ronaldthump
Member
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5013056/parentalguide
Can you do a war movie, not show blood and gore and have it be affecting? It's a war movie without the impact of war and i think it greatly suffered from it.
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Dunkirk and its PG 13 rating
- Thread starter ronaldthump
- Start date
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5013056/parentalguide
Can you do a war movie, not show blood and gore and have it be affecting? It's a war movie without the impact of war and i think it greatly suffered from it.
SuperEpicMan
Banned
A 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes suggests it can.
My one main criticism of the film, actually. Scenes involving bombings fall flat because the casualties just look like people lying down and you'd simply expect a great deal more carnage. It doesn't need to be as explicit as Saving Private Ryan, but I definitely think it hurts the film that the depictions of violence feel as unrealistic as they do.
Joe Shlabotnik
Banned
I didn't really notice it wasn't gory. And I felt like I needed a stiff drink after it was over.
John Dunbar
correct about everything
nolan compromises his movie for box office returns, what a shock.
I doubt that it is it. Even look at his r rated movies he has done with violence like Memento and Insomnia. Nolan has never really shown gore.
If he was all in on box office...he wouldn't make a movie about the Dunkirk invasion with little no dialogue or big name stars.
Same, never noticed it during the movie and i found the whole experience already very intense
dl77
Member
Or maybe he doesn't feel the need to make it gory? The movie's based on a rescue operation, it's not based on the fighting aspects of the war.
StrongBelwas
Banned
Film is better for not having it in my opinion. I don't think it would have fit the tone of the movie.
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
to be fair, those were in the old days when he was still rookie.
heh? whats the tone of the movie?
War rescue movie, people dying on beaches
Dr. Carroll
Banned
The 1930 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is considered one of the most significant harrowing depictions of war in contemporary cinema. It was banned in multiple countries, infuriated the Nazis, yet would receive a PG rating under modern guidelines. There have been many, many war films created over the past century, and for the most part they were never particularly "violent" in the modern sense. Theirs was a violence akin to genuine war footage -- of men falling down like sacks of potatoes, bodies piling up in the streets and mud alike as war photographers kept cranking.
Psychoward
Banned
I don't think it was missed that much but how wouldn't it have fit the tone of the movie lol
Of course, that was never a creative decision. It was a money decision.
If the rating R had returned maximum revenue, it would of been rated R. Period.
As for a matter of taste, I feel like blood and gore is a part of war, and not including those necessary elements sanitized the experience a bit. War is brutal, and should be portrayed as such since the movie aims to be realistic.
Still, at the end of the day, it's not a massive element to exclude. Hollywood likes to play it safe when they can.
If the rating R had returned maximum revenue, it would of been rated R. Period.
As for a matter of taste, I feel like blood and gore is a part of war, and not including those necessary elements sanitized the experience a bit. War is brutal, and should be portrayed as such since the movie aims to be realistic.
Still, at the end of the day, it's not a massive element to exclude. Hollywood likes to play it safe when they can.
XANDER CAGE
Member
A dude gets his eyes blown out by a grenade in that movie. Also, one of the most iconic shots in the film is a man's severed hand caught in razor wire. These effects are kinda primitive looking now, but All Quiet on the Western Front isn't a great example. It was extremely gruesome for a movie made in 1930.
That said I agree that a war movie doesn't need to be graphic to be impactful!
Dr. Carroll
Banned
I feel like the success of Saving Private Ryan created this arguably false impression that armed conflict is just endless limbs being blown off and human bodies being shattered into meaty chunks. That is certainly a horrific reality of war, but it seems weird that people would now find real war footage not "realistic" because it involves a lot of dead people laying on the ground looking, at a glance, as though they were sleeping.
wesleyshark
Banned
The movie was intense, gripping, harrowing, and heavy in tone, without the use of gore and blood. It worked just fine.
Bucket Mouse
Member
I actually had this problem with The Dark Knight. Diligent use of profanity and blood in a few key scenes - just a little, nothing gratuitous - would have heightened the realism for me, as well as making the movie feel more like the adult, Heat-inspired thriller it was aiming to be.
1) The chase scene. As the helicopter crashes, the cop says something along the lines of "oh, that's not good", when in reality people curse in traumatic situations. It didn't feel true to life.
2) When Batman is bashing the Joker around in the interrogation room. The bloodlessness of this scene always seemed odd, but a bit of blood would visually highlight Batman's violent methods and would make the audience feel like he was perhaps taking it too far.
Ironically, I think one of the effects which nearly pushed the film into R rated territory, Dent's disfigured face, was too graphic and looked unrealistic as a result. Look at images of any recent burns victim - The effect should have been far more subtle.
1) The chase scene. As the helicopter crashes, the cop says something along the lines of "oh, that's not good", when in reality people curse in traumatic situations. It didn't feel true to life.
