Nolan, Dunkirk and the Madness of Diversity

For religious reasons, I couldn’t get to see “Dunkirk” on its debut week. In the interim, I tantalized myself reading every review of the blessed film. Soon, I noticed an ongoing trend. Reviews did not dwell on historical accuracy or cinematic merits, they were all about Christopher Nolan’s omissions regarding multiculturality. It has been said that the film is “too white” and that it fails to comprehend all the nationalities present on that beach. Apparently, Chris Baby, you did manage to wake the dragon. Bad Boy! But would  “Dunkirk” have been historically correct if the director-producer-scriptwriter had played the diversity card? Did Nolan have the time and space to tackle every minority’s experience on that chaotic but amazing evacuation?

I am not a Nolan fan. His films meet with my utmost indifference, but I am a Second World War buff and I feel the Battle of Dunkirk (and the evacuation scheme known as “Operation Dynamo”) has got  little coverage in historical fiction.  The arrival of this mega films to local theaters had me enthused and grateful for a chance to see my favorite baby boar, Tom Hardy, in a Spitfire cockpit.

I first heard about the Battle of Dunkirk, there on that South American outpost known as Chile, when I was eight years old. My dad, a bigger WWII buff than me, subscribed to a history of the war published, in installments, by Espasa-Calpe. I still recall the cover of that thin pamphlet called El Milagro de Dunquerque (The Miracle of Dunkirk) and the very sad picture of those flat helmets worn by the British army, strewn on the abandoned beach. It was so touching to see that last glimpse of the helmets in Nolan’s film.

(Daily Mail) 

And so, in second grade I knew all about the British Expeditionary Force, besieged by Nazi Germany’s army, and wondrously hauled home by a last-minute mass departure that got over 300.000 men out of that beach. Although valuable equipment had to be left behind, the rescued troops saved the Allied cause. Otherwise, there would have been no soldiers to defend Britain or to continue the war on other shores. In its day,  Dunkirk was hailed both as a success and a miracle, but nowadays most average millennials know nothing about such a pivotal historical event.

The truth is that Dunkirk, as momentous as it was, is not properly covered in history texts. Historians have not yet come to terms as to whether to consider it a terrible defeat (it was) or a triumph of the spirit (in propaganda terms, it was an absolute victory).  And when it comes to films, so few have been done.

Two years after the mega evacuation, Walter Pidgeon, playing the husband of that heroic “Mrs. Miniver,” took his sloop to sea to rescue Allied soldiers. Thus, Hollywood incorporated Dunkirk to its repertoire. Alas! It was a one-night show, because Tinseltown has never again touched the subject.

Oddly enough, neither were the British very much into commemorating Dynamo on film. After 1945, the English film industry would annually bring out a batch of war flicks, but  it took eighteen years for it to develop something about Dunkirk. Properly called “Dunkirk,” it covered Operation Dynamo through the eyes of a journalist (Bernard Lee), a profiteer turned heroic rescuer (Lord Richard Attenborough), and Sir John Mills playing the quintessential Tommy. Even though “Dunkirk” was a total hit, it would take almost sixty years, before anybody, in the English-speaking world, dared to film the epic retreat again.

In 1964, The French tried their hand in the Battle of Dunkirk.  Professor Robert Merle had won the 1949 Goncourt Prix with Weekend a Zuydcoote, a novel based on his own experiences on that fateful beach. He was one of those soldiers who didn’t make it to England and ended up in a German Stalag. He writes then not about Operation Dynamo, but about doomed men stranded in a town that is slowly being destroyed. Henri Verneuil adapted the book in 1964 with Jean Paul Belmondo (the hottest actor in France then) playing the lead, Sergeant Julien.

It was common for Dunkirk to resurface on film adaptation of novels, but as a passing event in the lives of the protagonists. One example is Paul Gallico’s tear-jerker The Snow Goose which is subtitled A Story of Dunkirk. In 1971, Jenny Agutter (decades before becoming sweet Mother Julienne in “Call the Midwife”) won a BAFTA, playing Fritha,  an Essex country girl. Thanks to the title goose, she befriends Philip (Sir Richard “Dumbledore” Harris), a reclusive hunchbacked artist. When war breaks, Philip is rejected by the army. He proves his valor precisely by taking his boat to Dunkirk and rescuing several hundred men before getting killed.

Thanks to Ian McEwan, Millennials got to hear about Dunkirk when the most famous soldier to trample its beaches, Robbie Turner, took them there in Atonement. James McEvoy played Robbie in the film adaptation.  There are two things I liked about the film, Keira’s green dress and the inclusion of the Battle of Dunkirk.

