Having a Moment: Dunkirk is no longer a footnote in war history
Be honest: Before last week, what did you know about Dunkirk?
Beyond the fact that it’s the title of a new wartime epic by “that director who made those really good Batman movies,” you probably didn’t know too much about the historical event.
That’s because the 350,000-person evacuation of a sleepy French village during World War II (also known as Operation Dynamo) has largely taken a backseat in America to the more storied events of the era: D-Day, Pearl Harbor, the atom bomb.
Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” stars Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and Mark Rylance.
But now, thanks to Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed new film “Dunkirk,” you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know the name. And judging from the initial box-office haul, “Dunkirk” is now known the world over. One week into its theatrical run, “Dunkirk” has already banked a lofty $50.5 million in the U.S. alone.
And Nolan is not the only person who wants to talk about the bomb-raked shores of Dunkirk in May and June 1940. In April, Danish director Lone Scherfig’s dramedy “Their Finest” was released in the U.S. The film chronicles a British filmmaking team’s endeavor to put together a “morale-boosting” film about Britain’s role in the evacuation.
Nonfiction is having a field day, too. Timed almost perfectly with the release of Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” publishers are rolling out books left and right that further elucidate Dunkirk’s legacy. Historian Joshua Levine’s “Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture” is already a New York Times bestseller.
Dunkirk’s unexpected emergence in pop culture is something of a double victory: a coup for Nolan’s film, but also for Dunkirk and the history buried within it.
ALSO:
Why Dunkirk is a source of inspiration for Brits — and filmmakers
Review: Christopher Nolan puts audiences in the middle of WWII in the intimate and epic ‘Dunkirk’
‘Dunkirk’ director Christopher Nolan on why, in this era of peak TV, he’s still all in on movies
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
