Failed Oscar Campaigns: "Dunkirk" (2017)

Scene from Dunkirk (2017)

As awards seasons pick up, so do the campaigns to make your film have the best chances at the Best Picture race. However, like a drunken stupor, sometimes these efforts come off as trying too hard and leave behind a trailer of ridiculous flamboyance. Join me on every other Saturday for a highlight of the failed campaigns that make this season as much about prestige as it does about train wrecks. Come for the Harvey Weinstein comments and stay for the history. It's going to be a fun time as I explore cinema's rich history of attempting to matter.

Dunkirk (2017)

Directed By: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance
Genre: Action, Drama, History

Running Time: 106 minutes

Summary: Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army, and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

The Movie

With The Golden Globes now in the books, many have a few movies on their minds. They're the winners who are likely to continue dominating awards season and end up on Oscar Sunday walking home with a lot of statues. One, in particular, has shot up in conversation thanks to the simultaneous wide release happening days after. Sam Mendes' 1917 is a World War I film that is meant to be a visceral experience, taking audiences behind the trenches on one of the most brutal missions that cinema has concocted. With the promise of also being shot to look like a long take, it is being talked about like the biggest cinematic achievement of 2019, and in the process has gained some comparisons (rational or not) to recent Best Picture nominee Dunkirk, which was considered just as revolutionary to the war cinema genre upon release.

Following the success of Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, the war movie genre was expected to make an explosion in unprecedented ways. While there have been a few examples that have to lead to this promise, Dunkirk is the second act that definitely deserves some recognition. In some ways, it is groundbreaking simply because of its anti-narrative. There are no protagonists and time doesn't fly in a linear line. In a lot of ways, it's a Christopher Nolan movie at its heart. Despite not having any central character and relying on a massive cast of veterans and new faces sharing the same minute of screentime. Even then, Nolan's desire to keep the camera moving means that history has been reinvented as a thriller, where danger impacts us all and the sense of inconclusive safety constantly leaves a sense of uncertainty. There have been movies about the Dunkirk evacuations before, but Nolan's interpretation is unlike anything else.

Despite the argument of the film being incomprehensible and lacking exciting characters, it's so much more an experience of a community. They've come together to fight the bad guy and save everyone. It's a story of humanity triumphing over evil, and it just happens to feature so many practical effects and a heart-attacking Hans Zimmer score that never lets up. It's as much the story of war as it is an experience of feeling like it's happening around you. The film is a beautifully orchestrated chaos that is downright inspiring by the end. It's why the film became one of the most exemplary war cinema genre films of the decade, many even considering it to be Nolan's greatest work as a filmmaker. It's far from his most conventional, but it still has the power to leave the viewer in awe.

- The Campaign -

There was a bizarre amount of hesitation around Dunkirk going into its release. While nobody was perturbed by Nolan making a war film, there were certain questions around how he was planning on doing it. The first came with the rating, which would be PG-13. Many wondered how he could do the genre a faithful job if he can't be bloody. It was made worse by the fact that it was going to be roughly 105 minutes, or an hour and 45 minutes. Considering that Nolan's recent films leading to that were approaching three hours and on average at least 40 minutes longer, it made some wonder if he was being censored. Again, this is without any footage being publicly available. On one of the more absurd moments of pre-release, Nolan said that he wanted to shoot down an authentic WWII airplane in the film, which leads many to think he was going to destroy a piece of history when it was likely cryptic.

Despite being a war film that was considered to have a niche audience, Warner Bros. decided to advertise it like one of their biggest, most original films of the year. It started almost a year in advance with a 2016 trailer that was placed in front of Suicide Squad. Because of this approach (and the cultural cache that Nolan's name now had with it), Dunkirk quickly became one of the most talked about movies in the year leading up to it. Later in 2016, Dunkirk would premiere its first full-length trailer in front of IMAX showings of Rogue One. In one of its biggest moves, yet familiar to an average Nolan release, Dunkirk's "prologue" would premiere on IMAX again in front of Kong: Skull Island for a week and later in front of Wonder Woman (also in IMAX). To keep the mystique alive, the prologue would only appear in theaters and never had an official YouTube release. 

While many would think that a war film appealed to an older cinema-goer (whose interests were higher for this than other releases of the time), it still made an effort to appeal to as wide of a base as possible. Trailers played during CinemaCon 2017, basketball playoffs, and trailers ranging from 15-60 seconds would play in theaters. In the world of video games, company Wargaming presented ads in front of World of Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes. There were virtual realities created in Google 360-degree sets to create a sense of what it was like to be there in Dunkirk. Amazon Alexa also had a realistic experience for customers. And, in a move often saved for franchise films, Dunkirk had cross-promotion deals with Carl's Jr./Hardee's that sold cups with the film's poster on it. 

