Kwai Film

[Marva Richardt]

Itwas initially scripted by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who was later replaced by Michael Wilson. Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to the UK in order to continue working. As a result, Boulle, who did not speak English, was credited and received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; many years later, Foreman and Wilson posthumously received the Academy Award.[4]

The Bridge on the River Kwai is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The film won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards. In 1997, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress.[5][6] It has been included on the American Film Institute's list of best American films ever made.[7][8] In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century.

In 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war, led by Colonel Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. U.S. Navy Commander Shears tells Nicholson that the camp conditions are horrific. Nicholson forbids any escape attempts because headquarters ordered them to surrender. Also, the dense surrounding jungle renders escape virtually impossible.

Colonel Saito, the camp commandant, informs the new prisoners they will construct a railway bridge over the River Kwai connecting Bangkok and Rangoon. Nicholson objects, citing the Geneva Convention exempting officers from manual labour. Saito threatens to have the officers shot, until Major Clipton, the British medical officer, warns there are too many witnesses. The officers are left standing in the intense heat until evening when Saito then confines them to a punishment hut. Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box.

The bridge construction proceeds badly due to faulty Japanese engineering and the prisoners' slow pace and sabotage. Saito is required to commit ritual suicide if the completion deadline is unmet. Desperate, he releases Nicholson and his officers, exempting them from manual labour. Nicholson, shocked by the poor job his men have done, orders building a proper bridge. He considers it a tribute to the British Army's ingenuity but Clipton argues it is collaboration with the enemy. Nicholson's obsession with the bridge drives him to allow officers to voluntarily work on the project.

Shears is convalescing in Ceylon unwittingly near a commando school referred to as "Force 316". Major Warden wants to recruit Shears for a commando mission to destroy the bridge. Shears refuses only to discover he has been temporarily transferred to the British military and has no choice. A meeting is held with Colonel Green where it is established that Shears lacks parachute training. Green is concerned that Joyce's inexperience may jeopardise the mission.

Nicholson spots the wire, and he and Saito investigate the riverbank as the train approaches. Nicholson pulls up the wire on the riverbank, leading them toward Joyce, who is manning the detonator. Joyce breaks cover and stabs Saito to death. Nicholson inexplicably calls to Japanese soldiers for help and attempts to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Joyce is shot and Shears swims across the river to detonate the explosives, but he is wounded. Recognizing Shears, Nicholson exclaims "What have I done?".

Warden fires a mortar, killing Shears and Joyce and fatally wounding Nicholson. Nicholson stumbling towards the detonator, falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge, and the train hurtles into the river. Warden leaves with the Thai women. Witnessing the carnage, Clipton exclaims, "Madness! ... Madness!"

The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on the Hollywood blacklist and, even though living in exile in England, could only work on the film in secret. The two did not collaborate on the script; Wilson took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. The official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, posthumously in both cases. Subsequent releases of the film finally gave them proper screen credit. David Lean himself also claimed that producer Sam Spiegel cheated him out of his rightful part in the credits since he had had a major hand in the script.[9]

The film was relatively faithful to the novel, with two major exceptions. Shears, who is a British commando officer like Warden in the novel, becomes an American sailor who escapes from the POW camp. Also, in the novel, the bridge is not destroyed: the train plummets into the river from a secondary charge placed by Warden, but Nicholson (never realising "what have I done?") does not fall onto the plunger, and the bridge suffers only minor damage. Boulle nonetheless enjoyed the film version though he disagreed with its climax.[10]

Although Lean later denied it, Charles Laughton was his first choice for the role of Nicholson. Laughton was in his habitually overweight state, and was either denied insurance coverage, or was simply not keen on filming in a tropical location.[11] Guinness admitted that Lean "didn't particularly want me" for the role, and thought about immediately returning to England when he arrived in Ceylon and Lean reminded him that he wasn't the first choice.[12]

Director David Lean clashed repeatedly with his cast members, particularly Guinness and James Donald, who thought the novel was anti-British. Lean had a lengthy row with Guinness over how to play the role of Nicholson; the actor wanted to play the part with a sense of humour and sympathy, while Lean thought Nicholson should be "a bore." On another occasion, they argued over the scene where Nicholson reflects on his career in the army. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness and angrily exploded when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said, "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Thank God that I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor (William Holden)."[17]

Guinness later said that he subconsciously based his walk while emerging from "the Oven" on that of his eleven-year-old son Matthew,[20] who was recovering from polio at the time, a disease that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.[21] Guinness later reflected on the scene, calling it the "finest piece of work" he had ever done.[22]

In a 1988 interview with Barry Norman, Lean confirmed that Columbia almost stopped filming after three weeks because there was no white woman in the film, forcing him to add what he called "a very terrible scene" between Holden and a nurse on the beach.

The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister of Ceylon, and a team of government dignitaries. However, cameraman Freddy Ford was unable to get out of the way of the explosion in time, and Lean had to stop filming. The train crashed into a generator on the other side of the bridge and was wrecked. It was repaired in time to be blown up the next morning, with Bandaranaike and his entourage present.[23]

The march was written in 1914 by Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British Bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts. For the film, Arnold wrote an accompanying counter-melody to the Colonel Bogey strain using the same chord progressions, then continued with his own "The River Kwai March," played by the off-screen orchestra taking over from the whistlers, though Arnold's march was not heard in completion on the soundtrack (apparently for copyright reasons[30]). Mitch Miller had a hit with a recording of both marches.

In many tense, dramatic scenes, only the sounds of nature are used. An example of this is when commandos Warden and Joyce hunt a fleeing Japanese soldier through the jungle, desperate to prevent him from alerting other troops.

The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional.[3] Since it was not a documentary, there are many historical inaccuracies in the film, as noted by eyewitnesses to the building of the real Burma Railway by historians.[31][32][33][34]

The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre.[36]

Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. In fact Toosey strove to delay construction. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.[32][33] Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey.[32]

On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and, if he had, due to his collaboration he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners.[citation needed]

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