I am somewhat embarrassed to say that this was the first time that I ever watched The Bridge on the River Kwai. It always seemed to me to be one of those films that you should see on a big screen the first time that you experience it, so I think I was always waiting for a screening of it to pop up somewhere, but it never happened. And while I wasn’t able to see it projected, I was still able to see it big enough to enjoy the amazing piece of work that it was. I enjoyed this film very much, and there are a lot of elements within the film that made it so enjoyable, so successful and so memorable.

It has action that builds in tension and intensity. It has amazing cinematography and art direction, as it is a beautiful film to look at. This film has it all. It has a deep and riveting story that takes several twists and turns throughout. And most importantly and most strikingly, it is filled with deep, complex and flawed characters. No one is entirely good in this film. No one is entirely bad. Even the Japanese colonel who commands the prison camp comes off as sympathetic, as the story reveals the consequences that will befall him if he doesn’t come through on his orders. In fact, this might be the one film that I can think of that successfully changes both the protagonist and antagonist.

The first thing I’d like to discuss in detail is the story and how well it was crafted, constructed and paid off. The first main character that we meet is Commander Shears (William Holden). He’s the only American in a Japanese prison camp in present day Thailand, and we meet him as he’s digging a grave that is next to several other graves. The prison is in the middle of a jungle, and we see right away that the prisoners lead a hard life. Also of note is that there is no fence surrounding the camp and no watch tower. Trying to escape in to the jungle is its own death sentence. We then meet Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) as he and his men whistle that famous tune as they march into camp. Colonel Saito, the camp commander addresses the men and tells them that they’re being charged with building a bridge over the River Kwai and that they’ll be treated well as long as they work hard. He also tells them that the officers will be working alongside them as there is a tight deadline to complete the bridge. Nicholson tells Saito that forcing officers to work is against the Geneva Convention and Saito threatens to shoot all of the officers in cold blood unless they agree to work. Nicholson and his officers are unmoved, however, so Saito forces them into sweatboxes where they will remain until they change their minds.

While Nicholson cooks in the oven, Shears and two others try and escape. His two accomplices are shot, and Shears is shot as well, but manages to escape by leaping off of a cliff into the river and floating downstream until he comes upon a village. Fortunately or him they hate the Japanese as well, and they nurse him back to health and put him on a boat down river where he’s eventually found by the English and taken to a war hospital. Meanwhile Nicholson resolutely refuses to give in until Saito is able to concoct a face-saving reason to let him and his officers out so that their men will work faster. From there Nicholson discovers that the work his men have done so far is shoddy, and even though they were captured with the intent of not building the bridge in time, Nicholson’s English pride takes over. He wants his men to complete the bridge and to build a monument that will stand for centuries to come. This is where the complexity of Nicholson’s character comes in. At first, his motivation is to show Saito that British men and British methods are superior to those of the Japanese. He also wants the men to take pride in what they’re doing in order to keep morale high. He feels that by giving the men the mission of building the best bridge that they’re capable of will do that and he ends up being right. But then an interesting thing happens. He starts to take a little too much pride in the accomplishment. Even though this bridge will aid and assist the enemy, Nicholson is so proud of the accomplishment that he can’t see the folly in what he’s doing. I’ll get the tragic results of that pride in a little bit.

For as Nicholson is getting the bridge completed, Shears has found himself in with a crowd that wants to blow it up. At the hospital, Shears meets Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), a demolitions expert who has been assigned to blow up the bridge so that it will not connect Singapore with Rangoon, as is the Japanese intention. Warden wants Shears to accompany him because he as such good knowledge of the terrain and the camp. Shears follows up this archetypal call to adventure with an equally archetypal refusal of the call. He’s hoping for a medical discharge from the army and has already started having an affair with one of the nurses, even going so far as to plan their lives together after the war. This is where Shears’ character complexity comes in. He tells Warden that not only is he not Shears, but he’s not an officer either. He’s in the Navy and when his ship sunk, he made it ashore with an officer, who died on the beach. Aware that officers are treated better in prison camps than enlisted personnel, he copped Shears’ uniform and identity. He kept up the charade after being rescued because he was being treated so well. Now he’s afraid that he’s going to go from hero who escaped a Japanese prison camp to a dishonorable discharge for impersonating an officer. Warden tells him that he can make up for that by accompanying him on the mission and that he’ll keep his officer status upon their return. They select two other men to go with them, including the green Lt. Joyce, whom they’re not even sure is ready to kill if he needs to, and they parachute in to the jungle. The 4^th member of the mission lands in the trees, and is killed so they bury him and reach their contact in a Burmese village. The chief Yai agrees to take them to the bridge, bit they have to go a different way since the Japanese are patrolling the local area much more frequently. After a run in with some Japanese soldiers in which Warden is wounded, they make it to the bridge. They’ve found out that a train is scheduled to cross it soon, so they want to time the explosion for when the train is on the bridge. Under cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce set the explosives and guide the wire to a clear beach a hundred yards downstream.

