This article was first published in "MOVIE Io" and also appeared in "Author's Movie".
# Official Account Reference: Revisiting the "Darkest Hour" of Human History
The history of cinema has never been short of great intertexts.
When "Chinese Girl" exudes the sweet flavor of revolution, you would never have imagined that "Dream of Paris" 36 years later recalls this movement with a three-person mutated romance.
When Andrei Rublev painted an icon in the 15th century, did it become the 24 frames of "Blood Battle on the Krzhenets"?
Now, within 3 months, we have witnessed another great intertext - the 400,000 British and French troops of "Dunkirk", the old captains and pilots are all hidden in a map and data of "Darkest Hour" in a command.
Without "Darkest Hour", we would not have noticed that 4,000 British troops in Calais were wiped out in order to contain the German forces encircling Dunkirk . And what decides the life and death of all the soldiers trapped in Dunkirk is only a few quarrels between a group of politicians in the basement of London.
The cruelty of war has always been so, and the first and foremost must be the fate of the nation and the justice of history.
Of course, the most important thing is the appearance of Prime Minister Churchill.
He appeared in his absence. When all audiences know that Churchill will be elected Prime Minister, the film first shows the compromise between the House of Representatives, the former Prime Minister and the King. It is exactly what Churchill wrote in his memoirs: " I feel as if I am following the footsteps of fate. My past life has been preparing for this moment. "
A rambling old man who was pushed onto the stage of history,
A grumpy pajama man who opens in bed.
Like the title, the darkness in which he appears, and his only illuminated silhouette in the elevator, reminds us that this is not just the darkest moment of life and death in the British Isles, but also of Churchill himself. ; and luckily, at least he was still in the light.
Joe Wright treated the entire film with dim, ambiguous and retro lighting. Those small bunkers, meeting rooms and studios, even the dim royal family and the turbulent House of Commons, are all creating the "Mountain Rain" in London in 1940. The anxious atmosphere of wanting to come to the wind ."
But as long as Gary Oldman, who has spent four hours putting on makeup and cigar-dipping, stops there, the hand of God that changes the course of history and determines the rise and fall of world civilization seems to be waving in the air.
This is the presupposition that history itself brings to us, but Joe Wright's work in this biopic - as we all know it - restores a Churchill as "man" outside the spotlight, and a war that belongs to the civilian population .
The former, Gary Oldman's humorous, cranky, hesitant, and desperate Churchill, who drank, murmured, made vulgarity by mistaking the gesture of victory, and even lit up in front of a female secretary. Move around.
Being in a position that the House of Commons, Cabinet members and King George VI did not trust, there was no specific policy policy, but he was fully aware of the responsibilities he shouldered. All the above clear understandings turned into determination to fight the war to the end, which is similar to all Churchill's speeches during World War II. The theme is the same: battle !
However, the former Prime Minister Chamberlain and the political opponent Viscount Fax, who intended to negotiate with Hitler through Mussolini, also claimed to represent the interests of the nation. Churchill, who was fighting alone, would be cowardly, hiding in the toilet to smoke, and crying in his wife's arms in despair.
There is a very impressive shot of Churchill sitting on a deck chair with an umbrella, meditating alone in the rain in London at night. It was Churchill's darkest moment as "man" , and the camera zoomed in and out to bring the entire city into the frame. It is the common people in this country and the whole world that he is fighting for and facing the threat of the devil together .
This is the latter, the civilian perspective of war .
The character setting of the female typist is a key to dealing with the historical point of view. The woman who was anxiously preparing to type for Churchill at the beginning was also the sight-leader of our thrilling entry into this darkest history.
A woman who just wants to get a decent job in wartime has inadvertently become a footnote in history, and her mood when she walks through a long bunker for the first time fits perfectly with the presuppositions of those of us who are looking at history.
And her interaction and contact with Churchill (especially the scene where her brother who died in battle is mentioned) makes the whole film achieve a certain delicate balance between the elitist perspective and the care of the common people , thus avoiding the audience's questioning of its historical view .
A more obvious concern is Churchill's interaction with civilians in different modes of transportation .
When Churchill was sitting in the car, the camera slowed down, and all the people were running and shouting beside the car, and the burden of human destiny suddenly became heavy.
Before the crucial meeting to decide the war of resistance or peace talks, Churchill, who never took the subway, came to the subway passengers for the first time, and gained the strength to persevere from the civilians and finally turned the tide. A speech inspired the nation.
But for me, the only regret of the whole film is also here. The scene where the prime minister takes the subway to get firm support from all kinds of people from all walks of life is simply an old-fashioned passage that touches me. The ideological stitching is embarrassing and plays out. One stitch .
This actually involves the attitude of historical biopics to history .
If the excavation of history is Churchill and Roosevelt's call for help, and the richness of history is the color of Churchill's pajamas, the dining situation, and the way Gary Oldman drank his cigar and looked up through the frame, then the embellishment of history is It must be the political correctness of the moment revealed by the subway scenes (taking into account all age groups, genders, different races and all classes). During the pivotal and climax of the turn of events, the film reluctantly fills with emotion.
But we still have to thank Joe Wright for his excellent work and Gary Oldman's textbook rendition of the great man.
All justice, bravery and kindness belonging to the community with a shared future for mankind are vividly displayed in the film; and the process of human history is intertwined with the efforts of imperfect leaders, which also brings an excellent viewing experience.
In a way, it 's Gary Oldman's personal performance that makes up for the film's subtle dislocations at some point : Did Churchill save his political career in the midst of a national dilemma in 1940, or was he preached by a latecomer A kind of patriotism that saved the British Empire?
When we indulge in Gary Oldman's hunchback, cute little eyes, and spittle stars, we get caught up in a real historical situation and forget that this is a reworked historical biopic.
In this way, Gary, who has finally become an old man, should really get an Oscar statuette.
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