Dunkirk (2017)

Very few directors throughout history have had the consistent artistic control over spectacle quite like Christopher Nolan.


Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Cinematography by: Hoyte Van Hoytema


Maybe more than any other filmmaker of the 21st century, Christopher Nolan has pinpointed the cross section between art and entertainment. He consistently creates films that appeal to both critics and general audiences. They’re meticulously crafted and technically advanced spectacles with universal themes performed by Hollywood’s biggest names that are guaranteed to put butts in theater seats and sell tickets.


Nolan’s love for and proficiency in telling non-linear, layered stories anchors his films with remarkable staying power; viewers can go back to them again and again and still be rewarded on each visit, catching hidden symbolism, or a snippet of dialogue that seemed nonessential on previous viewings, but is actually loaded with foreshadowing, or a subtle, concealed meaning. Nolan’s films can be challenging in form, but the stories and characters are readily accessible. Rather than bogging his films down in the abstract, he creates awe-inspiring visuals that attempt to push the technical limits of film to new heights while keeping the human stories grounded and relatable.


Many film critics and theorists lambaste “the spectacle” and see it as nothing but escapism, but much of the intent of film as a fledgling art form in the late 19th/early 20th centuries was to show stories and images that, otherwise, never would have been able to be seen, and on that premise Nolan particularly excels (I will never get tired of seeing the dreamscape explode or the city fold in on itself in Inception [2010]).


One last testament to Nolan’s ability is that simple objects, the most innocuous-sounding dialogue, and select images from his films have taken on near-mythic proportions in popular culture. I can bet that no one who’s seen Inception looks at a spinning top the same; anyone who’s seen The Dark Knight (2008) would be looking for the nearest exit if someone in the room said “I’m gonna make this pencil disappear;” and anyone who’s seen hundreds of small boats headed for the shores in Dunkirk understands the incomparable, stoic heroism shown by British citizens in WWII as they threw caution to the wind and motored headlong into a war zone, putting their own lives on the line to evacuate allied soldiers, saving thousands upon thousands of lives in the process.


Distributed by: Warner Bros.

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