STACK Aug #154

FEATURE CINEMA

where the evacuation took place - their shooting schedule even overlapping with the Dunkirk

We shall fight on the beaches...

anniversary, he adds, “What the film is and

where the film is set was the main focus and no-one was really thinking about my leg hurts or I’m tired.” Styles’ pop fans will

Tom Hardy

Over nine days in 1940, 330,000 men were evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk in an operation called Dynamo. Hitler’s armies had swept through France and threatened to cut off Allied forces from potential escape routes across the English Channel. Christopher Nolan’s filmic depiction of Dunkirk is in cinemas now. Here are five facts you (probably) didn’t know aboutThe Battle of Dunkirk. On May the 23rd, British General Sir Alan Brooke wrote in his diary, “Nothing but a miracle can save the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) now.” Winston Churchill ordered the evacuation and the Royal Navy put out the call for help. Over 700 ships and boats responded and the operation started on May 27. Dunkirk in fishing vessels, motor launches, barges and even paddle steamers whilst under attack from German aircraft. Over the course of nine days, 338,226 men were safely rescued. Two thirds of the men boarded ships directly off a long stone jetty. However, the other 130,000 soldiers had to wade out into shoulder depth water for hours and patiently await their turn. Civilian seamen answered the call heading to the beaches at

be in for a surprise when they discover that his character is not as sweet and kind as the image the heart throb portrays in real life. “Alex seems nice but there’s also this edge to him,” he says. “He comes off a little more hardened than the other guys. Alex likes the idea of being the rough guy but he’s also really scared.” While Christopher Nolan’s films typically deal in a fantasy world, together with his producing partner and wife Emma Thomas, they felt a weight of responsibility in making their first reality-based movie. “It felt very different in the sense of responsibility that you have to the real people involved in the real story. We’ve made films where people care a great deal about

Tom Glynn-Carney and Cillian Murphy

imagining putting myself in the shoes of one of these young guys and reading this speech - and as patriotic as they all were - imagine you’d just come back from such a traumatic ordeal and you’re reading something about your Prime Minister saying you will go on, you will fight, and the last thing you want to do is go back. “And of course Winston

the characters; talk to Batman fans about what they want to see in a movie and that’s a weighty responsibility right there,” laughs Thomas. “But you feel it so much more when there are people who went through what we’re depicting on film and risked their lives.” For Nolan, making Dunkirk was personal - his own grandfather died during WWII, and

Churchill was an amazing speaker and writer who really rallied people, but for those individuals, I think it must have been quite tough to read that they were going to have to go back.” Styles is at great pains

...you feel it so much more when there are people who went through what we’re depicting on film and risked their lives

to explain how his pop star status did not result in any kid-glove treatment. Furthermore, by no means was he a shoo-in for the role, auditioning five times for Dunkirk before landing the role of Alex, one of thousands of soldiers trapped on the beaches. And he didn’t whine about grueling 12- hour days out on the beaches either, often submerged underwater. “It was definitely hard and physically draining. But I think everyone on set was aware that - obviously in comparison to what the real soldiers went through - that it was nothing. There was no room for complaining about any personal discomfort.” Shot on the actual beaches of Dunkirk

he visited his tomb during filming. “I never knew my grandfather because he died during the war. He was a navigator on a Lancaster bomber and did many missions, and he was tragically killed right at the point where he would have finished his missions. I think, because of that, my father was always fascinated by aviation and airplanes, so certainly with this film I felt a huge responsibility to achieve an authenticity to the air raid scenes in the film." With Tom Hardy at the controls of an RAF Spitfire, he appears nothing short of heroic.

“I think with my family history it's not in me to view a spitfire pilot as anything but heroic. Tom is very cool and iconic and I always imagined him playing that part. I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing it.”

Dunkirk is in cinemas now.

Mark Rylance

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21/7/17 11:53 am