2) When Batman is bashing the Joker around in the interrogation room. The bloodlessness of this scene always seemed odd, but a bit of blood would visually highlight Batman's violent methods and would make the audience feel like he was perhaps taking it too far.
Ironically, I think one of the effects which nearly pushed the film into R rated territory, Dent's disfigured face, was too graphic and looked unrealistic as a result. Look at images of any recent burns victim - The effect should have been far more subtle.
One of the most fucked up scenes in the whole movie is someone bleeding out. You can do gruesome without limbs being shot off.
Fancy Clown
Member
Of course you can. If Dunkirk isn't enough proof, the many amazing war films made prior to Saving Private Ryan speak for themselves. Watch Paths of Glory and tell me that shit isn't affecting.
I thought the beach scene was done in consultation with historians and people who were actually there? It is a ones of the most harrowing depictions of war and what more people need to see in an age where we bomb via drones without cost to American soldiers.
thesoapster
Member
I didn't feel that it took away from the movie at all.
Fancy Clown
Member
Thin Red Line has quite a bit of gore actually
I dont get this criticism. The film worked fine without the gore, it was just as intense if not more than any other war movie.
You dont need the gore and violence to make a great war movie. Theres room for violent ones. Nolan showed theres also room for a less bloody one thats just as effective at telling the story.
You dont need the gore and violence to make a great war movie. Theres room for violent ones. Nolan showed theres also room for a less bloody one thats just as effective at telling the story.
Messofanego
Banned
The film was intense and brutal without needing gore. So, Nolan's different approach worked.
I don't remember a lot of blood or gore in Heat.
ronaldthump
Member
yeah.
No blood on the beach
not even a loose limb or two.
Same on the
bridge
For some odd reason I just thought this was rated R by default. Very disappointing. I'm not a gore nut but war without the actual truth of the consequences of war is just silly. Will probably just see this on Bluray to be honest.
Not that many people were shot, and there were a couple pretty bloody scenes in that one. Heat wasn't about WW2. TDK was fine, but Dunkirk needed more.
Not that many people were shot, and there were a couple pretty bloody scenes in that one. Heat wasn't about WW2. TDK was fine, but Dunkirk needed more.
Nolan knows that he's getting a carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants as long as he keeps raking in the money. PG13 is a necessity to maximize those odds. Also, he's very proficient in working around the restriction, but there's always so much you can do with it. Any medium will always take a creative hit with when restrictions are in place in comparison to total creative control.
ronaldthump
Member
In Dunkirk
I'm sorry but that totally just took the film the other way for me.
the only impact of war I register is the kid having that hole in his head and the blood and then he died but then he wasn't in the war, he got pushed down some stairs
I'm sorry but that totally just took the film the other way for me.
Fried Food
Banned
I was fine with it. The soundscape of the movie was effective in relaying the situation.
fastford58
Member
Gore realism isn't the point of this movie.
The point was to relay the feeling of tension in the situation.
Actually, I'm quite happy about the rating because my 12 year old son is greatly interested in WW2, but I haven't had the balls to let him watch SPR. I'm taking him tonight to see this one.
The point was to relay the feeling of tension in the situation.
Actually, I'm quite happy about the rating because my 12 year old son is greatly interested in WW2, but I haven't had the balls to let him watch SPR. I'm taking him tonight to see this one.
It has that in spades. There just isn't blood spraying everywhere.
This film was absolutely not more intense than the bloodiest most realistic combat sequences. I will not believe that for a second. Not saying it isn't as good but come on now without blood you are missing a big part of hand to hand combat and large weaponry. Not that anyone really wants to see all that.
So it cant be a creative choice to make it PG-13? Its always studio meddling and the directors hands are being tied?
Because he literally says explains why he wanted it to be PG-13 and it seems like a creative choice.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
This.
Caught in the belly of a sinking ship, in the dark, surrounded by panicked teenagers taking their last breaths.
None of that needed gore.
Fancy Clown
Member
People saying you need the "truth" of war or whatever and don't feel anything if you don't see blood n guts are out of their damn minds. Yeah, gore can certainly have its place in a war movie, but Dunkirk didn't need it. The point of the film (and it is important to remember these are films and not actual wars and creative choices are always made to serve a broader storytelling prerogative) was not to show the atrocities of war to make a thematic point ala Saving Private Ryan. Dunkirk is a suspense picture about narrow survival, and suspense has never been reliant on gore. The one shot of the dude pushing the floating body away on the beach had just as much affect to it as a chunked up bloody body.
I can believe that.... kind of but not really. I have this feeling PG-13 was decided long before Nolan had a hand in saying what rating he wanted. PG-13 means an extra half billion dollars lol. No way in hell they were letting that off the table.
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