BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI AND WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the greatest movies ever made. This epic War movie was directed by David Lean was based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–1943. But it is important to note that the characters and events that happen in the movie are entirely fictional. Most war movies are either for or against their wars. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) is one of the few that focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals (Ebert). It stars prolific actors like William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. The Bridge on the River Kwai is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. The seven academy awards in its name itself is a testament to the genius of the director and the plot. David lean elaborated on his process of writing in an interview given to BBC. He says “I try to imagine what the finished movie is going to look like on the screen”. This vision and creative genius made The Bridge on the River Kwai into one of the greatest films ever. “Mr. Foreman and Mr. Wilson - who had actually written the award- winning screenplay - were not at the ceremony” (new york times). This is because It was 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. 

    Sir David Lean

Sir David Lean CBE (25 March 1908 – 16 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Widely considered one of the most influential directors of all time, Lean directed the large-scale epics The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984).[1] He also directed two adaptations of Charles Dickens novels, Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), as well as the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945). Stanley Kubrick said that ‘"There are very few directors, about whom you'd say you automatically have to see everything they do. I'd put Fellini, Bergman and David Lean at the head of my first list”, meanwhile Steven Spielberg opined that Lawrence of Arabia (1962) by Lean was a huge inspiration for his Indiana Jones series. 

The Movie

The story told through The Bridge on the River Kwai is a story of will and honour. It is a story of resistance and the fight for the personal agency of one man. The story also revolves around the desires of four men. Shears’s desire to escape, Nicholson’s steadfast desire to hold his agency, Saito’s desire to complete the construction of the bridge, and Warden’s desire to destroy the bridge. But the movie demonstrates the grim reality of war. The construction of the bridge, Saito’s iron-fisted rule, Nicholson's perseverance; everything is ultimately useless as the bridge is destroyed by Nicholson himself at the cost of several lives. 

The plot of the movie revolves around the POW camp in Thailand. A fresh contingent of British POWs arrives at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand, led by Colonel Nicholson. Nicholson never yields to the inhumane demands of Saito and instead defeats him in principle by building a bridge to the best of his ability according to his way. This paper would be an attempt at exploring the postcolonial aspects in The Bridge on the River Kwai and analyse under a specific light.

The events that unfold in the movie and Nicholson’s actions are closely related to the concept of the “White Man’s Burden”, or at least it can be read in that way. Stephen Greenblatt in the Norton Anthology of English Literature talks about Rudyard Kipling’s poem "The White Man's Burden". He says As Victorian imperial poetry, "The White Man's Burden" thematically corresponded to Kipling's belief that the British Empire was the Englishman's "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth”. The poem celebrates British colonialism. The American writer Mark Twain replied to the imperialism Kipling espoused in "The White Man's Burden" with the satirical essay "To the Person Sitting in Darkness".

One of the first glances towards an examination of colonial elements in the movie can be seen in Nicholson’s insistence to not obey Saito’s orders. It is presumptuous to say that this immovable persistence is only because Nicholson carries the white man’s burden. But, Nicholson’s demeanour and his conversations with Saito certainly point to the covert manifestations of the “civilising mission”. Edward Said terms the Orient as a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences. He also observes that Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly). The American representation of the Japanese in the movie in many ways is a product of World War 2.  Said adds in his Introduction to “Orientalism” that Orientalism can be discussed and analysed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient - From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the end of World War II France and Britain dominated the Orient and Orientalism and since world war 2 America has dominated it. 

The first instance of Nicholson’s feeling of superiority comes in the form of his constant upholding of the Geneva convention and its provisions on the treatment of the POWs. It is important to note that Japan was never a part of the convention. Another caveat that adds depth to the whole interaction between Saito and Nicholson in prisoner treatment is the fact that Japanese troops were considered as surrendered enemy personnel and were deprived of the protection provided by the 1929 Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Nicholson attempts to educate Saito on something he is not a part of, imposing Nicholson’s western ideology on Saito. 

The construction of the Kwai bridge is perhaps the best example of pointing out Nicholson as someone that possesses the White Man’s burden. Nicholson is shocked by the poor job being done by his men and orders the building of a proper bridge, intending it to stand as tribute to the British Army's ingenuity for centuries to come. The movie clearly portrays the British as master builders and engineers capable of building bridges in a fraction of the time. It makes the Japanese look weak and incompetent. Nicholson’s persistence to build the bridge can be, in many ways seen as the unwillingness to surrender to the enemy. But another perspective puts him as a man on a civilising mission. Saito here is defeated in the end. He is forced to concede to Nicholson and his way of organisation and ingenuity. 

 

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, Norton Anthology of English Literature, New York, 2006 

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/16/movies/oscars-go-to-writers-for-kwai.html

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index3.html#slot26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Convention_on_Prisoners_of_War_(1929)

-Yadu Krishnan. P