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Writer's pictureJonathan Young
Jan 21, 202011 min read

Squaddies, Bobbies & Zombies Essay

How does The Theory of Everything compare to Dunkirk in terms of its narrative structure and what aspects such as technology affect the shape of each narrative?

Whilst The Theory of Everything and Dunkirk are based off true events, how each film chooses to deliver their narratives differ in key aspects, primarily due to the difference in genres and the context of the narratives. However, both films fit into the ‘reality’ strand of British cinema as they rely on the location, characters and more natural elements instead of the ‘tinsel’ strand which focuses more on beauty over story which has become more common in Hollywood. The topics I will analysing focus on how each of the narrative strands are effective in their own ways and, whilst both being classified as historical films – one documenting the life of Stephen Hawking, the other documenting the Dunkirk evacuations in 1940 – tell their stories across a variety of time frames. There are significant similarities and differences as to how these stories are executed and many historical, cultural and technological aspects come into play to affect the film’s outcome and the audience’s reaction which is what I will be exploring throughout.


Part 1: History & Culture –


When producing any production that is based on a true story, the level of accuracy the studio chooses to include can make or break the film. For a film like Dunkirk, historical accuracy is vital due to the events it was covering and the overall impact it had on the world and the Second World War. Whilst this is classified as a war film, Dunkirk moves away from the typical iconography of war films e.g. large battles and/or an incoming enemy whilst keeping the message clear. Kinney (2018) stated that “Dunkirk isn’t a history lesson, it is a masterful piece of filmmaking that transports it’s audience to a particular time and place” as the actual battle of Dunkirk is only included in the film’s opening moments before and focusing more on the actions of the film’s main character Tommy (played by Fionn Whitehead). From a historical context, one of the biggest aspects people remember about this event is the actual scale of the evacuation over the failed Battle of France and the film’s director Christopher Nolan chose to focus more on why the evacuation was key by displaying the scale as much as possible whilst keeping the tension high which proved to be a success.

Figure 1: Dunkirk Evacuations – 1940 (Britannica 2010)
Figure 2: Shot from the 2017 film (IndieWire 2017)

Whilst Dunkirk chose to move away from certain elements that made its events so famous, The Theory of Everything has a more vital role to play as it has to, while being historically accurate, faithfully represent the characters and their disabilities through each actor’s performance. One method a film can use to establish its historical structure to an audience is through its marketing and The Theory of Everything is a perfect example of how to provide a refresher for events that took place from the 1960’s and onwards. The most effective method this film used to achieve its initial accuracy was by using the trailer to immediately introduce the relationship between Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne) and Jane Hawking (played by Felicity Jones) alongside introducing and showing the progression and effects of his illness (motor neurone disease). Whilst this established that the story would be staying true to the events, the film had to make sure that each of the actor’s performances felt authentic and give the audience something they could relate to or feel something towards. This is presented as one of the key messages of the film as “it can prompt some rethinking of perspectives both within disability studies and within the conceptualisation of scale” (Gauci 2015, p.1282). Audience’s will have individual interpretation of certain historical events and this film was recognised for faithfully representing how the disease not only effects the person, but the people around them as well. The goal of this film is to continue the legacy of one of the greatest scientific minds ever and through a well-planned and executed narrative, achieved this beautifully, solidifying its place in the ‘reality’ strand of British cinema, making sure beauty and story come before everything else.

The Theory of Everything – Official Trailer (2014)


In comparison to The Theory of Everything, I see war films has having overcome more challenges when it comes to accurate historical representation as they are unlikely to be able to please everyone during primary distribution but Dunkirk, similar to The Theory of Everything, also uses its main advertising to create the basic narrative for the audience whilst never revealing too much to potentially ruin the experience.

The goal of any trailer is to set up the key narrative acts which become more vital for a historical film. As a film falling under its own brand of social realism, the trailer first presents a reminder of what the event was and what was being done to tackle it. From a social realism perspective, the trailer wants to generate an understanding of both the conditions of 1940’s France and the scale of the 400,000 men on the beach from the get go and the limited time they had to save everyone (through a simple ticking effect). A common criticism of war films is they rarely centre on the actions of the army, more the devastation that war brings and the advertising for Dunkirk proves it is shifting away from this characteristic and creating a more people-driven story.


Social realism – where the creators want to show the audience specific aspects of a setting or class from a political and power perspective to deliver a message - and specific criticism like the narrative based ones are less of an issue in biopics such as The Theory of Everything as historical biopics re becoming more popular, mainly in American film culture with films such as 2019’s Ford v Ferrari.

Figure 3: Ford v Ferrari Poster (Rotten Tomatoes 2019)

Whilst based on a true story, the narrative of The Theory of Everything is written from ‘Travelling to Infinity’ (a newer iteration of the original 1999 book ‘Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen’, the memoir written by Stephen Hawking’s wife which documented her marriage with Stephen. Biopic films should always follow on basic rule: inform, educate and entertain but this doesn’t mean the narrative is always accurate in the end. The Theory of Everything suffers from a common issue in today’s film industry, where it chose to move away from the original source material in important areas for its own sake and because the director (James Marsh) wanted to alter it to create more tension for the characters. Some reviewers caught on to the changes, with one from The Guardian claiming that Jane’s book “reveals much more of a complex courtship than the film captures” (Dean 2014). This is a major social issue in today’s British film culture, which is where this film differs hugely from Dunkirk, where a film chooses to move away from the original material, which commonly, the general audience chooses to pass by, but the critics will use as fuel for themselves whereas Dunkirk only suffers from historical inaccuracies. Whilst the director may have believed these changes were for the better and was the best way to tackle the social issues of the time, today’s culture makes it nearly impossible to equally please both the critics and the general audience where a changed narrative can either have a positive or negative impact on the film’s reception.


