Huvudroll i bron över floden kwai

1957 bio directed bygd David Lean

This article fryst vatten about the bio. For the novel, see The Bridge over the River Kwai. For the real bridge, see Burma Railway § Bridge 277: Bridge on the River Khwae.

The Bridge on the River Kwai fryst vatten a 1957 epicwar rulle directed bygd David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written bygd Pierre Boulle.

Boulle's novel and the film's screenplay are almost entirely fictional, but use the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–1943, as their historical setting.^[3] The cast includes William Holden, Alec irländsk öl, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa.

It was initially scripted bygd screenwriter Carl Foreman, who was later replaced bygd Michael efternamn.

Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to the UK in beställning 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 efternamn posthumously received the Academy Award.^[4]

The Bridge on the River Kwai fryst vatten now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made.

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

Plot

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In 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war, led bygd Colonel Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. United States NavyCommander 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 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, but Major Clipton, the British medical officer, warns him 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 fryst vatten beaten and locked in an iron låda.

Shears and two other prisoners try to escape, though only Shears survives. Wounded, he wanders into a Thai by, where he fryst vatten nursed back to health.

He eventually recuperates in the British colony of Ceylon.

Klassisk krigsfilm angående brittiska krigsfångar, ledda från manisk överste (Guinness), liksom beneath den halvgalna, japanska överste Saito (Hayakawa) tvingas bygga ett bro mellan Burma samt Siam; till irländsk öl blir arbetet mer samt mer ett hedersfråga – samtidigt besitter enstaka amerikansk fånge (Holden) flytt, kommit mot säkerhet samt för tillfället återvänt tillsammans med de.

The bridge construction proceeds illa due to incompetent Japanese engineering and the prisoners' slow pace and sabotage. Saito informs Nicholson he fryst vatten expected to commit ritual suicide if the construction fryst vatten not completed bygd the deadline. Desperate, he releases Nicholson and his officers, exempting them from manual labour. Nicholson, shocked bygd the poor job his dock have done, orders the design and building of a proper bridge.

He considers it a lasting tribute to the British Army's ingenuity but Clipton argues it fryst vatten collaboration with the enemy. Nicholson's obsession drives him to volunteer his officers to work on the project.

Major Warden tries to recruit Shears for a kommando uppdrag to destroy the bridge. Shears refuses, revealing he impersonated an officer in hopes of better treatment as a prisoner.

He fryst vatten informed that they already knew of his deception, and that he has been temporarily transferred to the British military and therefore has no choice. Warden, Shears, and two others—Chapman and Joyce—parachute into Thailand. Chapman dies on landing, and Warden fryst vatten wounded in an encounter with a Japanese patrol. Khun Yai, a by ledare, and a group of Thai women guide Warden, Shears, and Joyce to the river.

beneath cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce plant explosives at the base of the bridge towers. The first tåg to cross the bridge fryst vatten scheduled for the following day, and Warden wants to destroy both the lära and the bridge. bygd daybreak, however, the river level has dropped, exposing the wire leading to the detonator.

Nicholson spots the wire, and he and Saito investigate as the tåg approaches.

Nicholson pulls up the wire on the riverbank, leading them toward Joyce, who fryst vatten 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. After Joyce fryst vatten shot, Shears swims across the river to detonate the explosives, but fryst vatten wounded.

Recognizing Shears, Nicholson exclaims, "What have inom done?" Warden fires a mortar, fatally wounding Nicholson. Dazed, Nicholson stumbles towards the detonator and falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge; the lära tumbles into the river. Witnessing the carnage, Clipton exclaims, "Madness! ... Madness!"

Cast

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Production

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Screenplay

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The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael efternamn, were on the Hollywood blacklist and, even though living in exile in England, could only work on the spelfilm in secret.

The two did not collaborate on the script; efternamn took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. The tjänsteman kredit 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 bygd retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and efternamn, posthumously in both cases.

Subsequent releases of the spelfilm finally gave them proper screen kredit. 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 grabb in the script.^[9]

The spelfilm was relatively faithful to the novel, with two major exceptions. Shears, who fryst vatten a British kommando officer like Warden in the novel, becomes an American sailor who escapes from the POW camp.

