Notes on the Bridge on the River Kwai

I think I need to write a lot more, and "publish" it here. Somehow the process of shoveling out what I can of the crap that continuously builds up in my brain helps keep me "sane". Please don't expect I am upholding any high "standards" in this here sort of "writing".

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Won numerous Academy Awards in 1957, one of the great movies of my afternoon TV-watching youth. The DVD was a birthday present and we watched it last weekend.

Both ranking officers gave outstanding performances. Alec Guinness’ Colonel Nicholson was strict pure-Army and noble heroic until he lost his bearings. He used the successful construction of the bridge as a means to maintain company cohesion, then forgot that the bridge was not more important than opposing the Japanese. Sessue Hayakawa’s Colonel Saito was a remarkably human portrayal of an officer under near-impossible demands stuck out in the jungle. I’m sure many WWII vets watching the film could further appreciate the portrait of a frustrated artist pretending to military competence.

It’s too bad they couldn’t sing the Colonel Bogey March but the words were a wee bit overboard for the mass media sensibilities of the day. “Hitler has only got one ba-a-all, Göring has two but ve-ry sma-a-all …”

William Holden was an excellent scoundrel as always, his character no doubt included to keep the interest of American audiences. In pretty good shape for being the last survivor of his initial group of prisoners, he later escapes, is bid fond farewells by the villagers who save him, has an affair with a delicious blonde medical officer, and treks back through the jungle getting hot yet demure moon-eyes from the lovely Siamese porter-girls, one of whom soaps him up in a mountain stream. This was all typical late fifties male fantasy material, of course, as played up by the countless men’s magazines of the day. But I couldn’t help wondering how many young men signed up to go to Vietnam with memories of this jungle adventure fresh in their adolescent minds.

The ending was weak. Good that Colonel Nicholson said, aghast, “What have I done?” Questionable that his fainting, dying body happened to land on the detonator plunger. Dumb that the final words were Dr. Clipton saying, “Madness! … Madness! Madness!” Inexplicable that the final scene was of a hawk flying. It is an anti-war film in its way, as any good war film, but the destruction at the end was not madness. It was to put a halt to the Japanese establishing a railroad in support of their conquest of Burma. Well, except war is always destructive and inherent madness; but one must use it to stop it.

Closing with lines as only Alec Guinness could deliver them, looking over the peaceful river at dusk:

“But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Hardly made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy, but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time.”