Analysis of The Film Dunkirk as a Good Historical Source

The movie, Dunkirk was created in the year 2017 by Christopher Nolan who set out to display the miracle of Dunkirk. This movie also plays a key role in World War history as it demonstrates many events which are relatable to the Battle of Dunkirk. He showed a variety of themes on how many people worked together to have the most amount of people evacuated. Some sacrificed themselves for others by being prisoners at war, and some saved men with minor wounds by putting themselves in danger. The director also incorporates a timeline in which 3 consecutive events were taken place at the same time and were intertwined with one another. I believe this movie is a great historical source, as it gives the viewers a relatable visual to show what life was like during the battle of Dunkirk. The setting of the movie shows scenes of the beach and the town nearby. Viewers will be able to gather critical information on how many people survived, and how they manage to rescue all them.

The movie is about British and French allied soldiers stranded on Dunkirk trying to escape before being bombed by the German troops. The director wants to show that the battle of Dunkirk in 1940 was a successful giving British a morale boost. The setting displays the city of Dunkirk in France where most of the British troops were stranded on awaiting for homefront support. Some of the main characters in the movie were Tommy, Gibson, Farrier, Mr. Dawson, and Commander Bolton. Mr. Dawson was a civilian at homefront giving support by sailing his boat out to assist with rescuing as many troops as possible. The farrier was a royal air force pilot who ran out of fuel while bombing German planes. He managed to destroy all of the planes and landing on the beach becoming germans prisoner of war. The main themes in this movie were fighting for survival and nationalism. The theme fighting for survival is demonstrated when the soldiers fought for something that was a fifty percent chance of encountering; being able to return home or not. Nationalism also played in the movie when the British realized French soldiers were stranded and need help as well. The British didn’t hesitate to save the French soldiers as they are valuable people as well as their allies.

Considering the fact that, Nolan wanted to represent the days in the war in his movie, shows it to be a great historical source when talking about Dunkirk. My first area of research is the settings and surroundings of Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan used a beach to be able to recreate the battle on the beach of Dunkirk. The conditions were windy in the movie showing the reason why Hitler put a halt on the battle due to weather.

The military strategy used in the battle compared to the movie was my second area of research. The weapons used in world war 1 were more advanced in world war 2 as more ships and planes were being used to destroy the enemies. The strategies used in this battle were from the help of homefront. The Germans realize that homefront was giving support by bringing in smaller ships instead of big cargo ships. Assuming that Germans weren’t able to see the homefront’s boats, put the allies at a bigger advantage.

My third area of focus was on the major historical events of this movie. Dunkirk is a movie that represents the battle of Dunkirk in world war 2 causing it to be a significant time. With British winning this war, it gave them a big morale boost but also more troops than the Germans. The movie and the battle shows relatable terms on how the same number of people were rescued. A specific quote that really stood out in this movie was by Commander Bolton who said “ You can practically see it from here…Home”. This gives viewers a scenario if what might happen in the next few minutes of the movie. Overall, the movie and the battle had most concepts similar.

With this movie being an efficient secondary source, readers will also be eager to watch more war-related movies to better understand the significance of the event. Christopher Nolan’s choice of the main event showed viewers that with the help from home, they were able to evacuate more than 300,00 soldiers. This film is based on the battle of Dunkirk, which is a significant event as it was one of Hitler’s three biggest mistakes in war. Hitler called a halt due to weather, which gave the allies a huge advantage to evacuate as many men as possible.

This film portrays 3 major perspectives of the different stages in war intertwined with each other. The 1st perspective is shown as the air, in which Farrier tried to destroy most of the germans planes with very low fuel. The 2nd perspective is shown on the beach, where Tommy tried to evacuate Dunkirk when any boats were packing soldiers. The 3rd major perspective was homefront, as Mr. Dawson was a civilian who went to assist in bringing soldiers home without being controlled by the Navy.

The movie Dunkirk didn’t have many consequences on society, though it leads to saving more than 300,000 soldiers plus give the British a huge morale boost. Many families were able to reunite with one another, while some didn’t due to German fighter planes. Society benefited with the morale boost in future wars, but Germans were frustrated and angry.

There was no change in theme as it stayed continuous throughout the whole movie. Fighting for survival was the biggest them as helping one another was the only way they would survive. For example, in the movie 10 men took shelter in a broken boat, though they had to work together to save each other with Germans shoot at the plane. In order for them to survive, they had to come up with a plan to secure the gun holes from drowning their boat.

To conclude, I believe Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan is a good historical source to inform students on the events that took place in 1940 during Operation Dynamo. Students will be able to get a close idea of what went wrong at Dunkirk giving British a big morale boost in the end. It will restate some key events, like the number of troops that were rescued, the weather conditions that these soldiers fought in. I would recommend this movie to watch as a class or individual as it gives me a state of reference of how the Battle of Dunkirk was so significant in World War 2.   

Works Cited

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