When criticizing Nolan’s merits, one should bear in mind then that there is almost no precedent for his film. In “Dunkirk, ” he strives to cram as much as he can for the viewer to leave the theater with at least an idea of what happened on those Northern France’s beaches. Nolan divides his film in three settings (the Army on the beach, the Navy and the Little Ships on the sea, and the RAF on the air) each within its own timeframe.  That is a lot to cover in an hour and forty-seven minutes. Nolan himself has said that this is neither a documentary not your conventional war movie. He describes “Dunkirk” as a work about “the mechanics of survival.”

As I said, before seeing the movie, I tried to get an idea of what I would encounter. More than reviews, I found disparagement. Few technical reproaches, plenty on content. On The Vulture, where the film was ripped apart, one of their complaints was about Nolan’s glorification of the Little Ships (and the Little People too). “Little Ships” refers to an armada of over 800 vessels (some of them private and manned by civilian crews) that took part in Operation Dynamo.

It is true, we can’t say their contribution saved the day. Obviously, the bulk of the evacuation rested on larger ships, but people such as the character played by Sir Mark Rylance  on “Dunkirk” or like Gallico’s hunchback,  inspired the nation with their courage (they did risk their lives), their patriotism and their altruism. Moreover, and due to shallow tides, large craft were unable to reach the beaches.  By getting close to land and ferrying soldiers to the bigger vessels, the Little Ships were instrumental in hastening, easing and upgrading the rescue process.

But the main condemnation that has fallen on Nolan’s work isabout  his lack of cultural diversity. It started with a standard (in our era of Political Correctness) warning made by Brian Truitt  in his USA Today review: “the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way.” Of course, the conservative press, on both sides of the Atlantic, had a field day laughing at what they deemed liberal crap, or the inability to understand that the clashing armies of Dunkirk were monochromatic.  That incorrigible James Delingbone had me on stitches.

Also, it would have added a new dimension had James Earl Jones been cast as the salty old Royal Naval officer called out of retirement for one last trip across the English Channel, or if Ice T and Snoop Dogg had been given the role of two aging rappers who parachute from a Dakota to administer weed to the desperate troops, or if Oprah appeared in a cameo as Queen Mary welcoming the returning troops after their desperate voyage.

But it wouldn’t have been historically authentic.

Delingbone is better at sarcasm than Lyanna Mormont, but he is missing a point.  The British Army was not entirely white. In 1939, four Royal Indian Army companies arrived in France. Known as K6, they were mostly Muslim Punjabis and Pathans from what is now Pakistan.  They were present in Dunkirk, Indian officers were decorated, mules had to be left behind, three Indian contingents were evacuated, one fell into German hands.

Two Indian soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk (Getty Images)

The Times of India was the first medium to blow the whistle in Nolan’s oversight. Others followed suit. I do mind the omission, but I can understand the film’s limitations. However, Indian soldiers have appeared in British war films since the Rank’s gong days. I remember as a pre-adolescent (in my “drooling over Dirk Bogarde” stage) watching Indian soldiers fight the Japanese in “The Wind Cannot Read.” And the Indian military effort has been celebrated on screen from “The Jewel in the Crown” to “The English Patient”.

Naveen Andrews as sapper Kip Singh in "The English Patient"

Now, Nolan can’t be blamed for this specific lapse since he has overlooked so many other nationalities. This was a world war, and although no British colonial forces were present at Dunkirk, we do get to glimpse a black man in a French uniform on the film. The French colonial army was anything but white and their contribution was enormous.

Contingents of Moroccan troops were among those forces that held the Germans at bay, propitiating the retreat.  But the French are not complaining about the race issue, they find the film offensive because their contribution and their presence are so minimized. I find this nitpicking exhausting. Imagine if other “white” nationalities would echo this bickering?

Soldiers from the Colonial French Army on their way to Dunkirk

Although, at some point Harry Styles and his Merry Men do bump into a Dutch soldier, “Dunkirk” does not talk about the Dutch and Belgian evacuees (ships from the Low Countries also joined the trop ferrying effort). There were Free Poles on that beach, and thanks to “Home Fires,” I learned there were also Free Czechs.  None of them are mentioned in the film.  Master Nolan, you are slipping, Sir!

Czech Captain Novotny came from Dunkirk to bring joy to poor,  plain and abused Pat.

