Little White Lies Issue 70

It’s impossible to imagine what life would be like now if, in 1940, Operation Dynamo had tanked. That is, the logistical nightmare of transporting close to half a million Allied soldiers away from a beach in the town of Dunkirk before their mass slaughter by the German air force. It’s idle speculation, but maybe we’d all be speaking a different language, or we might even have hateful fascists in high positions of power. Christopher Nolan, having returned from a sojourn to the outer reaches of a neighbouring solar system in 2014’s Interstellar, turns his attentions to the relative hop-andskip across the English Channel with his new film, Dunkirk. This experiential triptych narrative recreates the Dunkirk evacuation from the perspective of those in the air, those on land and those at…

Imagine you’re standing on a beach. A cool, steady breeze makes ribbons in the sand as you watch a group of gulls floating idly on the water. The sun is out and all is calm. Now imagine you’re standing on a beach surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people. The wind is lashing at your face and the sky is thick with smoke and the stench of war. All around you there is panic and confusion. Surveying Dunkirk today, it’s hard to picture the scene as it looked 76 years ago, when some 400,000 men were sardined on the shoreline having been forced back by the advancing German army. With the Allied campaign hanging in the balance, a mass evacuation plan codenamed ‘Operation Dynamo’ was hastily formulated. Damage limitation was…

Over the past decade, the alliance between physical film and information technology has shifted. Digital capture and projection have launched full-scale invasions on film production and exhibition. Meanwhile, celluloid film has been threatened with extinction. Is it not possible for photochemical and virtual moviemaking to live side by side? The resistance to the digital onslaught is real. Christopher Nolan has said that Dunkirk will be exclusively released on 35mm, 70mm and 70mm-IMAX prints several days before it is screened on digital formats. Kodak continues to manufacture motion picture film, and are doubling down by bringing back their discontinued Ektachrome stock. In the past year alone, movies such as The Love Witch, Person to Person, Porto, Eyes of My Mother, Too Late, Batman v Superman and The Lost City of Z…

It’s 10:30 on a Saturday night. You are nine years old. You are a child. Family time is about to be over. You sit crosslegged and innocent in front of the TV, your jammies surrounded by an ocean of SodaStream bottles and pick‘n’mix wrappers. Sleepy times and polysaccharides vie for your soul. As the late-nite sports roundup comes on, Mum shuffles off to bed and Dad – on cue – gives her a weary, “I’ll be up in a minute, luv.” But this time it’s different. This time his signature Saturday night sign-off is delivered with a sly, beery, conspiratorial wink in your direction. Normally you’d already be climbing the wooden hill to Beddington. But not tonight. Tonight Dad nudges an encouraging eyebrow toward the TV. No… not the TV.…

1 HELL IN THE PACIFIC 1968, JOHN BOORMAN - Starring Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune - The ultimate game of hide and seek, Boorman’s seminal two-hander offers a Dad-esque twist on Robinson Crusoe – in that Rob and Friday are racists who are desperately trying to kill each other. 2 PAPILLON 1973, FRANKLIN J SCHAFFNER - Starring Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman - Fun in the sun as Steve and Dusty book in for some serious me-time in a quaint French Guianan penal colony. Comedy ensues. 3 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING 1975, JOHN HUSTON - Starring Sean Connery, Michael Caine - A sweet and romantic tale of Masonic handshakes, severed heads and bromantic rejection in turn-of-the-century Kafiristan. 4 THE BITCH 1979, GERR Y O’HARA - Starring Joan Collins, Cliff from…

Who comes to your mind’s eye when you’re asked to think of a screen hero? It might be Captain America or John McClane. Maybe it’s Indiana Jones or Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. But me? I think of a World War Two pilot with a trim little moustache and a shearling-lined aviator jacket. There’s a reason for that: his name is David Niven. This heroic image comes from the unforgettable opening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1946 film A Matter of Life and Death. In it, a sweat-smeared Niven, jaunty ’tache and pilot’s jacket nonetheless in place, woos a switchboard operator as his bullet-riddled plane cascades toward Earth. Taking English stoicism to new heights, he quotes Sir Walter Raleigh and eloquently bids his life farewell before jumping to his…