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Dunkirk and its PG 13 rating

'kin hell, it's amazing how many here people 'know' that Nolan would have made it more graphic. It's weird that some people seem to genuinely think along the lines of "Well what director would make a film to do with WW2 and choose not to have blood and guts flying across the screen?!"
 
dl77 said:
'kin hell, it's amazing how many here people 'know' that Nolan would have made it more graphic. It's weird that some people seem to genuinely think along the lines of "Well what director would make a film to do with WW2 and choose not to have blood and guts flying across the screen?!"
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I don't get it. Only thing weirder is the assumption it's some kind of conspiracy driving the choice from money point of view.

Dunkirk ably shows it's an artistic choice not to have excessive gore and it's not done automatic negative for s war film or film set during period of warfare.

But honestly I'm giving up on aspects of nonsense arguments in GAF film threads and mostly ignoring them now.
 
Maledict said:
I dont see how blood and gore are important at all to be honest. The most moving and impactful deaths I've ever seen on film have never involved blood or gore. In fact I struggle to think of many famous cinema deaths ever where blood and gore has been a large part of the death.
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There certainly are some but I agree that a death in a movie doesn't need to be violent to be impactful. Off the top of my head some of the deaths I remember most vividly are:

Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption (or John Coffey in The Green Mile)
Spock in Wrath of Khan
The girl in the red dress from Schindler's List
The wife in the beginning of Up
Arnie in T2 (That's right I put Arnie on the list!)

Hell, I was more upset when Tom Hanks lost Wilson in Castaway than in a lot of films where main characters died!
 
Dunkirk ... I've seen it.
But I never had the feeling I was watching a war movie. Hell, it felt like an expensive Discovery Channel documentary. Sure, it looked great but the lack of real impact on humans took me out.

Saving Private Ryan is great. It's gory but shows how visceral war actually was. Same goes for Full Metal Jacket and Platoon.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good movie ... but I feel the lack of violence held it back somehow.
 
EGM1966 said:
I don't get it. Only thing weirder is the assumption it's some kind of conspiracy driving the choice from money point of view.

Dunkirk ably shows it's an artistic choice not to have excessive gore and it's not done automatic negative for s war film or film set during period of warfare.

But honestly I'm giving up on aspects of nonsense arguments in GAF film threads and mostly ignoring them now.
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Yup. TBH I think he should be applauded for making a film that doesn't take the easy route of showing the brutality of war through graphic violence.
 
It was my biggest concern going in but the film works really well. It's not about combat. It's a survival/escape movie. The different focus of this compared to most war movies helps a lot in making the PG-13 not matter much.
 
Buba Big Guns said:
Could've been a bit more gorey. Worked really well for Hacksaw Ridge in terms of immersion.
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Aside from being set in WWII they're entirely different films though. Hacksaw Ridge is about someone who refused to carry a weapon even when surrounded by violence and death. In the case of that film the graphic nature emphasizes how strong a stand Desmond took.
 
Wow I didn't know it was PG-13, and having seen it, I really think the rating system is fucked up. Watching 2,000 people drown for 2 hours in confined spaces is a shit load more disturbing than watching a guy get shot running up Omaha beach head.

For most of my movies if I could choose "gore" or "no gore," I'd choose no gore. I don't need to see the remnants of some guys hand or a half-blown off leg to know that war sucks.
 
The only time the PG-13 rating got in the way was when soldiers were getting bombed. No blood or limbs left behind. They just disappeared or got tossed around.
 
I think it worked fine without gore. Not every war film needs to be about the same aspects of war. Some war films are about the violent horrors of war, and as such absolutely should show the grizzly reality of the consequences of violence. This film seemed to be more about the psychological horrors of war. About the idea of impending doom and how one responds in the face of that. Gore wasn't necessary. I already feel that it's one of the single most intense war films I've ever seen.
 
