Friday, May 25, 2012

The Oscar Project #30: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)



I should really stop having expectations when I go into these movies. I don’t mean expecting a movie to be good or bad but the more basic level of what the film is even about. I knew that The Bridge on the River Kwai took place in a POW camp during World War II, but outside of that, it was completely different from what I thought it would be.

I figured it would be about the deplorable conditions the British soldiers faced in the camp and how they were forced to build the bridge against their will, all while struggling to survive the horrendous situation they found themselves in. That really wasn’t the case at all, though.

Sure, that’s more or less how it started. We start out seeing the American Navy prisoner (played by William Holden) digging graves in a well-populated cemetery, obviously leading to the conclusion that many soldiers had died there already. When the British contingent arrives, the camp leader, Colonel Saito, informs them that everyone, officers included, will have to do manual labor. When Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) objects, citing the Geneva Convention’s mandate that officers not be used for manual labor, Saito rips it in half. This could be trouble.

As it was in real life. Despite all the crimes the Nazis committed, they tended to treat POWs fairly well, giving them access to Red Cross workers and allowing them some level of communication with the outside world. This was not the case on the Pacific front, however. Japan’s government had never formally ratified the Geneva Convention, and they felt no need to honor it. Combined with the tropical/jungle settings where these camps tended to be located, this led to incredibly atrocious conditions for captured soldiers.

The River Kwai, which is in Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon), was no exception. In addition to being worked to exhaustion and not being given enough food, there were also myriad diseases to contend with. Even if you survived the actual bridge building, you were likely to succumb to malaria or dysentery or some other disease.

But again, this turned out to not really be the focus of the film. Lt. Col. Nicholson refuses to let his officers work, and he is punished by being placed in the “oven,” a tiny metal shack. Saito repeatedly offers to let him out if he agrees to work, but he holds steady. Soon, Saito realizes that there is no chance that the bridge will be finished in time if his own men are running the project. After a meeting with Nicholson, he relents and allows the British officers to supervise the construction.

Instead of sabotaging the bridge, which will be used to transport Japanese troops and supplies, Nicholson wants to use it as a testament to British efficiency and workmanship. They will build the bridge even better than the Japanese asked for. Long after the war is over, the bridge will remain, and it will all be due to these British POWs.

Well, that’s the way Nicholson envisioned it. Meanwhile, the aforementioned American sailor has escaped and made it back to an Allied base. While the prisoners are tirelessly building, he is working with a covert operations team to devise a plan to get back to the camp and destroy it.

Can you believe this guy was 68 at the time?
As the rest of the film plays out, we realize that Nicholson has completely forgotten the big picture. The war is an afterthought, and even when one of his own men suggests that their work could be viewed as aiding the enemy, he scoffs at the idea. He only cares about the bridge and seeing it through to the end. Nothing else matters.

For this reason, I classify this less as a war film and more of a story about the relationship both between captive and captor and between Nicholson’s duty to his country and his role as a leader of men. The war is in the background for Nicholson and everybody else. They are only concerned with what is in front of them. Maybe that’s how it always is for the people actually fighting in wars. It’s hard to think too much about the big picture when your very survival is on the line.

Alec Guinness won Best Actor[1] for this role, but William Holden was first-billed and I believe had more screen time than Guinness. Nevertheless, I think the Academy made the correct decision. Guinness was superb as the stoic, always-in-control Lt. Col. Nicholson. And to think, director David Lean openly clashed with Guinness throughout the filming process, as he disliked the way Guinness was playing the role. I guess Obi-Wan knew what he was doing.


[1] Although he didn’t show up for the ceremony. His award was accepted by Jean Simmons, who was part of The Oscar Project when she played Ophelia in Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.

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