Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017)

[mfunk9786]

freaks and cross-dressers

Any fatty olds?

[Werewolf by Night]

I feel privileged to have seen this in IMAX 70mm. The aspect ratio (1.43:1) really enhanced the classical formalism of the film and filled the screen with great expanses of sky and sea, emphasizing the vulnerability of the thousands of troops trapped on the beach. I can't imagine what a different experience it would be seeing it in the 2.20:1 AR they're using for 70mm projection. It seems so cramped.

The cinematography is uniformly great: clean, simple, unfussy, and without distracting color filters or treatments. It just looks real. Editing is, of course, excellent, and it's easy to keep track of who's who and when's when if you're paying attention, even in the latter half of the film when Nolan throws a curveball by showing events you saw earlier in the film again from different points of view. The aerial scenes are a particular pleasure. Some of the best and most original shooting of dogfights since the days of Hawks and Wellman.

I understand that Nolan was only able to use IMAX cameras for about 70-75% of the shots and had to use 70mm cameras for the remainder. The IMAX cameras were either too big for some shooting spaces (the interiors of boats, for example) or too noisy for some dialogue scenes. One such dialogue scene in particular involving Kenneth Branagh was a little jarring because it takes place on the pier with action taking place on the beach behind him. The film is going along, all IMAX and loud and beautiful, and then all of a sudden there's this talky closeup of Branagh and the screen shrinks to half the size and gets (by comparison) really grainy and dark. That was the only really distracting instance of that, though, and it was probably a better option than having Branagh try to dub his lines in in post.

I'm not a huge fan of Hans Zimmer or his score here, but I didn't hate it. I just wish it was maybe a little less constant and insistent. The sound design, though! The screaming engines of the planes really were fright-inducing, as were those rear guns on the German planes that felt like a punch in the gut every time they went off.

Even though I didn't love it as a total filmgoing experience (it's a triumph of peerless technique over heart or storytelling), I wouldn't mind seeing it again in IMAX 70mm. I don't look forward to seeing it on my home setup, as good as it is. It will look so puny and trivial. Academy voters seeing this for the first time on Blu-ray screeners are going to be at a serious disadvantage.

[Foam]

Other than maybe Spiderman 3, this was my first time seeing a film in a real museum IMAX. 70mm version. And... well... It's difficult to talk about it apart from the format, which is just so overwhelming. The first 15 minutes were worth the price of admission and fully live up to all the comments along the lines of "Saving Private Ryan is like observing war; Dunkirk is like experiencing war." But I also thought that as the film got more into the plot proper and all the intercutting, the images were given less room to breathe and--overwhelmed by sound as well--I started having real trouble following what was going on, not able to make out 75% of the dialogue. At the same time, I can't imagine that the first 15 minutes would have been nearly as effective in a regular multiplex level IMAX. So this is a film where I'm going to have to see it on some other formats before I have a good idea of what I think of it.

[swo17]

I started having real trouble following what was going on, not able to make out 75% of the dialogue.

Probably a good approximation for what it's like to experience war in a foreign land!

[Foam]

Well even during scenes where ostensibly you were supposed to make out the dialogue. Like the majority of the ones with Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh.

[plasticinespeculator]

Did anyone find the sudden cut to talkie scenes jarring? The movie is such a strong and immersive sensory experience that many of the talking scenes felt like it was Nolan trying to dramatize an idea.

[Werewolf by Night]

I started having real trouble following what was going on, not able to make out 75% of the dialogue.

I also had trouble making out some of the dialogue in my IMAX screening (and also idly wondered how many more films Christopher Nolan plans to make in which he puts something over Tom Hardy's mouth that makes his lines unintelligible).

[swo17]

Now that I think about it, I had the same experience watching Interstellar on IMAX when it originally came out. Is this perhaps a problem with the sound mixing on Nolan's films or the typical IMAX setup?

[knives]

It's a Nolan thing primarily I think. Remember the complaints about sound mixing with the last Batman film for example.

[swo17]

This makes me...not want to rush to see it. Can anyone seeing it not in IMAX report a better viewing experience?

[Drucker]

No problem with audio in standard 70mm I saw.

[Altair]

I saw it in IMAX at the BFI IMAX on the South Bank and had no trouble making out the dialogue, what little there is of it, and it's not terribly consequential anyhow. For Dunkirk, you need to see it in IMAX or the nearest thing to it and the sound should hopefully deal with itself.

[Never Cursed]

I second Altair; I saw it over the weekend in IMAX, and despite the speakers being loud enough that the screen was shaking during the extremely bassy moments, I could always understand the dialogue.

[carmilla mircalla]

I saw it at the cinerama. I could not understand most of the dialogue but I chalk it up to me not being able to pick up the kind of dialects they were speaking. I will also say the dialogue isn't important to the film save for the end and a few parts spread throughout. There's a reason why dialogue is sparse because the rest of the sound mix in regards to the sound effects are mixed super well and speak for the film itself.

