“I don’t agree” Christopher Nolan does not understand this criticism of his film Dunkirk: it was intended by the director

News culture “I don’t agree” Christopher Nolan does not understand this criticism of his film Dunkirk: it was intended by the director

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The formula for success in cinema

In the world of cinema, there are several elements that can guarantee or not the success of a film. Most often, these are fairly obvious factors, such as the quality of the scenariowhich must be able to immerse the spectators in the story and familiarize them with the universe in question without bombarding them with information, and above all know how to surprise them with surprising but not improbable twists of fate.

The success of a feature film also depends a lot on the talent of the actorswho must embody characters often at odds with their real personality while remaining convincing, but also on the alchemy between the performerswhether it is a love story, a family relationship, a strong friendship, or even an unusual rivalry.

But for a film to truly succeed, you have to know how to bring the script and characters to life through convincing visuals and a mastered sound design to promote the immersion of the spectators. Moreover, it is this last element which has been criticized several times in the films of a certain British-American director, who continues to defend his choices today.

Christopher Nolan disagrees with this criticism

In July 2017, a new work by Christopher Nolan joins the dark rooms. It is about Dunkirk (Dunkirk in English), a war film dealing with Operation Dynamo or the evacuation of Dunkirk during the Second World War. A real critical success, the feature film received no less than 8 nominations at the 2018 Oscars, and very good marks from the press, including a score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. And even though this positive opinion was shared by many viewers, it turns out that a good number of them did not appreciate a very specific element of Nolan’s film: his sound mix.

For some, the film was too noisy.and the sound effects often drowned out the characters’ words, preventing viewers from truly immersing themselves in the film. However, for Christopher Nolan, this is not a mistake, but rather a desire, because he wanted to represent the context of the film in all its facets.The cacophony of explosions, airplane noise, and ambient music was a way for him to represent the horrors of war in all its forms.

“I don’t agree with the idea that you can only be clear with dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity of emotion – I try to achieve that in a very complex way using all the different things at my disposal – image and sound. I’ve always liked films that approach sound in an impressionistic way, which is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I think it’s the right approach for this experiential film.”

Christopher Nolan, The Hollywood Reporter

The most interesting thing about all this is that even though some viewers didn’t like this part of the film, it still won several awards, including the Oscar for Best Actress. best sound editingand that of the best sound mixing. Moreover, the same criticism has been made for Interstellar in 2014, which was also nominated in both categories, and which Nolan championed to audiences for the same reasons, as you can see above. Which proves that Christopher Nolan knows what he’s doing…