Truth be told, most Eastern European troops were evacuated in a joint effort known as Operation Ariel that went on a couple of weeks after the Dunkirk exodus was over. It continued throughout June from the main French ports on the Atlantic, and rescued French, British, Polish, and Czech soldiers as well as British nurses and some equipment.

Nolan’s film has made France unhappy. Her media complains about  French troops being ignored in the storyline. Surprising, since the film is brutally honest about the British attitude towards their allies.  The success of Dynamo was possible thanks to 30, 000 French soldiers that remained behind fighting off the Germans (The Indian contingent fought along them). As the film shows us, British Navy personnel felt their priority should be their Tommies, so the French were put on hold. It was only Churchill’s demands that made it possible to evacuate almost 100, 000 French troops. But they were the last to leave, as exemplified in the film by Commander Bolton’s final remark:” I’m staying for the French.”

At Le Monde, Jacques Mandelbaum calls Nolan’s omission impolite. He describes the film as “une histoire purement anglaise.” He says the film only gives a dozen of minutes to his countrymen. Geoffroy Caillet writing for Le Figaro is much more offensive. He claims that Operation Dynamo was a betrayal of the French since it ruined Le Plan Weygand and helped pave France’s debacle. WTF? You idiotic Frog (and I can use the word. My paternal grandmother hailed from La Gascogne just like D’Artagnan).  That is pure Vichy propaganda! Sorry, Mes petits, I will mourn for the slighted, forgotten French in Dunkirk, but raise my middle finger to those who use such false arguments.

When I was young, we had a neighbor, Monsieur Daniel G, he was a Communist and a former resistant. He also claimed to have fled Dunkirk. He said that on noticing that the French soldiers were lagging, he went, found himself a boat,  and rowed towards one of the British destroyers. They couldn’t turn him away and so he got to England.  I never knew if the story was apocryphal or not. But it could have happened.

French soldiers are hauled from water after their ship has been bombed off Dunkirk shore (BBC)

In Mandelbaum’s critic, he also mentions that we never get to see the Dunkirk civilians, and they had a tough time too. Well, this is an odd film, since the idea is to show civilians (ergo British) coming to rescue the soldiers, but it is true we don’t get to see the town or its inhabitants. In fact, Dunkirk was far from deserted. Its population expanded thanks to a constant reflux of Belgian refugees, most of them Jewish.

And hey! Now that every minority is demanding a pound of Nolan’s flesh, it’s time for me to join in. How come nobody mentions Jews in this film?  There were Jewish refugees on Dunkirk, and Jewish crews manning both the British vessels and the Little Ships. There were Jews in the British and French armies. Historian Marc Bloch, then a captain in the French Army, was evacuated in the Daffodil. There is no mention of the Jewish army doctors that were taken away by the SS and were never heard again. Only one of them reappeared, Isadore Scherer,  a South African medical officer, who ended up in Colditz Castle.

Some have complained that Nolan does not show the fate of those who fell in German hands. In fact, at the end of the film, when Farrier (Tom Hardy) hands himself over to the Germans, we just shrug. Tom Hardy managed to escape from “Colditz” in 2005, he can do it again. The truth is that a prisoner’s lot was not a  good one. Officers got to go to Stalags, other ranks became forced laborers. Those were the lucky ones .

Tom Hardy after escaping from "Colditz"

Several hundred of British soldiers of all ranks were massacred by the SS at Le Paradis. Dunkirk survivors don’t have a happier story to tell, deprived of food, water and medical aid, they were also beaten and mocked by the Germans. In a way, I’m glad that Nolan forgot to include their plight.  The movie is harrowing enough as it is.

In my next blog, I’ll go on detail about Nolan’s last faux-pas and how it has enraged the denizens of faux-feminism. Poor man, he just can’t seem to do right by minorities!

Poor Nolan! Now he is a Zionist agent

The feminization of period drama: Are we to blame gender for inaccurate historical fiction?

Last year, James Delingbone caused an uproar around social media when he blamed the “feminization of culture” for the recurrent erroneousness in historical fiction. Although part of an ongoing debate, Delingbone’s insistence to bring gender into the equation, enraged and shocked many. Not that there were no bases for his reproach, but he failed to realize that since its origins, historical fiction, particularly historical romances, has targeted women.  Feminine tastes and demands have shaped the genre, and one of its tropes is the bending of historical events to spice up the plot. Lately we’ve seen a reaction to that state of things, the rise of more “masculine” period pieces. Nevertheless, historical incoherence also comes to play a part in these new shows. So, who is to blame?