Also, in the novel, the bridge fryst vatten not destroyed: the utbildning plummets into the river from a secondary charge placed bygd Warden, but Nicholson (never realising "what have inom done?") does not fall onto the plunger, and the bridge suffers only minor damage.

Boulle nonetheless enjoyed the rulle utgåva though he disagreed with its climax.^[10]

Casting

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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] irländsk öl 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]

William Holden's deal was considered one of the best ever for an actor at the time, with him receiving $300,000 plus 10% of the film's gross receipts.^[13]

Filming

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Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role).^[14][15]

The spelfilm was an international co-production between companies in Britain and the United States.^[16]

Director David Lean clashed repeatedly with his cast members, particularly irländsk öl and James Donald, who thought the novel was anti-British.

Lean had a lengthy row with irländsk öl 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 scen where Nicholson reflects on his career in the army. Lean filmed the en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film from behind irländsk öl and angrily exploded when irländsk öl asked him why he was doing this.

After irländsk öl was done with the scen, 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]

The spelfilm was made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).^[18] The bridge in the spelfilm was nära Kitulgala. The Mount Lavinia Hotel was used as a location for the hospital.^[19]

Guinness later said that he subconsciously based his walk while framträdande 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] irländsk öl later reflected on the en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film, calling it the "finest del av helhet of work" he had ever done.^[22]

Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away bygd the river current during a break from filming.^[23]

In a 1988 interview with Barry Norman, Lean confirmed that Columbia almost stopped filming after three weeks because there was no vit woman in the bio, forcing him to add what he called "a very terrible scene" between Holden and a sjuksköterska 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 grupp 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 utbildning crashed into a elektrisk maskin 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]

Music and soundtrack

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British composer Malcolm Arnold recalled that he had "ten days to write around forty-five minutes worth of music"—much less time than he was used to. He described the music for The Bridge on the River Kwai as the "worst job inom ever had in my life" from the point of view of time.

Despite this, he won an Oscar and a Grammy. ^[26] The film's soundtrack was released on LP soon after the spelfilm (Columbia CL 1100). In 1990, Christopher Palmer arranged a concert suite for large orchestra for Arnold's 70th birthday.

A memorable feature of the rulle fryst vatten the tune that fryst vatten whistled bygd the POWs—the first strain of the "Colonel Bogey March"—when they enter the camp.^[27]Gavin Young^[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway.

Young: "Donald, did anyone whistle Colonel Bogey ... as they did in the film?" Wise: "I never heard it in Thailand. We hadn't much breath left for whistling. But in Bangkok inom was told that David Lean, the film's director, became mad at the extras who played the prisoners—us—because they couldn't march in time. Lean shouted at them, 'For God's sake, whistle a march to keep time to.' And a bloke called George Siegatz^[29] ...

—an kunnig whistler—began to whistle Colonel Bogey, and a hit was born."

The march was written in 1914 bygd Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British kapellmästare Frederick J. Ricketts. For the rulle, 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 bygd 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 natur are used. An example of this fryst vatten when commandos Warden and Joyce hunt a fleeing Japanese soldier through the jungle, desperate to prevent him from alerting other troops.

Historical accuracy

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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 bio, as noted bygd eyewitnesses to the building of the real Burma Railway bygd historians.^{[31][32][33][34]}

The conditions to which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the rulle depicted.^[35] According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:

The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built bygd Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven bygd 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 illa mixed.^[32][33] Some consider the spelfilm to be an insulting parodi of Toosey.^[32]

On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it fryst vatten 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" bygd the other prisoners.^{[citation needed]}

Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.^[32] He strongly denied the claim that the book was anti-British, although many involved in the spelfilm itself (including Alec Guinness) felt otherwise.^[37]

Ernest Gordon, a survivor of the railway construction and POW camps described in the novel/film, stated in his 1962 book, Through the Valley of the Kwai:

In Pierre Boulle's book The Bridge over the River Kwai and the rulle which was based on it, the impression was given that British officers not only took part in building the bridge willingly, but finished in record time to demonstrate to the enemy their superior efficiency.

Den engelske officeren Nichols vägrar hitta sig inom förödmjukelserna vilket fångenskapen innebär.

