Bridge on the River Kwai: Old School Alec Guinness
Written: Aug 27 '00 (Updated Feb 14 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wonderful performances by Guinness and Hayakawa
Cons: "Hollywood" side plot involving William Holden
The Bottom Line: One of the finest performances in cinema by Guinness that should be seen by those who only know Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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| BigJack's Full Review: Bridge on the River Kwai |
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Bridge on the River Kwai on the big screen. Say what you will, but to me, the big screen adds so much to a movie-viewing experience, in particular movies such as this one, set during World War II in the hot, sticky jungle of southeast Asia. Watching it in a dark movie theatre rather than your own home puts you in the jungle.
The setting for the movie is a POW work camp in Burma, along a railroad the Japanese are building between Malaysia and Rangoon. The opening scene is of British prisoners being brought in by train, under the watchful eye of machine-gunners. The weary and battered men wear tattered uniforms, broken boots, and are trailed by the numerous sick and wounded. Despite this, as they approach the camp, they are brought together and marched in, whistling the now-famous Col. Bogey March by their commanding officer, Col. Nicholson, played by the incomparable Sir Alec Guinness.
From the very beginning, Guinness lends what has been called "gravity" to the film. A stiff-backed British officer of 28 years, he has been built and bred to lead soldiers. He immediately comes into conflict with the Japanese commanding officer, Col. Saito, played superbly by Sessue Hayakawa.
I must digress a bit and talk about Hayakawa. His performance is nearly the equal of Guinness', and he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which I imagine was no mean feat for a Japanese actor in the 1950's (although perhaps it's not any easier today). He plays a human character who is more foil than villain and who is not over the top. You understand full well why Col. Saito does what he does, and his character is far beyond some transparent "Asian villain" you might see in a James Bond movie.
Back to Guinness - as good Hayakawa is, Guinness' Col. Nicholson is simply captivating. He challenges Saito on the first day, when Saito insists the British officers work alongside their soldiers on the bridge being built over the river Kwai. Nicholson produces his copy of the Geneva Convention (who doesn't carry this around with them?), which Saito uses to smack him across the face with. Undaunted, Nicholson refuses to yield, which lands him in the "oven", a corrugated metal box, where he stays for days in the hot sun.
Despite suffering unbearably, Nicholson doesn't give in, despite further threats, and then attempts at bribery by Saito. All this is infuriating to Saito, who at one point exclaims, "Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!" But eventually, it is Saito who yields, and this is where it gets really interesting.
At this point, Guinness has turned in a steely-eyed performance of a British officer whose honor and dignity do not permit him to yield to the enemy's dishonorable demands, no matter what the cost. A man with guts. For the rest of the movie, Guinness shows us how a man with the "guts of a maniac" can cross the line and actually become a maniac.
Once Saito caves in and agrees that the British officers will not have to perform manual labor, Col. Nicholson devotes himself and his men to the task of building the bridge across the river Kwai, and thus complete the Japanese railroad line. It is not an overstated madness. Guinness does not portray Nicholson's insanity with the wide-eyed gleam of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector or the twistedness of Robert De Niro in Cape Fear. Rather, Nicholson's insanity is evidenced by the irony, no, the insanity of a British officer's desire to build a masterpiece of a bridge for the Japanese and his hope that, once the war is over, "the people that use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built and who built it." Of course, in the meantime, the Japanese will be using the bridge to help them win the war against the Allies.
Nicholson is ultimately successful, and the British succeed in building the bridge where the Japanese were failing. In the process, Nicholson resorts to all of the prohibited methods that Saito was going to use, including officers doing manual labor alongside enlisted personnel, and coercing the wounded and sick to work despite their injuries. Nicholson justifies these practices on the basis that the British are doing it voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by the Japanese.
Nicholson's madness is so complete that he actually defends the bridge against Allied soldiers trying to blow the bridge up in order to prevent the Japanese from using it. It is these Allied soldiers that comprise a secondary plot that, for me, ultimately detracts from the movie. If you're wondering what prevented me from handing out a five-star review, this is it.
The "side story" involves an American prisoner, Maj. Shears, one of only two survivors among the original inhabitants of the POW camp - those that actually built the camp before Guinness' troops arrive. The American is played by William Holden (The Wild Bunch), a Hollywood star. It seems strange now because the film is viewed as a master performance by Guinness, but the movie posters in 1957 featured Holden prominently, and Guinness in the background, if at all.
Maj. Shears is a wise-a$$ who has survived imprisonment any way he can, including bribing Japanese guards with items taken from dead prisoners he has of burying. He escapes the POW camp early in the movie, and later he is featured in one of those cheesy 1950’s scenes where he's frolicking on the beach in Ceylon with a pretty blond nurse. He's ultimately coerced into joining a commando raid to blow up the bridge. These scenes play out like a 1950's version of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie - oh, okay, it's not that bad, but it pales in comparison to the intensity of the rest of the film.
In fact, not only do I think it doesn’t measure up to the rest of the film, I found it detracted from the intensity of the rest of the film. Instead of a seamless movie following Guinness' Col. Nicholson from beginning to end, we're interrupted by less-captivating scenes with Maj. Shears. Although far from me to criticize the Academy Award winning director, David Lean, (Passage to India), I frankly found this to be a flaw in the movie. Perhaps he had to "Hollywoodize" it in order to get the movie greenlighted? Who knows, but ultimately, it's a mistake.
That mistake, however, is only a distraction, and one that cannot overshadow an otherwise supreme film. At the end, after both Nicholson and Shears die and the bridge is blown up, the British doctor, played by the wonderful James Donald (The Great Escape), who has been the ignored "voice of reason" throughout the movie, views the carnage and exclaims, "Madness! Madness! Madness!" And that is the end of the movie. Lean does not make the mistake of Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan and have some feel-good ending tacked on. He simply ends with a single line that sums up the entire movie. Beautiful simplicity.
This is part of a write-off in tribute to the late Sir Alec Guinness. Others taking part are Andrew_Hicks, brando814, Brundledan, ChrisJarmick, CurtisEdmonds, donlee_brussel, energy81, fdknight, George_Chabot, grouch, janesbit1, knix, lars_lindahl, macresarf1, mangiotto, psychovant, stone77777 and ZentropaJK. As people will be reviewing many different movies, please check the list of participants and their entries at: http://www.redwolf.com.au/epinions/.
My thanks to knix for organizing this excellent write-off, and I want to express my sorrow that Mike_Bracken was unable to participate. His excellent movie reviews inspired me to put extra effort in writing this review, which I feel is my best, despite the fact that it doesn't hold Mike's jockstrap. Now unfortunately, he probably won't even read my shallow and transparent attempt to suck up.
Recommended:
Yes
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BigJack
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 in Electronics, Pets |
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Location: Splattered All Over - Manhattan
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Back from vacation - slowly catching up on reading and rating!
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