's not Boricone. Yeah. It's like, yeah. And all building to the bull ring, you know, like now the whole movie lays out.

You know, now it's, he has a different structure than that. And it's more pronounced all the way through. But just the way that they just kind of work, it's just, they're part of each other in a way that's just different than a theme. There's something also about it where it's, it's, I don't often think of it for most of the film as music. I think of it as sound, you know. And so it becomes this thing that is as responsible for your emotional reaction to what you're seeing as the cutting and the cinematography and the performances. And in a movie that's absent of a lot of, you know, pretty much dialogue, this is sort of filling in a part of the palate that he's not using.

So here's one thing I have for what's age the best. And I'm wondering if you both have an answer for this since you both are such scholars. I think of this as the first Hitchcock movie masquerade. as a war movie. And Nolan was pretty straightforward about that. There are not a lot of movies that are, it's almost, it's not a puzzle movie, but it's a sort of like,

it's almost like a who done it or who's going to, how do we figure out what's happening, not just in the structure of the movie, but will they survive? Will these boats arrive? What exactly is the plan for every character in the movie? Has that ever been done? Because it seemed actually oddly novel to me

as I thought about it through that lens. Matt, the way you're, well, the way you're describing it. I hadn't thought about it that way before, but I'll buy what you're, I'll buy what you're describing. I mean, oddly enough that when it comes to his structure of cutting around, I actually think the closest thing to something that predates it, and you're going to laugh a little bit, but I can actually see him thinking this.

I think it bears a very close relationship to it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. All right. Once the character is in a mad mad mad world, once they just all break off on there, every man for himself. And it's now just the mad chase going on. That's when the movie really lets loose. And I can definitely see Chris Nolan being a big fan of that movie.

Can you? Yeah, absolutely. Really? I would love to watch him watch it. That seems like a strange image. No, I could see the bigness of it all, the size of the frame alone. That's true. But also he likes big elephant-tine kind of things.

And he's the right kind of age, and he would have grown up with it. Where that would have, you know, that was before my time. But they kept re-releasing it every three years in the 70s. So I saw it. The theater was about four or five different times when I was, you know, before 12, before I was 12. But the thing about it, though, is the cross-cutting

between the different characters and it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world is done in. in a similar way that the cross-cutting is done here and also in it's a mad mad world it's the theme that keeps holding it together that earnest gold theme keeps the the cross-cutting together keeps it in your mind and to the even to the degree that there's sequences that are similar all right tom's harry stuck up stuck up on the plane is very reminiscent of buddy how uh uh buddy hackett and mickey runy stuck in a plane that they can't land same thing with tom same with tom hardy when the kid who should not be named,

when he fucks up and finds himself stuck in the boat, that's similar to Sid Caesar and E.D. Adams getting stuck in the basement. And they can't get out. I must say, I was not expecting this comparison. But it's legitimate. I watched that movie all the time growing up, so I'm familiar with it. And it is kind of similar. And it's also kind of a drag when they get stuck in the boat.

Like, wait, it's kind of a drag when Sid Caesar and E. Edie Adams get stuck in that basement. But they're both also convergence movies. At the end, everything kind of comes together and you understand it a lot more clearly. Absolutely. That's a sub-genre. Yeah. And Tom Hardy sailing through that sky without any gas, he's kind of the big W.

That's good. Other things that have aged well. Chris, you already mentioned the sound design. I think that's separate from Zimmer, but also in close relationship. It's just a movie that that particular sound of, I guess it's like, is it the Stuka fighter? Flying over their heads is just so. so visceral and evocative. I just wrote down on the words Mark Rylance.

I think Mark Rylance is kind of an interesting actor to talk about. I don't know a lot about the British theater. Chris, for whatever reason, 10 years ago, was all in on Mark Rylance. I can't remember. He was like, this is the guy. And I don't know what he was talking about. British TV show, but he's obviously in Wolf Hall, which I think is the adaptation of the Hillary Mantel novel.

And I think that's where Nolan sort of seized on him. He's just great in everything he's in no matter what it is. In England, he's specialized in playing the female roles in Shakespeare production. Yeah. Yeah, and he's obviously a very versatile actor, but he has a kind of stillness in this movie that really serves him because of what you're talking about. That's sort of that old man who is going to go out onto the sea and save his sons. What else is age the best? Well, frankly, I would say it's, I think, the concept of Chris Nolan's virtuosity.

You know, it's like this, to me, I can understand if you guys think that, dark, Dark Knight is his apex mountain. To me, this is his apex mountain because this is where he really dealed himself in, aside from Gotham City, and aside from science fiction, and aside from the San Diego Comic-Con crowd, all right, to being a great filmmaker and dealing with a big subject and brought Warner Brothers along with him. And in the exact way Stanley Kubrick would have done, bringing Warner Brothers along with them.

You know, it's like, you know, and they backed him a hundred percent. And yeah, if you look at Interstellar, this film, and then Tenet, which is his movie coming out next year, you've got three wholly original stories from big studios with big budgets that people are excited about and were eager to see. They were eager to see Interstellar. They were very eager to see Dunkirk, which is kind of impressive, the amount of people he got to see this. And then Tenet will see what we get. Chris, what else is age the best? I mean, I agree with him. It's hard to imagine this movie being imman.

imitated or topped. It does feel like it could only have been made by him and it could only have been told in the way that he told it. If you try to rearrange the movie in your head and say, okay, what would happen if you would cut it more in a more linear fashion? It actually doesn't hold together as a gripping story the way it does, you know, the way he tells it. So you wind up really having something that's a special kind of storytelling. It's only could have been done by him. As far as other stuff that I feel like ages is the best, I thought that we've made, we've had a lot of fun at the expense of no-name characters here. But really, really, really good job.