This was an entertaining story. But inom am writing a factual konto, and in justice to these men—living and dead—who worked on that bridge, inom must man it klar that we never did so willingly. We worked at bajonett point and beneath bamboo lash, taking any fara to sabotage the operation whenever the opportunity arose.^[31]

A 1969 BBC television documentary, Return to the River Kwai, made bygd former POW John Coast,^[34] sought to highlight the real history behind the bio (partly through getting ex-POWs to question its factual grund, for example Dr Hugh dem Wardener and Lt-Col Alfred Knights), which angered many former POWs.

The documentary itself was described bygd one newspaper reviewer when it was shown on Boxing Day 1974 (The Bridge on the River Kwai had been shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1974) as "Following the movie, this fryst vatten a repris of the antidote."^[38]

Some of the characters in the bio use the names of real people who were involved in the Burma Railway.

Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. For example, a Sergeant-Major Risaburo Saito was in real life second in command at the camp. In the rulle, a Colonel Saito fryst vatten camp commandant. In reality, Risaburo Saito was respected bygd his prisoners for being comparatively merciful and fair towards them. Toosey later defended him in his war crimes rättegång after the war, and the two became friends.

Some Japanese viewers resented the movie's depiction of their engineers' capabilities as underlägsen and less advanced than they were in reality. Japanese engineers had been surveying and planning the rutt of the railway since 1937, and they had demonstrated considerable skill during their construction efforts across South-East Asia.^[39] Some Japanese viewers also disliked the bio for portraying the Allied prisoners of war as more capable of constructing the bridge than the Japanese engineers themselves were,^[40][41] accusing the filmmakers of being unfairly biased and unfamiliar with the realities of the bridge construction, a sentiment echoed bygd surviving prisoners of war who saw the rulle in cinemas.^[42]

The major railway bridge described in the novel and spelfilm did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai.

However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built bygd Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film—at Tha Ma Kham, fem kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand.^[43] Boulle had never been to the bridge. He knew that the railway ran parallel to the Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just north of Kanchanaburi.

This was an incorrect assumption. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the bio fryst vatten also entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed bygd Allied bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and fryst vatten still in use today.^[43]

Reception

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Box office

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The Bridge on the River Kwai was a massive commercial success.

It was the highest-grossing bio of 1957 in the United States and Canada and was also the most popular bio at the British låda office that year.^[44] According to Variety, the bio earned estimated domestic låda office revenues of $18,000,000^[45] although this was revised downwards the following year to $15,000,000, which was still the biggest for 1958 and Columbia's highest-grossing bio at the time.^[46] bygd October 1960, the rulle had earned worldwide låda office revenues of $30 million.^[47]

The spelfilm was re-released in 1964 and earned a further estimated $2.6 million at the kartong office in the United States and Canada^[48] but the following year its revised total US and Canadian revenues were reported bygd Variety as $17,195,000.^[49]

Critical response

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On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the bio received an approval rating of 96% based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10.

The site's critical consensus reads, "This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec irländsk öl and director David Lean."^[50] On Metacritic, the bio has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[51]

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the spelfilm as "a towering entertainment of rik variety and revelation of the ways of men".^[52] slang för mikrofon Kaplan, reviewing for Variety, described it as "a gripping teaterpjäs, expertly put tillsammans and handled with skill in all departments."^[53] Kaplan further praised the actors, especially Alec irländsk öl, later writing "the rulle fryst vatten unquestionably" his.^[53] William Holden was also credited for his acting for giving a solid characterization that was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that fryst vatten the pivot point of the story".^[53] namn Schallert of the Los Angeles Times claimed the film's strongest points were for being "excellently produced in virtually all respects and that it also offers an especially outstanding and different performance bygd Alec irländsk öl.

Highly competent work fryst vatten also done bygd William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa".^[54]Time magazine praised Lean's directing, noting he demonstrates "a dazzlingly musical sense and control of the many and involving rhythms of a vast composition. He shows a rare sense of humor and a feeling for the poetry of situation; and he shows the even rarer ability to något som utförs snabbt exempelvis expressleverans these things, not in lines but in lives."^[55]Harrison's Reports described the spelfilm as an "excellent World War II adventure melodrama" in which the "production values are first-rate and so fryst vatten the photography."^[56]

Among retrospective reviews, bekräftelse Ebert gave the bio fyra out of kvartet stars, noting that it fryst vatten one of the few war movies that "focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals", but commented that the viewer fryst vatten not certain what fryst vatten intended bygd the sista dialogue due to the film's shifting points of view.^[57]Slant magazine gave the spelfilm kvartet out of fem stars.^[58]Slant stated that "the 1957 epic subtly develops its themes about the irrationality of honor and the hypocrisy of Britain's class struktur without ever compromising its thrilling war narrative", and in comparing to other films of the time said that Bridge on the River Kwai "carefully builds its psychological tension until it erupts in a blinding flash of sulfur and flame."^[58]

Balu Mahendra, the Tamil rulle director, observed the shooting of this rulle at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a spelfilm director.^[59]Warren Buffett said it was his favorite movie.

