Dunkirk (2017) - First and second dogfight scenes

People do stupid amazing things when they get the 1000 yard stare.

I’m reading a history of the British Navy from 1935-1942 in the Far East.

The British messed up a lot of things, but I am impressed with their foresight in the 1930s.

They anticipated fighting Germany, Japan and Italy and prepared for that.

They should have built more aircraft carriers, but even the US wasn’t building a bunch of aircraft carriers in the 1930s.

I saw Tom Hardy in a movie called The Drop, and I was impressed by him.

Did some research and was surprised that this British actor could so successfully portray a New Yorker.

I think the movie does a good job of showing how the British didn’t go to pieces when France fell.

My only problem with Dunkirk as a film was what you pointed out you liked—the non-linear technique... for a semi-historical piece no less. This is not a movie house art film... You must have enjoyed Pulp Fiction (after 10+ times watching it), the worst/best of that non-linear technique.

However, IMHO only, I think it completely destroys the film’s storytelling power, especially as a historically-based piece. I’m not totally stupid or unintelligent, but I spent the whole movie trying to figure out what the heck was happening and when.

Further, it also comes off to me as a very pretentious Tarantino-influenced filmmaker gimmick. If it’s going to be a non-linear presentation, and if it’s about a historical event like the Dunkirk battle, I think it should at least have some stronger time stamps throughout (not just “week” “day” “hour”)so the audience can track the action. Unless you see the film 3-4 times, it makes no sense at all. Just MHO of course, a matter of taste I guess.

Having said that, the Spitfire flying scenes were spectacularly well-filmed, and seemed about as accurate as a film could possibly make it. Kind of like the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan... showing a hint of what those engagements might have felt like.

As an amateur WWII aviation historian, I looked forward to this. I was vastly disappointed.

I recommend The Battle of Britain instead: the aerial photography is extraordinary, and the aircraft are as authentic as was possible.

Inauthentic models of the real aircraft are usually necessary. Later production numbers exceed early numbers, and early versions are usually destroyed or scrapped.

You will not see a P-40B or C (epicyclic gear) in a movie; you will see the E or later (reduction gear). You will not see an E 109 (Daimler), you will see a post-war Spanish (Hispano) version.

Dam.. your post sound like I wrote it

Except I just call the P40,B-C with a V1710C a “Long nose” and the P40D-N a “Short nose”..but i think I coin the terms as shorthand on some of the WW2 boards

“Crappy movie...” [TomServo, post 3]

“...bad writing...bad story that was left lacking...should have had a triumphant feeling...instead it was somber and defeatist...” [MeganC, post 4]

“... Hitler also demonstrated his incompetence by not pressing the air war and eliminating the British on the beach...he thankfully paid the ultimate price... [Dave Wright, post 10]

We must decide if we prefer reality to a comforting story.

Stories are for three-year-olds.

Military endeavors work better if grounded in reality. Study of actual history can lead to more complete understanding if the latter path is taken.

The reality of combat is fear, pain, death, conflicting information, confusion, and a dozen similar terms. Nothing makes sense, leaders lose their heads, no one knows what’s going on. Every move can look pointless, especially to the individual private soldier caught in the middle of a fight. Decisions are guesswork.

Christopher Nolan’s _Dunkirk_ deliberately took the point of view of a few individuals, all at relatively low levels of their hierarchy, who in May/June 1940 were fleeing the German onslaught, or trying to help those who were.

The only references to commands from on high were a hurried conversation between middle-level officers on Dunkerque’s Long Mole, a few stray remarks in the denouement, and the young soldier’s reading aloud of PM Churchill’s speech from the newspaper, aboard the passenger train car at the very end. Irony: he looks more like the oil-smeared, salt-encrusted, exhausted, dispirited evacuee than any cream of British manhood.

The film is not a defeatist fantasy crafted by grumpy revisionists; doesn’t need to be. The Western Allies’ real situation was about as far from “triumphal” as one could get yet live through it.

Hitler and Stalin were still in cahoots.

Contrary to all hopes and predictions, France was collapsing: all Europe was lost.

Americans, mulishly preoccupied with navel-gazing, were congratulating themselves on their moral superiority in staying above it all.

It would be no exaggeration to say the fate of Western Civ stood on a razor’s edge.

In his speech in the House of Commons, Winston S Churchill (who had been Prime Minister of the UK less than a month) termed it a “colossal military disaster.”

With deference to Dave Wright’s conclusions, historians still disagree over the German failure to capture or annihilate the remnants of the British Expeditionary Forces.

The Wehrmacht’s armored columns had advanced so far with such speed that they had become perilously overextended; they’d outrun their supply train and vehicles were severely in need of maintenance. Adolf Hitler wanted the Panzers to press on, but his general officers convinced him to call a halt - the risk of an Allied counterattack was deemed too great.

The film got the weather conditions all wrong. The Luftwaffe was not called off; a low-altitude cloud layer prevailed for much of the evacuation, rendering dive-bomb attacks by Ju-87s, strafing by Me-109s and 110s, and other ground-attack machines ineffective. Thus the Little Ships and Royal Navy warships avoided major losses to hostile air action.

Just what the point was, of Tom Hardy dead-sticking his Spitfire onto the beach near the end, is unclear to me too. A reference to the RAF’s refusal to send Spitfires (newer, fewer) to the battle on the Continent? The willingness of RAF pilots to press the fight in defense of the then-powerless BEF ground troops, even when it meant sacrifice and certain loss? Acknowledgement of the notoriously short legs of fighters of the day?