Randow Britt. With the faces. Yeah. The faces feel like guys in photographs of British soldiers in 1940, you know, and you just, you buy it. Did they all look like Harry Styles? No, I don't know, but Harry Styles is covered in oil, you know what I mean? And yelling at guys to bring them a paper, you know?

Before we started this podcast, we were talking with our producer about why Harry Stiles is in the movie. And we're going to talk about him a little bit more. But which one is he in the movie? He's the one who's a prick towards the end. He's just like, oh, we're going to be spit on on the street. Oh, he's the one who's calling out the French guy. He's most aggressive to the French guy, exactly.

And he's good. He just so happens to be one of the five biggest pop stars in the world. But nevertheless, what's age the worst? I don't, you know, this is a tough one. We just spent 40 minutes praising this movie. Here's what I wrote down. The time-shifting gimmick in general, is this just something that is going to be in every Christopher Nolan movie now? And is that, will we look back upon that as a stylistic hallmark or a crutch?

That is what I think people would use to criticize it. The first few times I saw the movie, I didn't even realize they were going back in time. I didn't realize that I was seeing the medical ship bomb three different times. Yeah. didn't realize that. This time I actually, oh, I actually, in the, when they're in the airplanes together, you actually repeat dialogue. But I didn't catch that. I don't think I got through the first three times I saw them. No, I don't think so either. And so I had a little bit of, well, wait a minute. They sank the ship in us at night and now we cut back to Mark Rylance and it's during the day.

What's up with that? But then I realized that they were going back in time. And if it took me the fourth time to actually realize that, that seems pretty seamless filmmaking because it's never a question. It was never a question I had. I wasn't paying attention to the light day versus night stuff. The first three times I saw the film. This time, I'm really thinking about it. And I go, wait a minute. I thought this was all, I thought this was a little bit more linear. We're cross-cutting, but I thought it's more linear what's going on with here. But then he's, he answered my questions. He solved it for me as the movie went on. So let me ask you both this. I just saw a new movie coming out. I won't say what the movie is that similarly plays with storytelling shape and the flashback approach to telling a different story that is kind of familiar to us.

Do you guys like to be confused or disoriented when you're walking into a movie and saying like I don't really get like I don't really I can't put my finger on it but I can't figure out what this is because you guys watch so many movies that I think you tend to sent you I have the shape. I have a I have a specific answer for that. All right. the answer is I love it when I'm in good hands and if I'm confused and I'm not in good hands

then you've broken the spell and I feel your movie is just well define that what is what is good hands does that mean when you know who the filmmaker is going in or is it when you get to the end of the movie no I it is it could be a first time filmmaker

but I feel intention I feel that there was an author involved here. And I never asked those questions in a book. I mean, I might ask those questions in a book, but the author has the right in a book to tell me the story in any form in any fashion that they want to. And then it's their job to take care of it eventually. And when I feel I'm in the hands of an author who is doing this on purpose, and I don't need to know this, and I don't need to know that. And, you know, and I've, and I'm constantly withholding information from my audiences. If I don't want you to know it, I don't want you to fucking know it. And, and I'm always

asking you to answer the question yourself. And, you know, example is, if you think Cliff Booth killed his wife, well, you're watching one movie. Right. And if you think it's just a tragic accident that happened and he's had to live with this black stain on him, well, now you're watching a whole other movie. And that's up to, that's up to you guys to decide. You know, You know, is Chris Manix the sheriff of Red Rock or is he not? Depending on what they answer to that question is, those are two different movies you just watch. What about you? I don't think we don't have anything like that in this.

No, no, but there is... Well, so here's the thing. There are things that happen that we can project into the future in the movie, too, that we don't know. And maybe in unanswerable questions, we'll get into some of that. Like, did the English win the war? Did they, though? I would say that... You mentioned authors, and the first thing that jumped into my mind was Ian McEwen, who wrote this novel.

called Atonement in which Dunkirk figures very heavily and Joe Wright made a film of the movie that also has a pretty amazing sequence set during Dunkirk. Without giving too much away for anybody who happens to want to read Atonement, there is a there's a twist in Atonement that takes place very late in the book that I remember just my wife was reading the book and I remember her actually throwing the book across the room because she was so shocked and upset by it. So that's one way of kind of keeping people in the dark is to set them up for some sort of shock or emotional manipulation. I don't ever think that

Nolan does that, which is not to say that one is better than the other, but I don't think Nolan does the emotional manipulation part, because if you did, you would really play up George, right? You can go rewatch it, and you know that he's going to die, and it's very sad, and it's sad to hear his dialogue knowing what's going to happen to him. But he never

reverses the clock on George so that we feel even worse while we're watching the movie that he suffers this really tragic accident while he could have died any other number of ways. He gets into a shoving match with another British shoulder. So I think that that's the thing. I personally love being confused,

but usually because I don't know what people are talking about. Because I tend to really respond to, you know, very jargon-filled scripts that are about a profession that I only sort of tangentially understand. That's one of the reasons why I love crime movies and cop movies and all sorts of things like that because I love kind of trying to piece together language. But what you're doing in...

Big stockbroker movie. I love all three stockbooker movies. No, but I know what you mean because, like, for instance, one of the things that I really like about, I love this in films, like something like, one of the reasons I like Bull Durham is because they take you so deep inside of minor league baseball and then all the jargon like they're going to the show and you learn what that means. Incredible stuff. By the time the movie's over it, you actually feel like you're a little bit of an expert

on minor league baseball in a way that you weren't before you walk. in the theater. Right. Because you just, you know, because, again, you're in good hands. You know Ron Shelton knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to, when it comes to this middle of you.

