Nolan Fans

NotoriousWolf wrote:https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... -attitudes


Humans are never pleased.

lol this topic had already been brought up a couple of times, and I remember trying to offer my two cents and it caused quite a bit of a shitstorm, because I said I can see where such arguments come from. The thing is, while Nolan has full artistic freedom to write and cast whoever he wants, and he chose to portray Dunkirk as more of an experience from a couple of young soldiers' viewpoints, not a full on historical movie about Dunkirk that goes deep trying to explore the circumstances and historical aspects of it, so whatever choices he made - they're not really wrong, the arguments about the whiteness of the cast... are still legit. At least sort of. And they're legit for any other movie that chooses to avoid casting people of other races/ ethnicities, even if historical circumstances allow them to do so.

What I'm puzzled about though is - what he should have done? Make one of the leads not white? Sure he could have done that. It would have been cool. But if he already had certain characters in his mind, changing them up like that, I don't know, it just sounds like it would lack artistic integrity (and I'm not sure if I'm up for policing artists) as if it's a choice to meet a certain quota. But he totally could've done that. And about casting more minority actors as extras - I think someone mentioned he tried to and couldn't due to location or something like that? Besides, wouldn't people have been upset if they only saw minority actors as background while the rest of the cast was still white? Idk, it just sounds as a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing. Both choices would have been historically correct, the evacuation was so large, it really just depended on which aspects he chose to cover - in a movie like this, of course stuff will be left out, like lol, I think someone was pissed we didn't see Nazis and didn't "hear" how Hitler "allowed" the Brits to escape lol.

But to imply this is some weird racist Brexit fantasy, imo, isn't right either... Has Nolan ever said anything about Brexit? So I'm not even sure what to think tbh lol. I don't have zero problems with the cast mainly especially because the performances were great, so I'm not trying to both defend or trash his choices, but what sent some into a huge frenzy, is that Nolan totally could've included more minority actors in this - and it wouldn't have been forced or a "sjw" choice. I'm not saying he absolutely should have, but there was a possibility.

lol this post doesn't make any sense

NotoriousWolf wrote:https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... -attitudes


Humans are never pleased.

I have been trying to find the link or picture to that casting sheet for Indian male extras, but I can't seem to find it. I definitely remember it being posted here last year. I wish more people were aware of that.

I'm remember seeing a very specific callshet for extras of African and Indian descent in Belgium.

Also, worth noting the three Indian companies account for less than 0.5% present on the beach.

MyCocaine wrote:I'm remember seeing a very specific callshet for extras of African and Indian descent in Belgium.

Also, worth noting the three Indian companies account for less than 0.5% present on the beach.

This was the casting call for Indian and Senegalese. @StylesMovieNews recently reposted it. I think we originally spotted it May 16, 2016. The original Facebook link no longer works but I guess @StylesMovieNews had saved an image of it.

@Ruth: Your post do make sense.

When I think about the film, I just can't see which character could have been non-white. People complain mainly about the troops at the beach being mainly white but it was the case. The movie is showing how Brits were evacuated first over non-Brits. So while there could have been Indians, West and North Africans in the film, they would have gotten the same treatment the French got. If you're not Brit, you don't get on the boats.

So as you said Ruth, if minorities would have been cast, they would have been background extras (which is already the case in the film) and people would have still lost their shit because the movie wouldn't be about them.

The French are also crying left and right about the fact they're not portrayed.
Nolan made a directorial and writing decision to focus on one aspect of what happened in Dunkirk because he wanted to make a suspenseful thriller film and not a docu-drama of 3 hours showing everything that happened there.

Geoffrey wrote:

hairer wrote:What on Earth is happening to Dunkirk's IMDb score? It is plummeting, wouldn't be surprised if this time next week it is lower than TDKR.

Just to note I like TDKR a lot but clearly it's nowhere near Dunkirk.

8.6 to 8.5 is not "plummeting". IMDb doesn't matter anyway, it's a small sample people who go out of their way to rate a movie, it's not representative of the greater public.

That is similar to the Rotten Tomatoes Audience score (83%), so if you want to know why, just go read the RT audience reviews. It's a divisive film. People either seems to like it 3.5-5, or they hate it with lots of 1/2, 1, 1.5. Lack of character development is a common complaint. Lack of blood / "unrealistic" / "boring". Too loud / can't understand dialog (and I know some cinemas had that issue). Also lack of scale (did not look like 400,000 soldiers, hundreds of rescue boats, etc.)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dunkir ... ?type=user

dormouse7 wrote:

MyCocaine wrote:I'm remember seeing a very specific callshet for extras of African and Indian descent in Belgium.

Also, worth noting the three Indian companies account for less than 0.5% present on the beach.

This was the casting call for Indian and Senegalese. @StylesMovieNews recently reposted it. I think we originally spotted it May 16, 2016. The original Facebook link no longer works but I guess @StylesMovieNews had saved an image of it.

That might have been the picture I saw last year, thank you for posting. Now I wish it would also be posted in forums like NeoGAF, where folks there are trying to paint Nolan as someone he's not.

I actually posted it here last May (and also some other casting calls) but my account somehow got deleted in June 2016. I had to re-make my account and have been unable to find my old casting call posts. In any case, my old post would have been directly to the source which is now gone.

Mahiya_Borden wrote:@Ruth: Your post do make sense.

When I think about the film, I just can't see which character could have been non-white. People complain mainly about the troops at the beach being mainly white but it was the case. The movie is showing how Brits were evacuated first over non-Brits. So while there could have been Indians, West and North Africans in the film, they would have gotten the same treatment the French got. If you're not Brit, you don't get on the boats.

So as you said Ruth, if minorities would have been cast, they would have been background extras (which is already the case in the film) and people would have still lost their shit because the movie wouldn't be about them.

The French are also crying left and right about the fact they're not portrayed.
Nolan made a directorial and writing decision to focus on one aspect of what happened in Dunkirk because he wanted to make a suspenseful thriller film and not a docu-drama of 3 hours showing everything that happened there.

Yeah, which is why I called it a damned if you don't, damned if you do thing. I think what pissed me off back when we had discussed this the first time, was that people were absolutely dismissive of this issue as if it's a total sjw snoflake whack bullshit, when... it's not. I think Nolan made a great film and personally I agree with his choices regarding this, but god forbid anybody suggest there could have been some more Indian, for example, soldiers - this idea, just a mere idea that really wouldn't have hurt the film not one bit, alone caused such a shitstorm among some, I was actually taken a little aback by it.

And you're right about the potential "treatment" of the minority soldiers. He made a choice to cover only the evacuation, he didn't cover the battle, supply and transportation and all of the other things I'm sure soldiers of other ethnicities have impacted strongly - and, just like it's implied the French weren't treated well, had he decided to delve more into other aspects of that mess, chances are the film would have had to touch upon even more unfair treatment of other soldiers from the empire, which would have clashed with his intentions - this is a suspense film, which imho focused mostly on its atmosphere and visceral experience, not history. So... idk, ugh maybe it is for the best he left out some of the elements entirely - like the Nazis.

But the minority representation sticks out like such a sore thumb in the industry, it needs to be properly adressed and acknowledged (once again, a thing some people here were completely unable to do). So I guess... I'm
not sure what I inteded by this post, but ya know.

There's representation and there's pandering. Having a poc as a main character in Dunkirk would've been the latter.