Let us go back to the article that started this controversy. In April 2016, James Delingbone published on The Spectator a piece called “ITV's Victoria is silly, facile and irresponsible – I blame the feminization of culture.”  Under this overlong title, laid a negative review of Masterpiece’s “Victoria,” another one of those biopics about Her Royal Highness, Queen Vicky. Delingbone had a point since the series presented a lot of fluff and very little accuracy.

We are too cute to be historical!

The first season had irked me tremendously, so I embraced Delingbone’s accusations that the liberty taking with historical facts in “Victoria” felt like “one giant upraised middle finger to those of us who value history.”  I also applauded his demanding of a responsible attitude from the part of historical drama producers and a commitment to their public: “you owe it to your audience to cleave as close as you reasonably can to the known biographical facts.”

Sadly, Delingbone went on to spew offensive (and untrue) statements such as “I suspect it’s probably true that boys, being of a more transporters disposition, more jealous of their facts and their period detail, are more likely to be resistant to Victoria’s ersatz charms than girls.”

Oh, Dash, apparently only dogs and girls like me!

Delingbone forgot that macho costumed potboilers such as “Spartacus”, “Black Sails,” and “Vikings”, also twist historical facts. Slave-turned-gladiator Crixus didn’t have sex with his Domina Lucretia: Alfred the Great was Ragnar’s contemporary (and already king when the Vikings reached England); and Blackbeard died in battle, he was never keelhauled by governor Woodes Rogers.

Ragnar and Little Alfred. In real life, they were about the same age.

From its beginnings, historical fiction has forayed into the land of speculation to make it less “dull”, and to fill in gaps. Many of those gap-fillers wore pants. Mary Stuart meeting Cousin Bess was Schiller’s invention, Shakespeare forged Richard the III’s bad reputation, and Spartacus was crucified only by Stanley Kubrick.

Although we tend to associate early historical fiction with seminal writers such as Alexandre Dumas and Sir Walter Scott, Gothic literature was the first field where depictions of the past became a norm. Women Gothic authors such as Anne Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth, Clara Barton and Miss Sophia Lee were instrumental in blending romance, horror and days of yore. Particularly, Miss Lee, who in the years prior to the French Revolution, wrote what may be the first historical romance, The Recess. She even subtitled it A Tale of Other Times.

Drifting from the Middle Ages, Gothic’s favorite scenario, Sophia Lee moved to the Elizabethan Era to deal with historical figures such as Mary Stuart, Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers. In real life, The Queen of Scots bore a set of stillborn babies, product of her marriage to Lord Bothwell. In The Recess, the author provides Mary with a fourth husband, The Duke of Norfolk, who fathers her twin daughters. Ellinor and Matilda grow up to plague poor Aunt Elizabeth’s life. Not only do they threaten her throne, they try to steal her boyfriends! Ellinor falls for domed Earl of Essex, Matilda goes on to marry Robert Dudley.  (what happened to Amy Robsart and Lettice Knollys?)

The Recess gave birth to tropes associated with historical romance to this day: the amalgam of romance and history; the alteration of real events to suit storytelling; beautiful unconventional protagonists, and the highlighting of characterization over action. This latest form of literature caused controversy. Philosopher Willian Goodwin (Mary Shelley’s father) bemoaned in his On History and Romance, that the new genre “debauched and corrupted” history.  He also noticed that women and boys were historical romances main readers.

Since then, historical fiction has been associated with a feminine audience. Nineteenth century literature mirrored such interest.  In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen presented us with a protagonist obsessed with Gothic fiction.  Young ladies of leisure like Stendhal’s Mathilde de La Mole were hooked on Walter Scott’s historical yarns. Louisa May Alcott’s Old-Fashioned Girl professed to despise Ouida’s popular French novels preferring instead the work of German author Luise Mulhbach, because her novels “are historical.”

In my own youth, I learned history thanks to period drama and historical fiction written by Anya Seton, Daphne Du Maurier, and the exalted Jean Plaidy, she of the many pseudonyms. In the late 70s, fresh from high school, I became acquainted with the infamous bodice-rippers, a cocktail of  romance and erotica,  dressed in period outfits. Critics can label such literature as pulpy or trash, the truth is that it confirms historical fiction as a feminine turf, therefore we cannot talk of a “feminization” campaign.

 Going back to “Victoria,” Delingbone’s main peeve was with the beautification of characters. He complained about Jenna Coleman looking gorgeous (“more than the dumpy Victoria ever did”) and Lord Melbourne played by “smoldering” Rufus Sewell. He particularly objected to the fictitious romance between Melbourne (a portly and gray gentleman in real life) and his sovereign.