And so the language of inception, at least in terms of its dialogue, is not particularly confusing. I mean, even the dog fighting scenes, you have a pretty good idea. He's going to come out of the sun. This guy's like, I'm blind to this guy. Please come help me.

But the understanding time is what you're confused about. And so it's a really interesting different sensation, even though it's one I really crave. Well, we also learned that there is a second definition for mole, which was helpful. Or third, I guess, if you're being specific. But then also it's like, you know, frankly, it doesn't matter if it's three days or a week or anything like that. You're just trying to get the boys off the island. Yep, that's true.

And at the end of the day, that's all that you emotionally have to focus on. And I feel like a lot of people who saw this movie probably just walked away with that takeaway. Yeah. They didn't say, they didn't say, it's time for me to record a rewatchables and to talk about how all of these stories fit together. They thought they got off the island and they were saved. But like and just, you know, having just seen Adast, how you said, Ad Astra. Ad Astra. Okay.

You know, in the whole second half of the movie, I don't know why anything is happening. I don't know. You know, I don't know the science of Pluto? Yeah, well, they just, you know, we're just supposed to agree with them about everything that they say. But I don't know why this is working and why that's working. and why a mutiny on the ship that happened 15 years ago is now sending surges that have killed 40,000 people, we just go with it because they tell you that's what's happening. And, you know, now what you respond to in that movie is, you know,

they took the entire structure from Apocalypse Now. We have, Chris and I have discussed. I mean, exactly. Yes. Down to, you know, Tom and Lee Jones' little interviews. Even the photos of him are very similar to the photos of Kurtz. Of the dossier of Brando. You know, not anywhere near as good, all right, the voiceover.

All right. But the voiceover is like Willard's voiceover throughout the whole thing. I would even say even the magnificent chase scene. Yeah. All right. It's similar to the kind of things that you happen in Apocalypse now before they get. Even to the point of Brad Pitt even saying, hey, we can, hey, we're not supposed to stop. My mission takes presidents over this.

Yes. Extraordinary survival while under attack from pirates. Like there are a lot of similarities. But the point being, though, is, you know, I saw it with my wife. And I enjoyed watching the movie. It was a very pretty movie. And I had a really good time at the movie theater. And I loved Brad in it.

And she liked it more than I did. And then when she asked me about it, I go, well, I don't understand why this is happening. I didn't understand why that is happening. I guess I'm just, I'm supposed to just go along with this. Well, he doesn't tell us anything about really what's truly going on in Dunkirk. And I always have a sense of what's happening. It's very true. It's an amazing accomplishment in that specific respect.

And I say, in particular up with those guys from the airplane. That's where really, that's where it really. Yes. Yeah, we don't know. And that's the thing is the one thing we do learn, actually, that's a great point, is that there is this anxiety and this frustration from the men on the beach about the lack of bombers. That the RAF are not there and they're not helping. them when in fact they are trying and this is it's a tricky business flying an airplane around and trying to kill people

and they're they're sort of frustrated because they just want to get free and get safe and there's a withholding of the fact that not everyone knows that well i actually think that there's i mean one of the things that's really interesting one of the actual storytelling things that's actually done in the movie that's not just about survival or defense or rescue because that's those are the three things we're dealing with survival defense and rescue with who we're cutting around with. The one type of true genuine storytelling is when the officers are talking towards the beginning and they're going to have to shit can the French. Yeah.

And it's against everything that the British hold themselves up to be. But we need our army back. I mean, it's just this is not the time to worry about niceties like that. we need our boys back. Nothing is more important than that. And they sell you their moral quandary. For sure. And France is forced to sacrifice and falls because of this.

And England escapes and eludes capture or destruction. And because of that, the war continues. It is the highest stakes you could possibly have in the movies. And there's lots of little negotiations that happen in the movie like that. They even talk about like one stretcher takes up the room of seven standing men. That's right. And they're kind of, they're obviously debating. like, what do we do with our wounded here?

Because we're going to lose the army if we make this into a medical rescue mission. Yeah, exactly. And they're obviously not bombing medical boats, so they're in trouble. They're like, oh, I see that flag. You guys are good. Casting what ifs, this is the first time this has ever happened,

but I did not see one. Did you guys see any casting what ifs here? No, I mean, I saw, I don't want to step on internet research, but is Michael Cain's voice in this movie? It is in this movie. Okay. Michael Cain is very briefly,

I think he's in the airplane. I have it listed here. There's just in, here's the thing. The new movies have so much goddamn research. And here's why. I'm curious to ask you about this too. There's so much reporting around movies now. And there's so much information trading.

And there's so many outlets. It's not like if we did Butch Cassidy, you know, there's like five magazines. And there's only so much that can be printed about any one movie. Or you can just read the William Goldman thing about the guy who wrote. Yeah. That's straight from the horse's mouth. This movie, the half-ass internet, research, it's

10 pages long. I mean, it would be boring for me to sit here and read you guys some of this stuff. I mean, there's tons of stuff about the authentic nature of the costumes and the spitfires and, you know, these,

replicas that were flown, these antique spitfires that were flown in from France. I'll read a couple of things. And then if you want to interject, feel free. So the first breakthrough, the idea to make a movie

about Dunkirk had come to Dolan about 20 years earlier during the mid-1990s while on a boat trip with Emma Thomas, his soon-to-be wife and producing partner. They were sailing across the channel towards Dunderkirk, the same route thousands of

British fishing and pleasure ships took in May 1940. It's part of a civilian operation to evacuate the bulk of the British Army trapped on the French coast. When they ran into rough weather, the simple crossing ended up taking 19 harrowing hours. Just to get across it in whatever this year was, 1999, probably something like that. So it just gives you a little bit of insight into what Rylance's character is even dealing with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not an easy journey that these guys were taking to save people.

