Dunkirk Proves That Christopher Nolan Should Direct Top Gun 2
It’s crazy enough it might just work, but won’t happen.
Dunkirk was a landmark film by all definitions. While it’s not Christopher Nolan’s finest work, it largely succeeded because it took the war movie genre and flipped it on its head.
Most war films focus on the battles and the lead up to the climatic events. Dunkirk didn’t focus on a particular battle, it focused on soldiers escaping a battle. It turns out that it’s just as thrilling watching soldiers escaping as it is watching them engage.
But for as thrilling as the storylines involving the stranded soldiers on the beach of Dunkirk and the boat captain and his son racing to the rescue, the sequences that stole the show involved Tom Hardy’s extraordinary character, the Spitfire pilot named Farrier.
After walking out of Dunkirk at the theater, one of my first thoughts is that it would be fun if some clever editor take all the scenes involving the pilot to mesh them together into a short movie. The pilot storyline, simple as it was, was just that good.
A large part of this was the brilliant casting choice of Tom Hardy. While Tom Hardy isn’t my absolute favorite actor, and I’m still a little unsure about him the rumor of him replacing Daniel Craig as James Bond in the future, he has definitely carved out his own little niche, especially in Nolan films.
Nolan recently explained that he begged Hardy to take the role, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that Hardy would have done it willingly either way.
“I don’t write with actors in mind,” Nolan said, “because I think that somewhat does them a disservice. But once it was done, I could only see Tom in it. So I called him and begged…in a dignified manner.”
“I’ve had great experience hiding Tom behind masks and showing that he can act with only his eyes,” says Nolan. “It’s all there, he has the most expressive eyes. He can pull the audience into the moment in an amazing way even with most of his face covered.”
“I don’t know how much he’d admit to it, but for every British guy, playing a Spitfire pilot, that’s pretty’s exciting,” says Nolan. (You can read the full interview here.)
So yes, a large part of the success of the thrilling aerial dogfights comes down to Tom Hardy and his extraordinary ability to act behind a masks in confined locations. However, it would be a disservice to undersell the other reason for why these sequences were so harrowing and memorable: Nolan himself.
Nolan understands something that many other mainstream directors fail to realize.
Scope.
Scope and scale.
The way the dogfights were blocked and filmed gave the viewer a good sense of where the planes were physically at in relation to each other almost at all times. With the shaky cam and quick editing techniques that are so prevalent in many modern films, it’s refreshing to see a film such a Dunkirk that takes a step back and allows the viewer to see everything that’s happening full scale.
Describing the aerial battles in such a way almost makes them sound boring and slow, but the opposite is actually true. Giving a sense of depth to these scenes raises the stakes for the characters and their life and death situations, which in turn increases the level of dread and anticipation.
While there were obvious personal stakes for the soldiers on the ground, the Spitfire pilot was engaging because there were very specific limits set on the character. With only a limited amount of fuel and a super thin timeframe, Farrier had to make crucial decisions that literally meant life and death; not only to himself, but also to the hundreds of soldiers on the ground.
With limited resources, we find Farrier constantly glancing at his fuel gauge in his trusty Spitfire, monitoring the time he has left to remain up in the air. For such a simple character dilemma, it worked supremely well because it made us question what we would do in just such a situation. Would we turn back and refuel, knowing that doing so would leave hundreds of soldiers to die, or would we fight on, risking the odds?
For anyone that has seen Dunkirk, it was obvious that one of the major things that stood out above all else was the incredible sound design. Every rifle shot was loud and alarming. On top of that, the sound design involving the airplanes was super unsettling. Every time one of the planes dived at the helpless soldiers on the ground, you felt it. Quite literally in some cases. The way the planes screeched across the screen was almost horrifying, giving the audience some idea of what the characters were feeling when one of the enemy planes dive bombed at them.
Add in the unusual and disconcerting soundtrack by Nolan’s longtime collaborator, Hans Zimmer, and you have something eerily memorable.
All of these things together makes me think that Nolan needs to do a project that focuses solely on aerial warfare, and what better project is out there than Tom Cruise’s long awaited sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.
With the unfortunate passing of Tony Scott, the director of the original Top Gun, the studio behind the new film found themselves in search of a new director.
Fortunately they inevitably did find a new director, but unfortunately it wasn’t Christopher Nolan.
Of course Nolan won’t direct Top Gun: Maverick. That’s not exactly his style. Nolan is consistently singularly focused on his own passion projects, which is super vital in this modern cinematic age of reboots and sequels, but it’s still a little disappointing far fetched as it is.
We now know that Joseph Kosinski, who has previously worked with Cruise on 2013's Oblivion, is currently on board to direct Maverick. While this is actually pretty good news since Kosinski has proven to be a solid director in his own right with Oblivion and most notably Tron: Legacy, the directing pick doesn’t inspire any glee at the prospect. In the hands of Kosinski, the movie will probably be just fine, but it most assuredly won’t be a game changer like it could have been in the hands of a visionary like Christopher Nolan.
Just take the aerial battle in Oblivion. While serviceable, it doesn’t engage the senses. While it looks great, it feels a little bit too much like we’re watching a video game and is unfortunately one of the weaker parts of the film.
Compare that to the adrenaline pumping scenes Nolan was able to produce for Dunkirk. What would you rather see more in Tom Cruise’s anticipated sequel?
While Christopher Nolan most assuredly will not direct Top Gun, he should find a passion project that lets him pick up where he left off with Dunkirk and make an epic aerial warfare epic. Dunkirk proves that Nolan is the right guy to direct Top Gun, even though he won’t.
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