One of the big helpers in shaping Dunkirk's public image as more than a period piece was Sue Kroll, president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Marketing and Distribution. The goal was not to sell it like an Oscar contender, but treat it like an event movie, i.e. a summer release. This meant that it could avoid scrutiny during film festivals and not be seen as Nolan's "smaller" film. While this dismayed some, all doubts disappeared when it finally was released. Due to a lack of strong new competition, Dunkirk was able to dominate the box office for all of late-July and August. As it earned $526.9 internationally, it became the highest-grossing war movie since Saving Private Ryan and holds the honor when not adjusted for inflation. There was no denying that the experience of seeing it on a big screen swayed viewers to see it. The positive feedback and believe that it was a war movie like no other only made many more curious to check it out (there were also One Direction fans who loved Harry Styles and famously lined up at screenings to ask audiences if Styles made it to the end). 

The mix of big named actors and new faces paid off well. Nolan based this off of stories he read that the people storming the beaches were often the youngest, most inexperienced of the journey. Among other accomplishments, he makes in the film is a limitation of special effects, desiring practical wherever possible (such as cardboard soldiers to make the scenes feel more massive). The score by Zimmer was based in part on Nolan's pocket watch in order to give a sense of time (Zimmer famously took a jar of sand from the shooting locations in Dunkirk for inspiration). Nolan didn't want to get caught up in any one personal story and in the process made it about a collective mindset. Add in the non-linear timeline, and it would become one of the most unique stories of its kind.

Even with a great box office and critical acclaim, there were those who argued that the film had flaws. For instance, those perturbed by its non-linear structure were annoyed at constant shifts between day and night, or moments that happened hours apart. As the film was going for realism, the choice to make a lot of the dialogue muddled due to the environment, it left many to suggest that the film desperately needed subtitles despite being spoken in English. 

Then there was the formatting debacle:

As had been the case with most of Nolan's previous work, he had multiple formats to see the film in. Seeing as he shot predominantly with 70 mm and IMAX cameras, many felt that the ideal format would be IMX 70 mm. Still, other versions like 35 mm, IMAX, IMAX with Laser, IMAX Xenon, or 70 mm were released to fulfill different needs. Still, it came with a discussion of what was really substantially different about them and if the image would at all be cropped. Those going visually, the 70 mm take was the best. Those wanting the audible experience would best get any IMAX version. The only consistency was that there wasn't any 3D version. Still, considering that these differed from market to market, most couldn't see it in the ideal format. 

With all of this said, the film's release in 70 mm would make it the widest and most successful release for a film in 70 mm ever. When it was re-released over three months later, it only expanded on that honor. Considering that the marketing emphasized just as much an appreciation for cinematic formatting as it did history, it was capturing several audiences who were interested in the cinematic art form. 

The only question to be asked from this was if Nolan could break his losing streak. While he was Oscar-nominated in the past, he was often overlooked for major categories. When Inception became a phenomenon in 2010, many thought that it would be his moment to revel in a Best Director nomination. It wasn't. Considering that Dunkirk was his first major movie since to be taken seriously for Oscar love, many hoped that this would be his breakthrough, especially without strong competition. The film's early release also meant that they could distribute to voters Blu-Ray copies presented in 4K, for the best home viewing experience. The general tide around Nolan was changing, and it looked like this would finally be his moment, even as other films started to creep into the narrative. 

- The Payoff -

The long con paid off. When Oscar nominations were announced, the film earned eight nominations, including Best Picture and another for Nolan in Best Director. His cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema received his first Oscar nomination as well for Best Cinematography. Zimmer would also receive a nomination for Best Original Score, which as considered one of the year's best. While it didn't have any acting nominations, it did dominate in technical fields. When it came time to accept awards, it was mostly competing against Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, which kept it from winning more. Among its wins were Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Editing. While it used to stand that Best Editing often dictated who won Best Picture, Dunkirk was part of a recent trend that went against this logic.

When all was said and done, Dunkirk did pretty well for itself. While it could've won more Oscars given its long-holding status as a front-runner, it was an amazing achievement that it defied all of the expectations. It was a period piece that excited audiences. It was a summer movie that could be taken seriously as a Best Picture winner. It was a war movie that could draw in audiences up and down the age spectrum. It did everything right. It continued to prove the mythos of Nolan's marketing strategy that he could make anything work. There hasn't been any war film like it since, though one can imagine that whatever comes out will receive obvious comparisons to it. 1917 may not be a similar movie in a lot of ways, but those wanting to compare intensity aren't likely to be wrong about the experience of watching these two movies. 

If anything, Dunkirk proves that Nolan is getting closer to being taken seriously as an Oscar front-runner. More than with Inception, he found a loophole that connects with audiences and voters. Maybe he will win Best Picture one of these days. In fact, maybe he will just win an Oscar (he currently stands at five nominations, zero wins). It's too early to see if his next film, this year's Tenet, is going to break that stride. Still, considering that filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino are naming Dunkirk as the "second-best" movie of the decade, one stands to reason that Nolan is only getting better with age, especially as he mixes spectacle with history and personal triumph. It will be interesting to see how he makes cinema a necessity in the time he gets that overdue win. Will it involve virtual reality and fast food cups as well? Whatever it may be, maybe much, much weirder than that.