Hjod said:
I haven't seen it, but for me they don't need to show gore/blood or dwell on the death to tell a story.
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It's a story about survival against overwhelming odds and an enemy that has no remorse...you need to sell the threat and Dunkirk does it reasonably well (the dogfighting is the standout here), but they could have done a better job with the on the ground scenes.
 
dl77 said:
'kin hell, it's amazing how many here people 'know' that Nolan would have made it more graphic. It's weird that some people seem to genuinely think along the lines of "Well what director would make a film to do with WW2 and choose not to have blood and guts flying across the screen?!"
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I didn't say he would do R anyway. I said he definitely had no choice in the matter for this specific film. This was a summer blockbuster and there was only one rating it was going to have. Nolan hasn't done R for ages.

The Albatross said:
Wow I didn't know it was PG-13, and having seen it, I really think the rating system is fucked up. Watching 2,000 people drown for 2 hours in confined spaces is a shit load more disturbing than watching a guy get shot running up Omaha beach head.

For most of my movies if I could choose "gore" or "no gore," I'd choose no gore. I don't need to see the remnants of some guys hand or a half-blown off leg to know that war sucks.
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Ehhhhh. If you are referencing SPR that scene is still absolutely disturbing as hell.
 
wesleyshark said:
The scream of the incoming planes was beyond unsettling. Who needs blood and gore when you have excellent sound design?
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I'm with you there.

The film didn't need it and I didn't miss it. It was a impactful film for so many reasons beyond violence.

And as others have said, the scene with the dozens of young men drowning in the dark didn't need any blood or gore to leave a lasting impression.
 
kmax said:
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.
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This reads pretty cynically.
 
Personally I think the PG-13 rating hurt the movie. Sure it was beautifully shot and the sound effects and amazing score did add tension but the battle scenes seemed so tame and dare I say, fake?

Seeing people just fall to the ground with no visible gunshot wounds or bodies flying through the air after an explosion with no blood or gore at all just made it seem very unrealistic for me.

It's still a great film but did not have anywhere near the same impact as seeing Saving Private Ryan or the Thin Red Line in cinemas for the first time.
 
Neith said:
I didn't say he would do R anyway. I said he definitely had no choice in the matter for this specific film. This was a summer blockbuster and there was only one rating it was going to have. Nolan hasn't done R for ages.
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Surely the above just proves my statement though? I'm not getting at you specifically but, and I am making an assumption here, despite likely not being involved in the film in any way a lot of people on here seem to 'know' that he had no choice regarding the certificate he should aim for?
 
The Albatross said:
Wow I didn't know it was PG-13, and having seen it, I really think the rating system is fucked up. Watching 2,000 people drown for 2 hours in confined spaces is a shit load more disturbing than watching a guy get shot running up Omaha beach head.

For most of my movies if I could choose "gore" or "no gore," I'd choose no gore. I don't need to see the remnants of some guys hand or a half-blown off leg to know that war sucks.
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Wanna know how I know you've never seen Saving Private Ryan?

(And for the last time no, I don't think Dunkirk needed SPR levels of gore)
 
Neith said:
I didn't say he would do R anyway. I said he definitely had no choice in the matter for this specific film. This was a summer blockbuster and there was only one rating it was going to have. Nolan hasn't done R for ages.



Ehhhhh. If you are referencing SPR that scene is still absolutely disturbing as hell.
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Private Ryan was a summer release and pulled good numbers.
 
Nolan has complete control of his movies. I can't think of another director at the moment, besides Cameron (if he makes another movie), that can do whatever the fuck he wants. If Nolan wanted limbs on that beach, he would have blown up real people, and had the box office receipts pay for their medical expenses and therapy. WB gives him carte blanche.
 
Yes. It perfectly achieves what is trying to accomplish without the need of body horror. I don't ever remember seeing a war scene as intense as the ones portrayed here. Maybe the attack on the Anthill on Paths of Glory, funnily enough another movie which doesn't resort to gruesome imagery.

It does take craft to do it without the simplicity of shocking imagery, but that tends to be the characteristic of good filmmakers.
 
Waldini said:
Dunkirk ... I've seen it.
But I never had the feeling I was watching a war movie. Hell, it felt like an expensive Discovery Channel documentary. Sure, it looked great but the lack of real impact on humans took me out.