The filmmakers told studio executives that they wanted to make the film without a lot of stars. Kenneth Brana has a small role. Mark Rylance has a small role. Hardy, Killian Murphy, but many of the film's media's parts were cast with rookie actors intentionally. Another big chunk went to reconstructing the mole, the half-mile-long pier where British soldiers lined up for evacuation. Only a small piece of it remained at Dunkirk, but based on original blueprints, the production was able to rebuild it at about 900 feet at a cost of $900,000. Here are the movies that Nolan cited that inspired him to make this movie. This is a pretty good list.

Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Med World. A number one. She cited a bunch of silent movies, which I think makes sense, given the sparsity of the script. Greed from 1924, intolerance, love struggle throughout the ages, from 1916, Sunrise, 1927. Those are three of the most celebrated and classic silent films of all time. And then he said, I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes,

the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged, and how the cameras capture at the views used. Nolan also studied a man escaped, pickpocket, saving Private Ryan, which we mentioned, and the wages of fear to dissect the process of creating suspense through details. I think it was, Alien was also mentioned as one that you watched. I could see that. Yeah, because the second half of alien is essentially silent, or not silent, but no dialogue, yeah. Do you think Dunkirk would be better if it culminated in a chestburster?

If it was part of the alien expanded universe, yeah, if Scarrett just came back. A lot of technical challenges here. Do you think about that stuff when you're watching a movie like this? Like, this seems hard. Yeah, but not not. it in a way that it takes me out in a way that it actually just, it gratifies me. You know, so like, you know, it's that stretch of beach. It's all those guys on that stretch of beach.

You know, that, that's his, you know, that's his Gettysburg. Yeah. And the film is, is that stretch of beast. And, and it's, it's amazing. It's, it's fantastic. And I'm, and I'm kind of awed every time I'm there. So Nolan focused on the realism of every aspect for many of the cockpit shots. He had a two-seat plane rigged so that the front canopy and cockpit looked like

a real spitfire, but with non-functioning flying controls. And with the actual pilot flying the plane from the rear cockpit so that the actor could play the pilot as the plane actually flew, he also mounted front and rear-facing cameras on a reconditioned spitfire. In addition, he had cameramen floating in the water with the actors. I don't understand, similarly the oil catching on fire in the water is one of those like, I don't know how, how did they do this? This seems terribly unsafe for all people involved. There's so much here. There's a couple of shots of the dog fighting.

There's one, I think I mentioned it was, it's just static. I don't understand how the camera's not moving. Is that like an IMAX thing? Like that's so big that you can actually make it so that doesn't jitter, but it is, it's just mind-blowing. You just see the entire horizon in static.

Dawson, who is Mark Rylance's character, is closely based on Charles Lightholer, second officer of RMS Titanic, who took his yacht sundowner to Dunkirk at the age of 66. Like Lytoler, Dawson refuses to let the Navy crew. His boat, if anyone takes her, it will be me and takes one of his sons with him.

Like Lytoler, Dawson had lost a son in the Royal Air Force, who taught him how to evade air attack. And like Lytoler, he packs the boat so full, four stood in the bathtub. The disembarkation officer couldn't believe over 55 men were aborted. So that's just a smattering of half-ass internet research. Before we move on, let's take a quick break.

Today's episode is brought to you by Luminary, a podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place I can listen to The Ringers' amazing new podcast, Sonic Boom, how Seattle lost its team, hosted by our very own Jordan RitterCon.

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Yeah, yeah. Deon Waiters, you got. You big Deion Waders guy, Quinn? No. I know what the category is. I have no idea who Deon Waiters is. Okay. He's a wonderful guy.

I figured he's a basketball player. He truly is. I wrote down Harry Styles. I don't think that this is. is that kind of movie. Now, you could make the case that this is a sort of inverted Dion Waiters, that Hardy. So does the most with the least amount of time? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Um, you know, it's a tricky category. He's got, he's, he's going to carry, he carries the air with, with Jack Loudon. So I think it's hard to say that Hardy is, I mean, I guess the, I guess that would be

true because of the mask. We should probably talk about the fact that Tom Hardy is essentially a movie star even though you never see the bottom half of his face until the second last shot of the movie. Yeah. But, I mean, but the Dan Waiters can't be one of the leads. Right. And to me, to me, it's Mark Raleigh on the boat. It's Tom Hardy in the air, and it's he who should not shall be named, trying to get in the frying pan and into the fire throughout the whole movie.

Yeah. So is there, Barry Gagan? Is there anybody? And I guess, Kenneth Brana. Kenneth Brunner. But Killing Murphy, Kenneth Brana. I mean, I... I wouldn't consider Killingler.

I would say that Mark Rallens is a lead over Sillian Murphy. Okay. So I think there's a case for Murphy then. Mm-hmm. I don't know if it's a great case. I think PTSD performance is a little bit of a tricky subcategory. You know, it's like, you've got to be carefully not doing too much. Well, it's like, that's my least favorite section...

Is the Killing stuff? Yeah. Of the movie. Not that it's bad. it shouldn't be there, not that it disrupts anything. But that's the section I'm the least into. But again, the movie moves so quick that, like, you know, anytime, you know, you guys, I hadn't heard, I haven't listened to you, but you guys did Magnolia.

