[The Pocket Essentials: Film 01] • Great British Movies by Shiach Don

Author:Shiach, Don [Shiach, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781904048596
Goodreads: 1025886
Publisher: Pocket Essentials
Published: 2006-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Crew: directed by David Lean; produced by Sam Spiegel; screenplay by Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman and Pierre Boule, based on Pierre Boule’s novel; cinematography by Jack Hilyard; edited by Peter Taylor; music by Malcolm Arnold.Technicolor. 161 mins.

Cast: William Holden (Shears); Alec Guinness (Colonel Nicholson); Jack Hawkins (Major Warden); Sessue Hayakawa (Colonel Saito); James Donald (Major Clipton); Geoffrey Horne (Lieutenant Joyce);Andre Morell (Colonel Green); Peter Williams (Captain Reeves).

This is the first of David Lean’s epic pictures, and can be viewed as an overblown pretentious piece of pseudo­moralising indulgence or as a serious and well-crafted film about the complexities and ambiguities of war. However, it deserves its place here if only for the scale of its ambition and the professionalism of its execution.

Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson, who is in charge of the British prisoners in a Burmese camp run by their Japanese captors. The Japanese commander forces the pris­oners to construct a bridge over the River Kwai to aid the Japanese military. Guinness digs his heels in about petty matters such as forcing officers to work with the other ranks and endures torture and humiliation. He then has a change of heart and thinks it would be good for the discipline and morale of the soldiers if they built the bridge as well as possible, to show the superiority of the British in times of adversity. A raiding party led by a Major played by Jack Hawkins, accompanied by a surly and cynical American (William Holden), are landed nearby with the express purpose of destroying the bridge. When Guinness stumbles on their plans, he is horrified because the bridge, despite the fact that it will help the Japanese war effort, has become his raison d’etre. He is killed trying to defuse the explosives that will blow up the bridge.The Holden character is also killed, but the bridge is destroyed. The film ends with one of the British officers intoning ‘Madness! Madness!’

The Bridge on the River Kwai tries to have it both ways: it decries the craziness of war but at the same time celebrates the courage and ingenuity of men at war.This ambivalence is represented in the Guinness/Nicholson character, but the issues become muddled and the film veers between two ideals. In the end, the Hollywood hero, although he dies in the attempt, brings about the successful conclusion to the mission.

The film won an Oscar® for Best Film and Guinness won Best Actor for one of his most mannered perform­ances. Two of the screenwriters, who were uncredited on screen, Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, were both blacklisted at the time because of the McCarthy hearings into UnAmerican Activities in Hollywood. Malcolm Arnold’s score won the Oscar® for Best Original Score and Jack Hillyard deservedly won the Oscar® for Cinemat­ography. It is ironic that Hollywood so garlanded the film when it was co-written by two blacklisted writers who had to leave America to earn a living anonymously in Britain.

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