Film ReviewsDarkest Hour: Freedom or Bust
Mar 28, 2018 Anchorage Press
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Darkest Hour directed by Joe Wright is about Winston Churchill‘s first few days as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1940. Churchill supplants Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) whose war-time policies were ineffective against the raging power and seemingly unstoppable Adolf Hitler. Churchill is played by Gary Oldman with Kristin Scott Thomas playing his wife, and a cast of talented and solid actors supporting and moving the plot along.
Wasn’t it Churchill himself who said “History is written by the victors”? Well, he may be appalled to know that in this day and age, history is written by the script writers, and that increasingly, people know history not from books and active learning but from snippets of it presented through films and Netflix et al, delivered through binge-watching or in two-hour intervals. At the beginning of the film, the filmmakers take the time to contextualize the story by giving dates and a status quo through text on the screen. Darkest Hour is mostly historically accurate but takes some liberties. The film is so focused on the actions of a few days that it fails to follow up on key details about the course of events upon which it builds suspense, such as the number of soldiers that actually died in Calais, if one believes the movie, they all died, if one reads the historical account, the majority survived, it is this kind of fictionalizing facts that should make viewers weary of believing everything they see. Another cringe-worthy part of Darkest Hour is the permission it takes developing plot points that reinterpret historical characters into scheming players for the sake of adding intrigue and suspense, all in an effort to tell a more dramatic and righteous story. The characters of Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane) and Chamberlin and their respective stories are flatten, this flattening of their role in history effectively makes the portrayal of Winston Churchill pop. The shortsightedness of this approach is a missed opportunity to tell a deeper and more compelling story with complex character development-- the story is, after all, of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, a very complicated leader, who embodied contradictions, who was loved and hated, heroic and tyrannical, noble and despicable, all at the same time.
Nevertheless, Darkest Hour is entertaining and beautiful to watch. It opens with black and white images of missiles and rows of soldiers that set the stage and reach into a collective memory of the Second World War, of documentation, and works of fact and fiction that emerged from the era. From the interior sets of the war rooms and Buckingham Palace, to the streets and underground of London itself, the details unfold through millions of superbly constructed reproductions of place and time. Gary Oldman himself is also transformed to the fleshy and unapologetic leader who plows through fascism like a bull, and towards victory by hook and by crook. Oldman delivers a compelling rendition of Churchill like that of a bull in China shop of diplomacy, who appears to be in an eternal state of inebriation as a way to temper, or ignite his unbridled mind and actions. Oldman does a wonderful job depicting Churchill as a man who forged the path for himself and a nation despite the isolation that comes with extreme love and hate. The curious thing about Garry Oldman’s depiction is that even though everything about him is transformed, his presence as an actor persists and viewers are unable to forget that it’s Gary Oldman playing Churchill. This isn’t because Gary Oldman cannot act, on the contrary he’s wonderful in this role, it’s that the actor remains identifiable even through the layers of makeup and added weathered flesh; whenever the camera meets Oldman’s gaze, his presence escapes and persists, how very Churchill of him.
Bear Tooth
Darkest Hour
PG-13 Rated PG-13 for some thematic material
Monday, April 2, at 5:30 PM and 8:15 PM
Wasn’t it Churchill himself who said “History is written by the victors”? Well, he may be appalled to know that in this day and age, history is written by the script writers, and that increasingly, people know history not from books and active learning but from snippets of it presented through films and Netflix et al, delivered through binge-watching or in two-hour intervals. At the beginning of the film, the filmmakers take the time to contextualize the story by giving dates and a status quo through text on the screen. Darkest Hour is mostly historically accurate but takes some liberties. The film is so focused on the actions of a few days that it fails to follow up on key details about the course of events upon which it builds suspense, such as the number of soldiers that actually died in Calais, if one believes the movie, they all died, if one reads the historical account, the majority survived, it is this kind of fictionalizing facts that should make viewers weary of believing everything they see. Another cringe-worthy part of Darkest Hour is the permission it takes developing plot points that reinterpret historical characters into scheming players for the sake of adding intrigue and suspense, all in an effort to tell a more dramatic and righteous story. The characters of Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane) and Chamberlin and their respective stories are flatten, this flattening of their role in history effectively makes the portrayal of Winston Churchill pop. The shortsightedness of this approach is a missed opportunity to tell a deeper and more compelling story with complex character development-- the story is, after all, of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, a very complicated leader, who embodied contradictions, who was loved and hated, heroic and tyrannical, noble and despicable, all at the same time.
Nevertheless, Darkest Hour is entertaining and beautiful to watch. It opens with black and white images of missiles and rows of soldiers that set the stage and reach into a collective memory of the Second World War, of documentation, and works of fact and fiction that emerged from the era. From the interior sets of the war rooms and Buckingham Palace, to the streets and underground of London itself, the details unfold through millions of superbly constructed reproductions of place and time. Gary Oldman himself is also transformed to the fleshy and unapologetic leader who plows through fascism like a bull, and towards victory by hook and by crook. Oldman delivers a compelling rendition of Churchill like that of a bull in China shop of diplomacy, who appears to be in an eternal state of inebriation as a way to temper, or ignite his unbridled mind and actions. Oldman does a wonderful job depicting Churchill as a man who forged the path for himself and a nation despite the isolation that comes with extreme love and hate. The curious thing about Garry Oldman’s depiction is that even though everything about him is transformed, his presence as an actor persists and viewers are unable to forget that it’s Gary Oldman playing Churchill. This isn’t because Gary Oldman cannot act, on the contrary he’s wonderful in this role, it’s that the actor remains identifiable even through the layers of makeup and added weathered flesh; whenever the camera meets Oldman’s gaze, his presence escapes and persists, how very Churchill of him.
Bear Tooth
Darkest Hour
PG-13 Rated PG-13 for some thematic material
Monday, April 2, at 5:30 PM and 8:15 PM