Dunkirk, was distributed in a period where war films were beginning to become popular in today’s film culture and showed that the brand is still going strong, especially with this year’s release of 1917. Despite this, the cultural reaction to war films has remained more or less the same, with the technological aspects sometimes receiving more praise and overshadowing the iconography of the film e.g. the soundtrack which always plays a pivotal role in Christopher Nolan’s films. However, in the film’s official screenplay, its revealed that Nolan doesn’t see the film as a war film, it’s a story of survival more than anything and according to Nolan (2017, p.3) “I don’t know how people who haven’t been to war taken on a war movie”. This narrative justification can alter one’s perception as to what the film focuses on which is where this film differs again from The Theory of Everything as Nolan, after the majority of his films, chooses to justify his decisions rather than leave them to interpretation for a long time. The Theory of Everything has no reason to follow this trend as whilst Nolan always creates complex narratives e.g. with his 2000 film Memento (with a narrative told completely back to front) whereas the Theory of Everything stays on a basic, chronological narrative. From a narrative standpoint, Dunkirk succeeds where The Theory of Everything fails, by aiming to fix its structural issues at a later time and even though Nolan also got much of his inspiration from first-hand accounts, he instead compiles them together, rather than just changing them outright.

Figure 4: Dunkirk – The Complete Screenplay (PicClick 2020)

Overall Dunkirk, when it comes to narrative structure, is more effective than The Theory of Everything whilst having used similar methods to create the narrative from – accounts and memoirs but Nolan uses these to stay as close to the history as possible when Marsh choosing to go in his own direction, did, I believe, effect the cultural impact of his film, despite how acclaimed it was. My consensus from this is that historical accuracy always plays a major part in how these styles of films performs in today’s industry depending on the genre and that how it tackles social realism of the time creates the difference in audience and critic response which was, in my opinion, the biggest difference between Dunkirk and The Theory of Everything.


Part 2: Technology –


Some reactions to Dunkirk claimed that the narrative was either too complex or scrambled even though Nolan is known for creating complex narratives, but one characteristic that came up frequently was this: the narratives are basic, it’s the cinematography and editing that kept them hooked more than anything. Nolan’s narrative shows the evacuation from three different perspectives – land, sea and air but these are narratives told through limited dialogue, therefore lettings the visuals tell the story. Today’s film culture can sometimes have film’s falling victim to just telling their story through dialogue and bland exposition but through less dialogue and exceptional sound design, Nolan creates the atmosphere and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema makes you feel like you are there. Nolan (2017, p.11) stated “I don’t want a script. Because I just want to show it, it’s almost like I want to just stage it”. This plan is executed very well during one of the film’s pivotal scenes in which British planes heading to Dunkirk encounter multiple fighters – one of the first ways Nolan subverts the typical iconography of war films by showing the enemy:

Nolan has always had a heavy reliance on practical effects over CGI and this scene proved how much the technology can be used to structure a narrative. Nolan obtained real World War Two Spitfires for the narrative following the planes and for this scene (one of the three key narratives). This scene, along with the majority of the film, was shot in 65 and 70mm IMAX (Nolan’s standard filming format) using cameras including the IMAX MSM 9802 (shown below) which were attached to the planes during production to create the dogfights.

The sound design and overall look of the planes were highly praised for their level of historical accuracy and the narrative involving the planes over Dunkirk is hailed as being some the best and tensest moments of the film due to how well they were shot and executed overall. This is one area where Nolan stays with the standard iconography conventions of war films as he constantly adapts the scale of the battle – wide open in the sky, clustered together on the ground whilst making sure their current goal is always clear.

Figure 5: Nolan on location for 2008’s The Dark Knight with the IMAX MSM 9802 Camera (Shotonwhat 2008)

In comparison, technology in The Theory of Everything wasn’t as broad of a requirement but the biggest element needed for the narrative came in the form of Hawking’s wheelchair and the voice it used to help him fight his illness. Hawking’s voice became hugely famous over the course of his career but the filmmakers were unable to obtain the actual voice to begin during principal photography meaning the production had to generate their own voice. A book titled ‘British Social Realism in the Arts since 1940' (Tucker 2011) suggests that “the use of history in our approach to social realism – and film generally – needs to go beyond ad hoc’ (p.20) which, for this film, determines that even though certain elements may be unavailable to develop a fully faithful historical narrative, it is imperative to work to the best of your ability to make the product as accurate as possible. However, this issue was short lasting once Hawking himself went to a screening for The Theory of Everything and left in tears due to the overall truthfulness of the film. This reaction culminated in Hawking giving the production his actual voice as the production had been trying to create a perfect replication, but were still falling short. Hawking, by doing this, removed any potential social issues in the future when it came to distribution further displaying that whilst technology played a massive part in shaping the narrative, Dunkirk was still able to avoid additional social concerns when shaping its own and obtaining the right forms of technology.


Overall, I believe Dunkirk’s narratives were impacted and therefore shaped more by the key historical, cultural and technological aspects I have analysed as Nolan’s narrative, similar to his previous films, isn’t presented as a straight line, it always jumps back and forth between locations whilst keeping its cinematography and sound design at the same standard throughout to keep the audience’s attention in the end creating an effective multi-strand narrative. Alongside this, The Theory of Everything, despite some of its historical inaccuracies, is a prime example of how to present and execute a single-strand narrative through a character-driven screenplay with Dunkirk being an advocate for a compelling story with limited dialogue but still driven by the characters. Despite their differences, each film never strays too far away from their overall historical contexts and the reasons for why the events shown were as impactful as they were at the time and how it has been carried through to a new generation.


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