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Simplex posted:I think this is what makes Dunkirk a pretty fascinating subject for a film, especially if you wanted to make an anti-war film. The modern, American public perception of Churchill is of this great wartime leader, but I don't really think that squares with the historical record. He decisively lost an election before the war was even over. Pre-war Churchill was known as an ardent British imperialist and was a staunch anti-Communist. The cost of British "victory" in the war though was the communist takeover of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the British Empire. I think there is the same kind of dichotomy with the evacuation at Dunkirk. It's a successful military operation, set against the backdrop of a crushing military defeat. It's a morale boosting speech, meant to inspire the people to keep fighting, but it's filled with a bunch of empty promises. That's not just the "American" perception, the mainstream British perception is that he was one of the greatest leaders of the country. The widely-held view is that he was a brilliant wartime leader but not so in peacetime, which excuses his defeat to Attlee. (This also allowed Churchill, at the time, to deflect the blame for the loss of India & the breakup of the Empire onto Attlee). Churchill's handling of Dunkirk was a brilliant propaganda coup. The film shows that; the soldiers are baffled by being received by a cheering civilian population, who view their return as a victory rather than an ignominious defeat. There is indeed a dichotomy, but I'm not sure it's so straightforwardly anti-war.
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Jul 30, 2017 14:10
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Phanatic posted:His plane was a Mark Ia . It had an 85-gallon fuel tank, which would be good for several hundred miles of cruising, but actually being in air combat would eat into that fast, and he spent a good amount of time in combat. I think there's a line at the beginning about how Tom Hardy's squadron is dumping fuel to the minimum required for a return trip to aid their manoeuvrability when dogfighting.
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Jul 31, 2017 23:47
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