Yeah. All right. There's no way you're going to like every story in Magnolia. Right. And then more like you're going to like every bit in slackers. All right. At some point, you're going to not respond to something. But it's okay because it's a big.

Do you mean the Rylent section? in general or when Murphy gets on the boat? No, in particular Murphy's section. In particular the Murphy. Him getting locked in the cupboard. Yeah. In particular the Murphy section. However, because even though I'm not necessarily responding to that that much,

whenever you're there, you're only there for a short amount of time. And so it actually does feel like it works into the fabric. And it's so great when you meet him and he's not cracking up a little bit. And he's like, you know, this is what we have to do. Just be calm. We have to go back to the beach. We'll go for another boat to come. and he's commanding that robot.

Yes, that's a great reveal. I think George. You think George? George. George. I'm going to go George, too. Barry Keown. Yeah.

Okay. Barry Keown, who's great actor. The Joey Pants Award for best that guy performance. Now, I don't think we've ever seen this before, but it has to be retroactive, right? Because we know Kenneth Brana. We know Mark Rylance. We know Tom Hardy even in a mask. We know who all these people are.

So all of the supporting characters of the movie for the most part are well known, and they're not that guys. Yeah. But every fucking guy who's sub 25 is a that guy now. But they weren't then. They were anonymous. Right.

So that includes Fianne Whitehead, whose name we refused to say on this show for some reason. Nuren Barnard. Fiann Whitehead's probably like, oh, god damn, I can't believe they're going to do Dunkirk. I can't wait to hear them talking about my performance. It's just the three of us be like, this fucking kid. Poor guy.

What are you playing? I really feel bad to this guy. Nourin Barnard, who I saw for the first time in the gulf. Finch. That was the first time I'd seen him since this movie. He's the Frenchman. Jack Loudon, who has gone on a career of Sun Zero. Barry Kyoen, who we mentioned, Tom Glenn Carney and Harry

Stiles. Other than Harry Stiles, I don't know any of these guys. Are you just me? Yeah. Harry Stiles, let's give it to him at this point, right? Or do you think that that overqualified him? Well, let's just examine this quote. We're really getting into parliamentary. Is it Yeah, so there's no like

Dan Aykroyd like shoved in the No, no. I mean, Chris mentioned Kane. Kane. This is the seventh movie between Nolan and Kane. Batman begins the prestige,

the Dark Night Inception, the Dark Night Rises, and interstellar. Kane appeared in an uncradited voice cameo as the Royal Air Force flight leader. Kane previously portrayed an RAF pilot in Battle of Britain. Yes, he did.

And he's the guy in this movie who's like, make sure you have enough fuel to get home. Yes. Right, okay. Not a very good cane. Well, I'm not going to do Michael Kane. You know, it's done.

It's Steve Coogan does Michael Cain. I'm not going to do that. As far as Stiles goes, when asked why he cast Stiles, Nolan said, I auditioned literally thousands of young men with different combinations of young men, and he had it. He compared the casting to Heath Ledger as the Joker and the Dark Night, because people also underestimated him. Okay. That sounds like something you would say on a press joke.

He's like, I wasn't aware of his singing career or something like that? He did say that. Yeah. You know, that seems debatable. One thing that happened on the Magnolia podcast that you have not heard is we may have renamed the Saul Rubenek Award. Oh, really? Which might break your heart a little bit. But we've renamed it the Julian Moore Award for overacting because of her very unique performance in Magnolia.

Julianne Moore, obviously, one of the greatest actresses ever. But that's a... I find it really hard to believe this is like it's debunking Sal Rubinick. No. Because, look, I wrote the character. And I didn't realize how funny he was until you guys started doing all of his dialogue. Imagine, imagine Saul Rubik. You stab me in the heart.

Then what I was going to do John Marley for the godfather? You're kind of doing Sal Rubinette. That's probably true. Hey, make me, Ronduck your loss. But did you, were you inspired by Marley to write Donnie Donowitz is the question. That's the big question. You make me look ridiculous. She had a great voice.

Olive Oil voice My crout McFriend She was beautiful For the purposes of this podcast It is still the Saul Rubenek Award for overacting I don't know Killing Murphy Yeah yeah

If anyone's gonna get it Yeah he's right He's really You got somebody No it's killing Murphy He's the only one has like a really dramatic moment I mean most of the other time It's just sheer terror and survival

Apex Mountain Now this is going to Quentin already stepped on this a little bit But I think it's a really good and deep conversation. Yeah. So it's Harry Stiles. We're agreed. Apex Matt.

No, is it Nolan? So this is the first time Nolan was nominated for Best Director. And that seems strange, actually, when you think about it that way, given his life's work. But this was a big hit, not as big a hit as some of the movies that came before it. It's an amazing achievement. It's an achievement movie, I think, in a lot of ways. There are certain directors that you go through their filmography and you say, oh, this is a movie I liked watching.

you look at other films and you think, you know, Titanic in some ways is an achievement for Cameron, even though we might like aliens more. Right. So is this for Nolan Apex Mountain because of what it achieves? Because of what it did for him as a filmmaker, because of what it allowed for him to happen in the future? I would say yes for me for all those reasons. Okay. You know, if you're going for an Apex Mountain heat check, I think it would be.

either be Dark Knight or Inception. But he still hadn't revealed. As bad of an ass as he was, he still hadn't shown how bad of an ass he could be. Right. And I think that when he did Dunkirk, he put himself up with the greatest in the world. And I think he was already there. Even if you like this one and you don't care for that one, and there's a few that I feel that way about. Sure.

