Dun, dun, dun, DUNNN, DUNNN, dun, dun, da DUNNNN dun…ok, I’ll stop. In case my intro isn’t decipherable, it’s supposed to be the theme from Star Wars because this week’s Best Picture winner, The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957, Columbia), features the great Alec Guinness, who plays, of course, the incomparable Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes IV-VI. I just keep waiting for Guinness to pull out his lightsaber in The Bridge on the River Kwai, but I’m disappointed every time.

Guinness, who ironically was not a Star Wars fan, wasn’t disappointed with his role in The Bridge on the River Kwai, believing his interpretation of Colonel Nicholson to be one of the greatest performances of his career—one which earned him the Best Actor Oscar. In total, The Bridge on the River Kwai garnered eight Academy Award nominations and won seven: Best Actor for Guinness, Directing for the intense and demanding David Lean, Cinematography, Music (Scoring), Writing (Screenplay—Based on Material from Another Medium), Film Editing, and Best Motion Picture. The only nomination for which the film failed to take home the golden statuette was in the Actor in a Supporting Role category in which Sessue Hayakawa was recognized for his role as Colonel Saito.

Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson, keeping the ranks in check upon arrival at the Japanese POW camp.

The film version of The Bridge on the River Kwai is based on the award-winning 1952 French novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai written by Pierre Boulle, which was translated into English by Xan Fielding in 1954 (who also translated Boulle’s other famous work, Planet of the Apes). Although Boulle did not write the screenplay for the film version of his novel, he was credited with having done so because the two actual screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, had been blacklisted during the Red Scare. Boulle didn’t even speak English (so it was quite obvious he had not written the screenplay!), and his Oscar acceptance speech consisted of one word: “Merci.” Foreman and Wilson were retroactively awarded Oscars for their screenplay in 1984, but Wilson had died in 1978, and Foreman died the day after the announcement that his work would finally be acknowledged. Both of their names were added to the film’s credits during restoration.

Boulle based his fictional tale on his own experiences as a POW during World War II, although he himself was not one of the prisoners who were forced to work on what became known as the “Death Railway” through “Hellfire Pass.” The true story of these Japanese prisoners of war is much more horrific than the story we get in the film version: it is estimated that 16,000 Allied prisoners died during construction of the railway, not to mention approximately 100,000 Asian civilians’ lives were sacrificed there as well. You can read the obituary of one POW, Alistair Urquhart, who survived the railroad construction and the atrocities of the Japanese camp, here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/10/23/alistair-urquhart-death-railway-survivor–obituary/. You can find the book he wrote about his experiences in WWII here: The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific.

The film version of the “Death Railway.”

During the decade after WWII, the United States found itself embroiled in a number of conflicts in which it didn’t necessarily desire to take part. The Korean War took place in the early 1950s. The Vietnam War commenced in the 50s and would last into the 1970s. The Cold War also would simmer decades after the close of WWII. So it’s interesting to me that there are some pretty deliberate anti-war overtones in The Bridge on the River Kwai. I’m still puzzling over how this week we get a film about war that is possibly against war written by two guys who were victims of a country’s reaction to a “bloodless” war, which resulted in a guy who really suffered in war winning an Oscar he didn’t totally deserve–all while America participated in more wars, which a lot of people were against. That’s about as confusing as trying to convert my Star Wars humming into words…

For more thoughts on The Bridge on the River Kwai and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!