Saving Private Ryan is great. It's gory but shows how visceral war actually was. Same goes for Full Metal Jacket and Platoon.
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SPR is very different to the other two movies you mentionned. They are far more harrowing and thematically resonant than SPR, despite having little to no gore. True "anti-war" films.
 
It might work for a lot of people, but it didn't work for me.

Add me to the list of those that think war movies shouldn't shy away from showing the actual reasons people should fear war.
 
Psychoward said:
Wanna know how I know you've never seen Saving Private Ryan?

(And for the last time no, I don't think Dunkirk needed SPR levels of gore)
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SPR is excessive gore to me, but I just mean in general and making a war movie analogy.

The rating board using 'gore' or people being shot with guns as the determining factor for whether a movie should be R or PG13 and I think that's stupid. Watching 300 people drowning in a sinking ship every 10 minutes causes a lot more anxiety in me than watching somebody get shot with a gun.

Obviously SPR should be R, it was beyond gore and incredibly, (mostly I'd imagine, having never been to war) realistically, violent. I'm surprised, though, that Dunkirk is rated PG-13 having not followed the movie but seeing it last week.
 
It's PG-13 because he wanted it to be. Or rather what he made ended up that way.

The idea that WB is yanking this guy's chain to soften his approach solely for ticket sales doesn't even really hold water outside of a basic, generic cynicism regarding a vague idea of how movies are made, which can and does fit in some ways some of the time, but sometimes doesn't apply at all.

The bad conventional wisdom people are using to kitbash an opinion together on this is just making for wobbly, short-sighted opinions coming from multiple flawed premises:

War movies have to be bloody
War movies have to be real
PG-13 is every studio's automatic aim
Directors naturally work at an R
Serious movies that aren't R were neutered to get there
People still give a shit about ratings like it was still 1988 and we're getting away with renting Predator from Blockbuster.

People don't give a shit what Dunkirk is rated. Ratings increasingly don't matter. And graphic violence isn't a necessary element in the construction of an effective war movie

If any director in this industry, specifically any director working for THAT specific studio, has the green light to do whatever the fuck he wants for 100 mil and a handful of 70mm cameras (and I bet THAT was actually more of an eyebrow raiser than the fuckin rating was) it's Chris Nolan.

Dude made what he wanted to make.

What he wanted to make ended up at PG-13.

It's not a cynical production conspiracy on the part of "Hollywood" cutting up your steak into little cubes for you.
 
Neith said:
Well international markets have pushed these films to crazy heights IDK. Like I said in my first post bluray and DVD will push it over for being PG-13 easily IMO. If not 500 then 400. Does not make much difference. It's going to be a HUGE number just because it is PG-13 and available to millions more people. I doubt Nolan had a choice.
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This doesn't make much sense. Ratings mean nothing for home video. Anyone can buy it. I mean.... GTAV....
 
Some of you are addicted to gore. Did you need people covered in blood and body parts, or the typical moaning guy missing a leg camera sweep, to feel the carnage?
 
Neith said:
I doubt Nolan had a choice.
l.
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He already said the studio told him he could do a R-rated movie. It was his choice not to do it.

To avoid alienating the audience, he also kept out nearly all traces of blood — “it’s not the button we wanted to push,” he said — landing a PG-13 rating even though, he said, the studio had given him the go-ahead to make an R-rated film
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/movies/dunkirk-christopher-nolan-interview.html
 
Bobby Roberts said:
If any director in this industry, specifically any director working for THAT specific studio, has the green light to do whatever the fuck he wants for 100 mil and a handful of 70mm cameras (and I bet THAT was actually more of an eyebrow raiser than the fuckin rating was) it's Chris Nolan.

Dude made what he wanted to make.
.
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Not to mention having 6000 goddamn extras and hey, let's just buy a fucking plane for my movie--if he wanted gore, it would have been in there. It's that simple.
 
dl77 said:
Yup. TBH I think he should be applauded for making a film that doesn't take the easy route of showing the brutality of war through graphic violence.
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I'm fine with graphic violence where it works but it's actually rarely good at creating actual tension and anticipation.