But it brought him to the mountain as far as I'm as far as I'm concerned So I think that to get specific about it The difficulty with giving this Apex Mountain is that we haven't seen the film he's done since then Right so we haven't gotten the next movie since Dunkirk yet So yeah and I would probably say for me it's Inception if also because This is insane to me That I'm saying Inception we keep going.

Because that's the one where he gets away from Batman. And that's the one where it shows, like, you can make a movie like this that is an original story that people don't have this pre-existing relationship to these characters or any of these ideas. And you can make it as big as Batman was. You can make it as big as Dark Night was. And it showed that he was able to make his own versions of these movies without having to rely on DC, essentially.

I think that's a lot of promotion. I think it was, the movie was sold. You think, you feel like, it's, so you feel like it's, I'm reacting more of marketing than I am. Yeah, I, I really do. I think that movie was sold. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was a product that was sold. Yeah, they learned how to eventize the Nolan brand in a way that was effective that ultimately pays off on. Oh, I should also say, I, I fucking love Inception.

Yeah, no, I know you. Yeah, I mean, I'm a little more lukewarm. Yeah. But here's the thing. I'm a, I'm more lukewarm. Okay. But I'm not trying to hold that again. Against...

No, no, no. Yeah. So the tricky part of the case that you're making, Quentin, to me, is that, and this might bum you out,

but I think it's true. I think that the Dark Night's the most important movie of the century. I don't think it's the best movie. I don't even think it's one of the 100 best movies. But I think it's the movie that reset the brain chemistry

of the industry, the academy, and common moviegoers. And it's really hard to make a movie that can do that. I mean, now we can hold against it the fact that it's DC and that it's a comic book movie, but its impact, not just its box office, not just its awards, but its impact on people is huge. It's so vast in a way that a movie like Dunkirk might not ever be. Okay, but okay, so I go along with that, but does that make it Batman's apex?

And not Nolan. That's a good question. Yeah. I mean, I would guess that it will be. Yeah, absolutely is Batman's apex. Well, we haven't seen Matt Rees. is the Batman. No, no, but also we're shit-kending Neil Adams, too, all right? By saying, by getting that to a movie. Yes, that's exactly. Or Frank Miller or any number of people. Outside the Apex Mountain discussion,

do you guys think that Dunkirk is Nolan's best movie? Is it your favorite, it's your favorite Nolan movie? I think yes and yes. It definitely is my favorite. It's definitely the one I respond to the most. Yeah, it is. Okay. I have a very warm feeling towards Memento.

Now, I realize the circumstances of making a movie like the Momento and Dunkirk are totally different, but there's a level of invention happening in that movie that I'm still interested in. Also, kind of similarly rewatchable, things work better or don't work better when you revisit. I would put a Dunkirk one.

I would put Batman Begins 2. And I would have to give it to Dark Night 3, but I actually enjoy the prestige more. Yeah, that's an unspoken movie on this show so far, which is interesting. I'm on Inception.

Island here. Well, listeners of this show know how I feel about Inception, unfortunately. But we're truly by ourselves. Yes, I know. No, I know. I know. I know. I know. Well, what can you do? All right, so it is Christopher Nolan's Apex Mountain. We'll agree on that for now. I defer. Did I sell that? Yeah. No, you did. No. You did. Well, it's because he has, what comes for him in the future is kind of anything he wants, it seems like. Yeah. And that's, maybe that's really the clearest definition of Apex Mountain. Yeah, I would actually say that to some degree, he could do whatever he wanted at Warner Brothers before Dunkirk. But I think Dunkirk is his 2001, you know, and so it's like after that, and he truly is their Kubrick. Yes.

In a world where David Fincher already exists. But he's Warner's. Yeah, he's Warner's Kubrick. Yeah. Picking Nitz. A couple of small things here. You'd imagine that we're trying to remake a 1940 war movie is almost impossible to be perfectly period accurate. The Luftwaffe did not start painting fighter aircraft nose cones yellow

until later in 1940. Do better, Chris. However, Christopher Nolan... That's not your Nikki Pitt. That's just the problematic issue in the movie. There's a whole bunch of these. Like during the scenes shot in Weymouth on a couple of occasions, the top of the Weymouth Sea Life Tower is visible,

which was built circa 2012. I don't have a lot of nits to pick about the way that the story is structured. No, I mean, if you can get over the actual structure of the story, it's hard to be like, why didn't you just swim back for him? You know, I mean... Yeah, yeah. But maybe we should pick some Nits about the British strategy

heading into World War II. We're going to... Armchair quarterback Churchill. Yeah, well, that's the thing... Well, start with Chamberlain. That's my nickname. That's my nickname. Yes. Churchill, I think, is only 16 days in his tenure as Prime Minister. I think Czechoslovakia would have a few Nicky Pits.

Yes, exactly. Any other nits to pick for you guys? Not. Yeah. No. No. Best quote. Well done.

Oh, we did it survive. That's a knock. That's the blind man talking to Alex on the way out of the movie. Mr. Dawson, men my age dictate this war. Why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it? Yo, this is a pleasure yacht. You, yo, you're weekend sailors. It's not the bloody navy.

And I'm an age. In my age, dictate this war. Why should we be allowed to send our children to fight it? You should be at home! Then Commander Bolton on the mole, you can practically see it from here. And Captain Wendon asks what? You can practically see it from here.

What? Home. I think the line that gets you, especially in the British step-up or lip kind of way. the, to me, it was the only line that really stood out from the movie is when Kenneth Rana... So far. So far. I'm staying for the French.

Yes. I mean, that's the emotional piece of dialogue where, okay, now that we've saved our boys and now we can fight another day, now I can afford to live up to our ideals. He gets all the best lines, to be honest. I mean, he also gets the one later in the film when he's talking to whine it, and they say they won't get up in this. The Royal Engineers are building peers from Lurys. At least that should help when the tide comes back, and Bolton says, Well, we'll manage six hours time.