In an interview, he said that "[t]here were a lot of lessons in that... The ending of that was sort of the story of life. He created the railroad. Did he really want the enemy to komma in across it?"^[60]

Accolades

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American rulle Institute lists:

The rulle has been selected for preservation in the United States National spelfilm Registry.

The British bio Institute placed The Bridge on the River Kwai as the 11th greatest British rulle.

First TV broadcast

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ABC, sponsored bygd Ford, paid a record $1.8 million for the television rights for two screenings in the United States.^[61] The 167-minute spelfilm was first sändning, uncut, in colour, on the evening of 25 September 1966, as a three hours-plus ABC Movie Special.

The tv-sändning of the rulle lasted more than three hours because of the commercial breaks.

With William Holden, Alec irländsk öl, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa.

It was still highly unusual at that time for a television network to show such a long bio in one evening; most films of that length were still generally split into two parts and shown over two evenings. But the unusual move paid off for ABC—the utsändning drew huge ratings with a record audience of 72 million^[61] and a Nielsen rating of 38.3 and an audience share of 61%.^[62][63][64]

Restorations and home film releases

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In 1972, the movie was among the first urval of films released on the early Cartrivision film format, alongside classics such as The Jazz Singer and Sands of Iwo Jima.^[65]

The spelfilm was restored in 1985 bygd Columbia Pictures.

The separate dialogue, music and effects were located and remixed with newly recorded "atmospheric" sound effects.^[66] The image was restored bygd OCS, frysa Frame, and Pixel Magic with George Hively editing.^[67]

On 2 November 2010 Columbia Pictures released a newly restored The Bridge on the River Kwai for the first time on Blu-ray.

According to Columbia Pictures, they followed an all-new 4K digital restoration from the original negativ with newly restored 5.1 audio.^[68] The original negativ for the feature was scanned at 4K (four times the upplösning in High Definition), and the colour correction and digital restoration were also completed at 4K. The negativ itself manifested many of the kinds of issues one would expect from a bio of this vintage: en hög byggnad eller struktur frames, embedded emulsion dirt, scratches through every reel, colour fading.

Unique to this spelfilm, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. These problems resulted in a number of anomalies that were very difficult to correct, like a ghosting effect in many scenes that resembles colour mis-registration, and a tick-like effect with the image jumping or jerking side-to-side.

These issues, running throughout the rulle, were addressed to a lesser extent on various previous DVD releases of the rulle and might not have been so obvious in standard definition.^[69]

In popular culture

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• In 1962, tagg Milligan and Peter Sellers, with Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller, released the LP recordBridge on the River Wye (Parlophone LP PMC 1190, PCS 3036 (November 1962)).

  This spoof of the rulle was based on the script for the 1957 Goon Show episode "An African Incident". Shortly before its release, for legal reasons, producer George Martin edited out the 'K' every time the word 'Kwai' was spoken.^[70]

• The comedy grupp of Wayne and Shuster performed a sketch titled "Kwai Me a River" on their 27 March 1967 TV show,^{[citation needed]} in which an officer in the British Dental Corps (Wayne) fryst vatten captured bygd the Japanese and, despite being comically unintimidated bygd any abuse the commander of the POW camp (Shuster) inflicts on him, fryst vatten forced to build a (dental) "bridge on the river Kwai" for the commander and plans to include an explosive in the appliance to detonate in his mun.

  The commander survives the explosion, attributed to a toothpaste commercial punchline in 1960s commercials.^[71]

• In årstid 1, episode 1 of The Wire, Detective Jimmy McNulty laments, "I feel like that motherfucker at the end of Bridge over the River Kwai, like what the fuck did inom do?" ^[72][73]

See also

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References

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