Restraint and threat vs outcome works better there. It's like the old Hitchcock explanation:ticking bomb known to be under a table equals tension and fear, bomb going off without warning and results of explosion equals Shock and horror.

Nolan was going for the former. Use of sound, music and situation to create almost unbearable sense of tension and anticipation of violent death vs depiction of violent death.
 
Yeah. Sure. Movie would have been so much better with the obligatory cut-aways to dudes blown in half trying to stuff their guts back into themselves, screaming, "Mommy, mom, momma, moooooooommmmmmm!!!!!"

Because we haven't seen that before...
 
True Savior said:
He already said the studio told him he could do a R-rated movie. It was his choice not to do it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/movies/dunkirk-christopher-nolan-interview.html
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OSHAN said:
Not to mention having 6000 goddamn extras and hey, let's just buy a fucking plane for my movie--if he wanted gore, it would have been in there. It's that simple.
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I mean, I understand the ease and attractiveness of the narrative that suggests mean anonymous "HOLLYWOOD" people are keeping the man down and preventing the people their justly deserved meat and other assorted juices. I get why people automatically go there.

But it's a really bad narrative here. And it's not hard to find out that that bad narrative doesn't fit with just a minimum of context regarding that studio, this director, his filmography, and the finished film as it stands.

It's just easy, unearned, lazy cynicism for the most part.
 
It wasn't necessary. The look on the soldiers faces said it all about how fearsome the dive bombers were. I don't need to see someone's guts to get the idea.

Despite the relentless threat portrayed, it's ultimately a pretty hopeful film. If the rating means more youngsters get to see it and learn about an important historical event, or are inspired to learn about the conflict as a whole, then that's good.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
This reads pretty cynically.
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It was pretty blanket. The movie industry is a business and I do think that it holds true in the majority of cases. For example, according to Hollywood reporter, one of the reasons why you're seeing a lot of unproven directors tackling blockbusters is because it's easier to operate and interfere with creative decisions that would be in line with the studio's economic interests.

Studios want and need movies, but they have less and less interest in developing them internally. From multiple accounts, rookie filmmakers are put through their paces by nervous studios before a green light. But by choosing to hire unproven talent, studios are also getting less expensive filmmakers that are potentially easier to control and can be loyal to the studio if the film is a hit.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/why-studios-are-trusting-untested-101550
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What my initial statement fails to recognise (and which I reflected on later) is that when it comes to ateurs like Nolan, it is very much based on the special relationship between the ateur and the studio. His consistency has earned him more creative control from the studio than your average movie director. Also, studios have shown signs that they're willing to experiment with R-rated blockbusters, so I don't think that statement holds water in the case of Nolan. It's a perfect storm.

Nolan actually talks about the studio relationship and acknolwedges the economic realities that you have to consider when making blockbuster films. It's definitely worth a watch.
 
Not all war movies need to be grisly. Since its announcement, Dunkirk was describes as an "intense" and "suspenseful" evacuation movie. We dont need to see blood and guts and dismemberment. It was great the way it was
 
There was some pretty horrific and terrifying scenes, images and sounds in the film regardless and the film 100% brought forth a sense of helplessness.
 
Most of the deaths were from water related things. Drowning in sinking ships and all that. So the lack of gore didn't really detract from the tense feeling of hopelessness while getting slaughtered trying to escape. That was the majority of the tension was the fact that getting across the water was going to be rough and ended up killing a lot of soldiers.
 
I don't buy the premise that war films have to be R-Rated. Blood and gore can sell carnage better than the lack thereof can, but it's not entirely dependent on what the film is trying to do. I haven't watched Dunkirk so I don't know how this affects the final product, but I doubt that it would be on the list of problems I have with it.
 
SugarDave said:
It wasn't necessary. The look on the soldiers faces said it all about how fearsome the dive bombers were. I don't need to see someone's guts to get the idea.

Despite the relentless threat portrayed, it's ultimately a pretty hopeful film. If the rating means more youngsters get to see it and learn about an important historical event, or are inspired to learn about the conflict as a whole, then that's good.
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Is this guy still in the film?

dunkirk.jpg
 
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