Note: Contains spoilers for 1917.
You would expect 1917 to deliver some dark moments, but one particular moment will have left audiences stunned.
Talking to Digital Spy, writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns – who wrote the movie with director Sam Mendes – has opened up about why that dark twist had to happen. Needless to say, spoilers await.
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The moment we're talking about, of course, is the devastating moment when Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is fatally stabbed by a German pilot shortly into their mission across enemy territory.
"It was always one of them dying partly because, you know, World War I was a war of attrition," Wilson-Cairns explained.
"Many people did not survive it, and it wouldn't have been true to history to have a sort of happy ending where two of them live, and the two of them make it, and they get there in time, and they save all the lives. It just wouldn't have been true.
"You're talking about a war where thousands of people died over inches. And so we, as storytellers, had a duty to reality, in that sense."
Wilson-Cairns added that the death was needed so that audiences could "understand the toll" that World War I had, especially in regards to the war's estimated casualty count of 22 million people.
"Someone you loved had to die in this film. I, as a writer, was like, 'Someone you love has to die, so that you can understand the true human cost of it'," she continued.
"We chose Blake because so many idealistic young men signed up for that war, to fight for king and country, to fight for some idea of glory. It's that idea. And they drowned in mud, you know? They died in horrible, horrific ways over nothing."
It's not a quick death either, with Wilson-Cairns noting that the whole sequence is around 10 minutes long, including Blake getting up after being stabbed.
"Because he gets up, you just think, 'Oh, something's happened, but they're going to get to an aid station'. It's really Schofield and Blake and the audience coming to terms with the fact that Blake's dying," she added.
Related: 1917 writer reveals biggest challenge of making a one-shot war movie in real time
"It takes you that long to deal with it, because death is very slow and very quick, and always horrifying.
"So that scene is one of the scenes I'm most proud of, because I was just crying when I wrote it. I'm glad when people cry in the cinema. I'm like, 'Yeah! Give me your tears!'."
1917 is in cinemas now.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