I look for three. Then it's good that your army and I'm Navy, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, that was a good one, actually. You know, there are dashes of cleverness. But I would also say, and I made a note about this, is Tom Hardy's monocilical. big performance that he gives, he has gestures that read like lives.

He is a badass in this movie. And I mean, it's actually, there's something, you know, we need him in the film because I like the fact that we're following the river rat guy. And he's not necessarily heroic. He's just trying to survive and makes all the sense in the world. And then Tom Hardy is just so incredibly heroic. And, and, and, and, but it does, but not in a contrived. way and not even, maybe it is on a little bit of a movie way, but we need it.

Yeah, we need it. It's classical. Yeah. Yeah. But like, for instance, he has two moments that, to me, are like lines. And that is he's jotted down when he has to turn back and go home because of the gas gauge and everything. And now's the time.

Now's the time to turn back and go home. But he sees that he needs, he needs to defend the ship. Yeah. The medical ship. And so he stays. And he just gives a shrug. And it's just a shrug. He just gives a shrug.

And the shrug means I'm not going home. Are you saying we need a new category called best gesture? Well, it's just, I'm saying that gesture is a line. Yeah. I'm saying the gesture is a line. And I actually think it happens the second time when it's, he runs out of gas. We cut to him three different times before he actually finally lands. The second time we cut, he opens the cockpit.

It's so good. You know, and it's just, it's sailing. It's just like an air glider. It's just sailing through the air. There's no sound. And just that opening, getting that real air and opening that cotpick, that's a line. That's, uh. Yeah, you're feeling that, Chris.

Yes. I mean, the moments up there with him are wonderful. And then, like, when I was rewatching that, I know that they had to, they had to shoot the, all the city stuff, all the town stuff, they had to shoot in a different town because the town of Dunkirk was destroyed. So they had to shoot that against a different background. But him coasting over that shoreline in silence is, yeah, it's as good as any quote. Could this work as a 10-episode Netflix show in 2019? Well, almost the point of what he did that's such an achievement is it could have been done that way. And that's how most people would think to do it.

Yes. That's exactly right. Dunkirk, the miniseries. Yes. Just like there was Gettysburg or the North and the South. Checking in on the Belgians. Episode six. Yes.

Thank God he didn't do that and made it so lean. Unanswerable questions. Was a ferrier, Tom Hardy's character eventually rescued? Or was he hauled off in a German prison camp? No, he's in a German prison camp camp. Yeah, I can't. That is, I know, this is ridiculous. But if they want to make the Ferrier P-O-W camp movie...

Yes, the L'O. 17 is Ferry. Let's go. I am there. Yeah. I mean, he can wear a mask again if he wants. I don't care. I'm there. And he probably wouldn't be escaping because he's, you know, he's not a ground soldier.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. He's there. So that means, you know, his job here is done. Right. If you could only watch... And that's a long time.

So he would be... That's a long time in a P-O-W-K. Yeah. That's the beginning of the war. Yeah, we got five years. He would be the guy in the Great Escape with the cane walking around. Yeah.

Yeah, he'd be James Donaldson. Yeah. Try some gardening. Yeah. You can't eat flowers. That's why you're here, Quinn. If only one story, if you can only watch one story of the three in this movie, Which one would you choose?

Oh, the Riverat. Yeah. It's his story. Within the world of the movie, or if you were expanding it? Are we talking still like the 10-hour Netflix version of this? You're going to the astral plane here. What do you mean? I mean, are you want to show me 10 hours of from before he gets the call to take off in Dover or whatever?

No, no, no. Just in terms of what we see in the film. If you could elongate and stretch out and sort of like movie eyes, because the movie is not a movie. It's shape and structure doesn't feel like a movie except for those moments of Quentin's talking about. would be river. I think that the... That's the man-escape. That's the Besson. Collins and Ferrier in the air is the most...

You know, that's like the blockbuster up there. That's top of the fucking gun, you know. But like, you don't want... You can't spend the entire time up there. There's no dynamism if you stay up there the entire time. Okay. I want the... It is his survival and it's the one damn thing after another, after another. And it keeps...

Yeah. It's probably the thing we understand the least about that whole story, too, which is what it was like to be a person who is in that situation. Yeah. One more unanswerable question. Was this movie snubbed in 2017? I think so. What one instead?

Shape of water. Okay. So it's tricky, right? Because we all know that these things are not awarded at the appropriate time necessarily all the time. But this is an interesting one because we, everybody has located like, if this is not a Zeypex Mountain, it's damn close.

And then does that mean Christopher Nolan goes to the Academy's Mountain 10 years from now for a film that is not the same achievement as a movie like Dunkirk? We may look back at it that way. I think that's, we've learned that time and time again, but this does feel like the kind of movie that typically gets rewarded at that time.

And I wonder if it being, and if it's a July movie, you had a July movie this year. Did that hurt? So you think if this comes out Thanksgiving or Christmas is different? I don't know. I really candidly couldn't say. I don't want to, I'm not going to weigh in on the Academy politics of something as hot.

And then all of a sudden, you've come the last two months of the two months of the year, it cools for whatever reason. I think it was, look, I think it was snub. I think for the fact that the score didn't win, I think it's the snub. I think the fact that he didn't get nominated for Best Screenplay is a snub. I mean, a big snub, a big snub.