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

They wake up the next morning and to their horror, the river has drained and the explosives and wires are exposed. The enlisted personnel march across the bridge, whistling on their way to the next camp. As he patrols the bridge, Nicholson notices the wire and goes down to investigate, summoning Saito to go with him. As they get close to Joyce’s position he jumps out and stabs Saito. The train is about to cross the bridge, but Nicholson won’t let Joyce blow it up. As Japanese gunfire rains down on them, hitting Joyce, Shears runs from the trees to try and help, but he is shot as well. Nicholson sees Shears and comes to his senses, but Warden starts firing a mortar and a shell lands close enough to Nicholson to morally wound him. He falls on the detonator plunger and the bridge explodes just as the train is passing over it, and everything collapses in to the riverbed.

I apologize for the spoiler but it was necessary to continue to illustrate the earlier point about Nicholson and his fatal flaw, which was his pride. Nicholson allowed himself to put his pride ahead of his duty, and it proved tragic and nearly proved disastrous. That he was able to overcome the flaw at the very end, speaks to his character depth and to the expertise that was used to develop that character.

I mentioned earlier that this film switches protagonists and antagonists. During the first half of the film it is Nicholson who is the clear protagonist and hero of the story with Saito being the clear antagonist and villain. Nicholson heroically stands up for what’s right and Saito, on the verge of becoming a monster does everything in his power short of killing Nicholson and his men to get them to bend to his will. When he ultimately fails, Nicholson wins the day and Saito becomes an archetypal shapeshifter and goes from being an enemy to an ally as he does everything that Nicholson needs from that point on to assist in the building of the bridge. We then switch over to Shears, who is also an archetypal shapeshifter and trickster, as he’s disguised himself as someone else. During the second half of the movie he becomes the hero trying to blow up the bridge and acting as the glue that holds his small band together so that they can accomplish that mission, while Nicholson is now the antagonist and actively tries to stop Shears from accomplishing his goal. That kind of character and story complexity doesn’t come around very often, and is one of the reasons that The Bridge on the River Kwai is such a unique film.

Taken in its totality, this is an amazingly crafted film. From a storytelling standpoint, it delivers a rich and complex story that isn’t hard to follow and keeps the audience engaged through characters that are heroic and flawed all at the same time. If you’re a screenwriter who is having a difficult time developing a character, this is an instructive film for you. This is a film that seamlessly and effortlessly shows characters growing, changing and achieving a level of redemption. From a technical standpoint, this film soars above the previous year’s Around the World in 80 Days by using Cinemascope to help enhance the storytelling rather than distracting us from it. Not to mention the superb performances by William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. The Bridge on the River Kwai is truly a film for the ages.

Did the Academy get it right?

The easy answer is yes, but it was up against some pretty stiff competition. 12 Angry Men is a well-known and respected film that had an all-star cast that was led by Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb and Jack Warden. It was another courtroom drama that proved the rule that courtroom dramas are often bridesmaids but never brides. While not as big in scope or as epic as The Bridge on the River Kwai, 12 Angry Men nevertheless is a powerful and engaging film that makes us feel trapped in a place that we can’t get out of until the problem is resolved. Director Sidney Lumet used several impressive filmmaking motifs that go on in that film as well, as the shots start out the film wide and with long takes, and as the film gets more intense, the shots get tighter and tighter and the takes shorter and shorter. It’s an intense film that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Another courtroom drama was nominated that year in Witness for the Prosecution starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton. Directed by Billy Wilder, this is an engaging who-done-it that will leave you guessing until the very end, and has no fewer than 3 story-altering twists in the last 5 minutes. It too is a complex story with rich, deep and engaging characters that could have won, had it come out the following year instead. But even with all of that said, there was no beating The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957. This was a film that had it all and was as deserving as any film to win Best Picture.