[Werewolf by Night]

Just to agree with everyone else, go ahead and see it in IMAX 70mm if you have the chance. The dialogue I couldn't understand did not hinder my understanding of events or my enjoyment of the film.

FWIW, I had difficulty understanding the dialogue during The Dark Knight Rises at this same IMAX theater, but as those have been my only experiences with this theater, I can't tell you if it's their fault or Nolan's.

[swo17]

No 70mm options here, only standard IMAX.

[Big Ben]

Sound isn't a new problem with Nolan films actually. knives mentioned Batman (The Dark Knight Rises) but he didn't mention that Nolan was forced to rework Bane's voice via dubbing because no one understood what he was saying originally. And even then some people I know still had a terrible time with it. While the circumstances are obviously different it certainly makes me think Nolan either has a tin ear or is too stubborn to change this one thing. Nolan signed off on this, remember that. What you're seeing and hearing is what he wanted out there. Nolan is apparently very stubborn about how his films are constructed and released even to the point of refusing to release deleted scenes. Nolan wanted it this way and there's enough precedent to make me think he didn't take feedback on the issue because he's so oddly Kubrickian about his craft. I'm not saying it's okay and I'm not defending him. It's just unfortunately the way he is.

[All the Best People]

This is the first Nolan problem where I had an issue making out dialogue; I think it was a combination of the accents and the ever-present portentous over-loud music. (I saw it 70mm, but not IMAX.) I don't really think I missed much of anything, though, it's not like there are many actual characters where what they say is important, and the most important stuff (so far as I could tell) was easily heard.

[djproject]

As much as I enjoy the spectacle of it - having seen it both in IMAX with laser and 70mm [I don't think - unless some miracle presents itself - I'll have the chance to see it in IMAX 70mm] - this will be another example where I would enjoy it more at home when I can turn on the subtitles if I want =]

I am also curious about the home video presentation. I wonder if it will be a case where the IMAX images will be at 1.43:1 as opposed to cropped to 1.78:1. I also wonder if he is going to try to push for 6K or even 8K scan (probably couldn't do it for the theatrical DCP because it is a time-consuming exercise).

[Roger Ryan]

All of Nolan's other IMAX shot films simply open up to 1.78:1 on Blu-ray when the IMAX footage is presented. The standard DCP screening I saw was 1.85:1 (or, possibly, 1.78:1) throughout and I imagine that is how it will be presented on home video.

As for the audio issue: more so than any previous Nolan film, the audio track to Dunkirk deliberately foregrounds sound effects and the music score over dialogue and lets the visuals tell the story. As others have pointed out, most of the dialogue is inconsequential. I had little trouble following the action and the few times I couldn't grasp the meaning of the dialogue was due more to the accents than the sound mix. This is an intense, nerve-rattling film that will require multiple viewings to get to the subtler moments beneath the assault.

[mfunk9786]

Standard DCP screenings are supposed to be 2.20:1 across the board, I wonder why yours was that way.

[djproject]

All of Nolan's other IMAX shot films simply open up to 1.78:1 on Blu-ray when the IMAX footage is presented. The standard DCP screening I saw was 1.85:1 (or, possibly, 1.78:1) throughout and I imagine that is how it will be presented on home video.

In the most recent reissue of the Dark Knight trilogy (as a complete package), there's an additional supplement disc that presents the IMAX sequences for both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises in its native aspect ratio, thus pillar-boxed for widescreen televisions. Thus it is possible that a home video release could alternate between 1.43:1 for the IMAX and 2.20:1 for the 65mm. Or it could be 2.20:1 across the board also for the sake of a kind of consistency (and it could make scans greater than 4k easier since you are only doing part of the frame instead of the entire thing). I guess it depends on how "immersive" you want the image to be for home video presentation (hence cropping the IMAX to fill the screen).

[tenia]

The idea being to open the frame to "fill the screen", I always thought that going from widescreen to 1.78 seemed like the most logical way to mimick the theatrical change. I don't think any recent movie like that chose 1.43 instead of 1.78.

It makes sense to present them separately at 1.43, because it's not a question of opening the frame anymore but rather to offer the original picture, but it's not the same logic at work within the movie.

[mfunk9786]

Forget what I said about Nolan's aspect ratio bullshit being less tiresome this time around

[Roger Ryan]

Standard DCP screenings are supposed to be 2.20:1 across the board, I wonder why yours was that way.

I admit I wasn't specifically thinking about the aspect ratio while watching the film. The cinema where I saw it does not matte the top and bottom of the screen (nor pull curtains back from the sides) when showing films wider than 1.85:1 and Dunkirk completely filled the screen (which I believe has a standard 16:9 dimension). Watching the trailer again, I recognize it's in 2.20:1 which makes me wonder if the sides of the image were cropped during the screening I saw. I'm probably just mistaken, so no need to give my earlier comment credence.