Because that's a pretty fantastic, I mean, if we're saying that he can't do it wrong at a certain point, that he's just all storytelling but it's not storytelling with a pen it's storytelling with with scissors and it's storytelling with music and a storytelling with images and frankly to tell you the truth

I can't believe his cinematographer didn't yeah Hoitsevan Hoitama So who also shot Ad Astra actually So I think I wonder If either of you guys think maybe just because it was like a 76 or 78 page script if that was held against it maybe It being a slim volume I don't know.

Maybe. I guess we could kind of take it back to the beginning here where you were talking about your best of the decade. And I wonder whether or not this is a movie that's going to grow in estimation as the years go by. Especially as we get to these end of the decade and probably the first 20 years of the century lists that we will inevitably be doing.

You know, it's relevant to that too, is how do movies go into the canon now? What do you mean about that? Well, we absorb them differently. and there's all this anxiety about Repertory houses not having as much opportunity to show films and this movie is only two and a half years old

we all agree that it's an incredible film but how does it stay in the consciousness for us you know is Nolan will he let it appear on Netflix so that people can consume it over and over again and not all of a sudden it bleeds into our brain the way that something might have for us in the 80s or well I think that that is how movies exist whether it's on whether it's on rotation on showtime

extreme or cinema or Netflix this or Netflix that I actually think that is how movies become part of the lexicon is

they have its time me realizing that Zodiac was a great movie wasn't from the from that first viewing which I actually thought was a bit of an endurance test

the first time I watched the movie I liked it but it was I wasn't loving it sitting in the theater but it stayed with me for like

the two weeks afterwards. I thought about it every day for like a couple of weeks. And then when it started showing up on HBO, it would be on, and then I'd watch it for like 20, 25 minutes straight. Yeah.

And then I was like, holy shit. And I was really involved. And wherever it happened to fall. And so I kind of watched it about three different times at wherever it just happened to be. And I think those are the tests that actually make a

that forges a film in fire for your memory. I mean, what you're describing is literally the inspiration for us doing this show. It is because we grew up

catching 25 minutes of a movie on cable and just feeling it seep into our DNA. But the interesting thing about this movie is that you're only ever two minutes away from something extraordinary happening. You may not always have

the sort of lay of the land and be able to say, like, I understand the emotional stakes of what's going on here. But if you understand the emotional stakes of the entire movie, Anytime you tune into it, no matter which dogfight or which escape from which sinking boat you're watching, something amazing is going to be on your screen.

And I think it's a testament to his filmmaking that if you watch it on your laptop or if you happen to see it on a passing television, it still plays. If you're on an airplane and across the aisle, somebody is watching it and you just kind of start glancing at it, you'll find yourself watching it silently across the room for at least 10 minutes. Yeah. Completely. There's one more question. Who won the movie? Now, now, hold on. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, Quinn.

Nolan is an obvious answer. I think... Styles. Stiles wins every category. I think we have to give it to Finn Whitehead because we just have been merciless with him today. Poor kid. Now, hold.

I would be okay with that. He's terrific in the movie. I haven't been putting him down. He's good. He just doesn't have a name. Zimmer? Uh-huh. Oh. That's great, too.

That's, could you read a review of this movie in which his name did not appear? It would be impossible. Also, did the Battle of Dunkirk win Dunkirk? Because I feel like, you know, I'm some jerk from New York. I don't have a significant wealth of knowledge. I've seen Mrs. Miniver, but I didn't think about Dunkirk, you know? Now you think about it the way you think about the Battle of the Bulger, the Ardennes. Exactly.

It historicized something that was. already history, but for me, I have a new relationship to it, and I think it's really, really important. And I didn't used to think it was important. Yeah. And is it possible that this battle defeated the filmmaker? No. Okay. Really isn't. I made my bit. I know. I like

I like your idea. I like the idea. I like the idea. Okay. But you guys are going the long. Well, you come on. You got me thinking about Hans Zimmer. I actually, you know, I even think there could even be

dare I say a slight redemption of of his persona because he's also a guy that's easy to make fun of a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And same way that Nolan is like you described earlier. Yeah, but I, yeah, but that's just being a

catty asshole. Yeah. All right. But, um, I think there is a rehabilitation of reputation. Yeah. All right. I'm not going to make any more a hands in my jokes. Not that I ever did before, but, but, but you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah. And after this, it's like, no, fuck it. It's a cementation of being truly great at his thing, being an individual icon of his specific craft. It's still, I think we'll all agree. It's got to be Christopher Nolan, who's the winner of the movie. Yeah, I mean, I think you could, like, there's lots of, like, really good silver and bronze here. There's the R.A.F. Shout out to those guys. Yeah. Yeah. To your grandfather. But it's Nolan. Yeah. Guys, any closing thoughts on Dunkirk? This has been very fun. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.

And I, well, I also, I've never had from all, from the different episodes I've watched, I've listened to of the rewatchables, it's been very easy for every movie to fall into the structure of the show. The fact that this movie refuses to fall into at least half of the categories. Yeah. I mean, it just refuses it. It just refuses it. No. No. that says something else about the movie.

I mean, the fact that... You just wanted to fuck with us. You say, yeah, I've got an idea for a movie, and it's not going to work for the show, but I have an idea. Well, you know, it's like the fact that you could actually say that the entire film is paced like a trailer

and actually mean that as a compliment. Yeah. Because as opposed to a snippy thing that makes it seem like a commercial or makes it seem like just Sensation for sensation's sake. No, this is, I've actually, I've waited my whole life to see a movie

that actually plays like a trailer, but in a great way. It maintains that sense of anticipation the entire time. That's really, that's really an achievement. Guys, this has been fantastic for Christopher Ryan and Quentin Tarrantino. I've been Sean Fennacy. This is The Relo Getsibles.