The Bridge on the River Kwai (film)

• Release Date: 1957
• Director(s): David Lean
• Writer(s): Carl Foreman; Michael Wilson
• Principal Actors and Roles: Alec Guinness (Colonel Nicholson); Jack Hawkins (Major Warden); Sessue Hayakawa (Colonel Saito); William Holden (Shears); James Donald (Major Clipton); Geoffrey Horne (Lieutenant Joyce); Andre Morell (Colonel Green); Ann Sears (Nurse)
• Book / Story Film Based On: The Bridge on the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a late-1957 epic World War II drama by David Lean, considered among the greatest directors of epic films. Based on a 1952 French novel, Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai, by Pierre Boulle, the film is fictional. But it consciously invokes the 1942–43 construction of the Burma Railway as its historical backdrop.

The forced labor that was used to complete the railway required the efforts of more than 180,000 Asian civilians and 60,000 prisoners of war. Altogether, because of the Japanese war crimes, 12,621 Allied POWs died during construction. Although the movie, a British-American production filmed in Sri Lanka (at the time known as Ceylon), was fictional, there was no mistaking its visual and thematic connection to the actual railway construction.

The movie had links to a second tragedy. Carl Foreman penned the original screenplay, but Lean brought on Michael Wilson to revise the script. Both writers were blacklisted at the time—this was the period known as the McCarthy era—so they worked in secret. Boulle received credit for the script, and he was given the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar even though he spoke no English. In 1984, Foreman and Wilson were awarded posthumous Academy Awards for their work on the film.

Although many modern critics consider The Bridge on the River Kwai to be one of the best movies ever made, some people took issue with it in the late 1950s. Many said, for example, that it deviated from historical reality.

In the film, a British officer oversees the construction of a railway bridge for his Japanese captors; he is determined to build a bridge that is better than one they could build themselves in order to demonstrate the moral superiority of the British troops. In reality, in Burma (modern Myanmar) in 1942, the Allied troops who were forced to work on the railway risked their lives to sabotage the work, and they did so in countless small ways. They collected termites and put them on the wooden bridge supports. They intentionally mixed cement poorly, hoping the bridge would collapse.

According to survivors of the Burmese camps, the film failed to capture the true horror of the POW’s situation in a second way. The jungle conditions depicted in the movie were much less harsh than those the soldiers had experienced. However, it is unlikely that any film produced in 1957 could have shown the true brutality of the camps.

When the film was released, some critics were unhappy with the ambiguity of its message: Was it was pro- or antiwar? However, this ambiguity is probably what makes the movie so great. Lean set out to deliver a message, and he succeeded. War is a wasteful, horrific folly, but individuals in extreme circumstances can rise to the occasion to display extraordinary valor and glory. There is beauty and wonder within the madness.

Plot

British prisoners of war in Southeast Asia during World War II are forced by their Japanese captors to build a railway bridge over the River Kwai. The rail line that will connect Singapore to Rangoon (now Yangon) is vital to the Japanese war effort in Burma. The British troops do not know that the Allies are trying to delay construction or break the link between the Japanese-controlled cities, and none know of a plan to blow up the bridge.

The leader of the British POWs is Colonel Nicholson, a stickler for military protocol and rules. He has a strong sense of honor as a British officer. Nicholson is locked in a personal battle of wills with the Japanese camp commander, Colonel Saito. Nicholson turns the bridge project into a morale-boosting exercise in military efficiency for his men, intending to demonstrate their superiority to Colonel Saito. A private war takes place within the larger context of the all-encompassing war in Asia.

Nicholson’s single-mindedness makes him blind to the real objectives of the war. A team of saboteurs, including an American sailor who had earlier escaped from the POW camp, attach explosives to the completed bridge. Nicholson is so obsessed with his work that he reveals the presence of the explosives, but he comes to his senses only at the last moment. Nicholson is wounded in the battle that erupts, and he memorably asks himself, "What have I done?" Then he manages to detonate the charges before dying.

The most memorable lines of the movie are delivered at the very end by the British doctor. Looking down at the dead men in the riverbed, he says, "Madness! . . . Madness!"

Significance

The Bridge on the River Kwai was a huge success, earning more than any other film during its 1958 run in theaters. It also received eight Academy Award nominations, winning all but one. It received Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Alec Guinness as Nicholson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Score. It was nominated for Best Supporting Actor but did not win in that category.

It won many other awards as well. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) gave it awards in several categories: Best Film, Best Director, and Best British Actor. Likewise, it won awards bestowed by the Golden Globes, the Directors Guild of America, and the New York Film Critics Circle. The soundtrack even won a Grammy.

The film made an international star of Alec Guinness, and it changed the trajectory of Lean’s career. Thereafter, he made nothing but so-called big movies, including such masterful epics as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India.

Furthermore, some film scholars maintain that The Bridge on the River Kwai also changed the trajectory of the British film industry. After The Bridge on the River Kwai, the industry was dominated by grand tales; several movies were epics made by Lean. With the appearance of The Bridge on the River Kwai, the British industry had found a new way to make and market its movies.

In 1999, the British Film Institute listed it eleventh among the greatest British films, and David Lean was chosen as the best director of all time. It has been preserved in the US Library of Congress National Film Registry, and the American Film Institute (AFI) ranks it thirteenth on its list titled "100 Years . . . 100 Movies."

The Bridge on the River Kwai does the nearly impossible: It presents a tense psychological drama that takes place within the psyche of a leading character; a powerful, nuanced, interpersonal conflict between two colonels; and a captivating adventure tale within the dramatic violence of a war story.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1957) Best Cinematography ()
• Academy Award (1957) Best Film Editing ()
• Academy Award (1957) Best Original Score ()
• Academy Award (1957) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1957) Best Director: David Lean
• Academy Award (1957) Best Actor: Alec Guinness
• Academy Award (1957) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson
• Golden Globe (1957) Best Motion Picture (Drama)

Nominated

• Academy Award (1957) Best Supporting Actor: Sessue Hayakawa

Bibliography

Barsam, Richard, and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies 5th ed. New York: Norton, 2015. Print.

Ebert, Roger. The Great Movies. New York: Three Rivers, 2002. Print.

Gomery, Douglas, and Clara Pafourt-Overduin. Movie History: A Survey. London: Routledge, 2011. Print.

O’Connor, Garry. Alec Guinness: A Life. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Electronic.

Phillips, Gene. Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Print.

Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968. Boston: Da Capo, 1996. Print.

Silver, Alain. David Lean and His Films. Los Angeles: Silman-James, 1992. Print.

Smith, Ian Haydn, and Steven Jay Schneider. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Hauppauge: Barron’s, 2015. Print.