 I wasn’t bothered by that romance.  Gorgeous protagonists and romantic interests are elements of the genre, and real dumpy Victoria could have had a crush on Lord M.  Young girls tend to fall in love with father-figures who offer them kindness and consideration. Since Vicky was called “Mrs. Melbourne” behind her back, rumors about a dalliance must have been in the air in her early days on the throne.

Real life Melbourne and his dumpy queen.

Slender. and...

Smoldering. The traps of historical romance.

What I did mind, and I totally agree with Delingbone’s complains on the subject, was that unsightly rat episode. Buckingham Palace was not Hamelin, it was never overrun by rodents, and Queen Vicky did not go into hysterics on seeing mice sprouting, like a chorus girl, from her birthday cake. Most importantly, there was never a hint in her behavior that may have led to believe that she could have inherited King George’s madness. That need to show women of the past, whether they are Queen Victoria or Jackie Kennedy, suffering from “the vapors” or throwing hysterical tantrums is the product of misogynist minds.

Queen Vicky didn't give us cake!

Despite Delingbone’s assertions, women do cringe at historical inaccuracies. I have often been accused of being a pedantic nitpicker for grumbling about certain phoniness that tinges period pieces. Modern sensibilities have become so distant from that of our forebears that any attempt to recreate bygone eras must be stuffed with absurdities to make historical characters more relevant to us, Third Millennium audience.

The current fashion is to adjust events in historical fiction to fit into the canons of political correction. Whether we like it or not, the great upholders of political correctness tend to be feminists. It is them that demand that historical context doesn’t challenge their ideology. But not only feminists fall prey to the habit of reflecting contemporary views on ancient settings. Were Roman matrons as foul-mouthed as their counterparts in “Spartacus?”  I doubt it, and yet the gladiator series is an example of the “masculinization” of period drama.

 In “Black Sails,” another macho tale, I was shocked to see Mrs. Guthrie offering Max a white powerful husband who could become the new governor of Nassau. Aside from the fact that as a former slave/bisexual prostitute, Max was not precisely a candidate to be the toast of Colonial Philadelphia’s high society, the color of her skin barred her from becoming the wife of any 18^th century gentleman.  Such marriage would have  been as anachronic as Marie Antoinette and her ladies doing drugs in the Sofia Coppola movie.

At least in Coppola’s film the fashion of Enlightened Versailles was well-researched. The same cannot be said of “Reign,” the series describing Mary Stuart's youth. In that show, The Queen of Scots wears anything but what an early Sixteenth century noblewoman would. Those see-through blouses, those sleeveless dresses, those leather riding pants… What are they thinking?

Mary, Mary quite contrary. This is not what queens wore in the 1500s

 In 2008, historian David Starkey ranted in The Telegraph against the Victorian carriages used in “The Tudors.” I second his ranting. As women who claim and reclaim historical romance as our territory, we must also demand as much historical veracity and context as possible in it, especially when it comes to everyday life items such as costumes and furniture.

There are those who will oppose this crusade, claiming period drama is not a history class. This recalls Adelaide Kane’s flippant answer when confronted with the historical mishmash that is “Reign”: “How many teenage girls do you know that are obsessed with history? I know I wasn’t at that age.” Thus, our sweet Mary, Queen of Scots, confirms to Delingbone, Starkey and those of that ilk, that they are right. Girls are to blame for historical inaccuracy because they don’t care, because they are not “obsessed” with history.

Disregard for historical details breeds fashion disasters.

The danger is that teenage girls (who obviously are the target for Kane’s show) learn what-passes-for-history from “Reign.” Hence, they will go on thinking that Mary Stuart was raped by courtiers, killed Catherine De Medici’s bastard daughter and had more lovers than the poor woman could fit in her bed. We say that customers are not supposed to teach history, but in the end, sex romps like “Versailles,” “Reign, “and the Iberian “Aguila Roja,” do much worse. They combine false depictions with soft porn and end up in the weirdest and most useless history lesson any audience could stomach.  

There should be limits to creative license, balance between fantasy and the spirit of authenticity, and as James Delingbone demanded, responsibility to the public. Just as the worst fanfiction is the one that strays away from the original, a freely inspired adaptation of historical events won’t guarantee a quality product. From the moment  a piece claims to be historical or based on actual incidents, there should be a commitment to deliver a story that is at least 80% truth. After all, sometimes reality can be much more fun than reprehensible and inaccurate clichés. Don’t you agree?