Darkest Hour
Never never never surrender
Darkest Hour (2017)
Timing:
2:5 (125 min)
7.4/10
5487
5487
7.426/10
54106
54106
7.4/10
242000
242000
Country
Genre
Drama, History
Budget
$30 000 000
Revenue
$150 847 207
Director
Actors
Scenario
Producer
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Douglas Urbanski, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten, James Biddle
Operator
Composer
Artist
Isona Rigau, Matt Robinson, Matt Robinson
Audition
Editing
Valerio Bonelli
All team (196)
All team (196)
Short description
In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, John Hurt was cast as Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), but due to health problems, he had to withdraw from the role, and the 60th Prime Minister of Great Britain was played by actor Ronald Pickup.
- John Hurt passed away while work on the film was underway. Gary Oldman later recounted that the actor felt so unwell that he didn't even attend the script read-through, let alone participate in filming. Originally cast as Neville Chamberlain, Hurt desperately fought cancer, but even intensive treatment didn't help. The film is dedicated to the memory of John Hurt; it was the last project he agreed to participate in.
- Preparing for the role, Gary Oldman studied Winston Churchill and his mannerisms for a whole year.
- While embodying Winston Churchill, Gary Oldman smoked £30,000 worth of cigars on set (an average of 12 cigars per shooting day) and suffered nicotine poisoning.
- The film is set during the hot spring of 1940 in Britain, but filming took place in winter. For this reason, outdoor shooting was minimized, and indoor scenes focused on artificial sunlight behind the windows, intended to indicate the heat outside.
- Gary Oldman claims he personally chose makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji and convinced him to return from retirement to work and transform the actor into Winston Churchill. Oldman refused the idea of actually gaining weight for the role and decided to focus on makeup instead. The first difficulty for Tsuji was the lack of any physical resemblance between the actor and his character, which necessitated the use of special facial prosthetics. It took Tsuji six months to prepare, but he did manage to give Oldman the appearance of Churchill. The actor's face, with the exception of his forehead and lips, was covered with a rubber prosthetic, which, however, did not restrict muscle movements. A costume was specially created for the lean Oldman, visually adding weight to him. Oldman shaved his head to make it easier to put on a wig. During the filming, Oldman spent over 200 hours in the makeup chair.
- Producers tried to find an authentic pre-World War II subway train for filming, but their attempts were unsuccessful. They had to rent a 1959 train from the Mangapps Railway Museum, similar to those used in 1939, and film it.
- The scene in which Churchill rides in a subway car and talks to passengers, ordinary residents of London, about whether or not to negotiate peace with Adolf Hitler is fictional. The producers wanted to add the kind of racial and other diversity that is so popular today to the film (since the screen constantly featured exclusively white men representing the middle class, which was historically accurate), and also to show the audience that Churchill himself sometimes experienced doubts and insecurity.
- Many critics reacted very negatively to the scene in the film in which Churchill meets a young Black resident of London and his white girlfriend and encourages their desire to marry. Critics considered this scene frankly contrived. Churchill himself called himself a supporter of the theory of white racial superiority and welcomed the fact that European settlers deceitfully 'took' North America from the Indians.
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