When Christopher Nolan mentioned the inspiration for his World War II masterpiece Dunkirk, the first British director who came to mind was David Lane.
And the reason why Lane is still remembered in this era is because of the epic masterpieces, as if he was born for the huge productions.
What I want to talk to you about today is this war epic that inspired Nolan by Lane's hand -
《Bridge over the River Kwai》
Without the majestic World War II epic of The Bridge over the River Kwai, there might not have been Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, which later brought David Lane to the top.
"The Bridge on the River Kwai" not only marks the birth of an epic movie, but also marks the birth of an epic director.
Next, let's talk about this crazy and elegant epic.
Music up!
In 1942, the Southeast Asian theater of World War II. After occupying the Malay Peninsula and Burma, the Japanese began to humiliate European troops who had previously colonized the area.
But the outwardly arrogant Japanese did not have a strong sense of security — because they were expanding too quickly, the vanguard troops entering Burma were severely undersupplied and could be counterattacked at any time.
With the sea route too slow to resupply and the supply ships completely exposed to Allied submarine fire, the Only Hope the Japanese had was to build a railway supply line in the treacherous jungle on the border between Burma and Thailand.
How can this difficult and harsh strategic project be realized? While enslaving a large number of local civilians, the Japanese set their sights on Allied prisoners of war.
The Japanese forced British, Dutch, Australian, and American prisoners of war to build a 415-kilometer railway, which ultimately killed at least 16,000 Allied prisoners of war, and 100,000 civilians died of forced labor.
The most notorious of the flesh-and-blood railways is a bridge near Bangkok, Thailand.
It was during this time that a French agent named Pierre Bull was arrested along the Mekong River, subjected to harsh punishment by the Japanese, and ultimately failed to escape the fate of forced labor.
Relatively fortunately, Boole was not assigned to build the "Death Railway" until the end of World War II, when he was rescued back to France.
After returning to France, Boole began to write literature based on his first-hand experience as a prisoner of war and second-hand hearsay.
He installed the infamous bridge on a stream in Burma known as the "River Kwai" and told the story of the "Death Railway" from the perspective of Colonel Nicholson, a British prisoner of war, and Colonel Sato, a Japanese officer.
In 1952, his novel The Bridge on the River Kwai (left, movie poster on the right) was published, quickly becoming a world-class bestseller and was acquired by Hollywood.
Sam Spiegel, a major Hollywood producer who produced "The Queen of Africa" and "The Docks", is the financial owner who bought the rights to "The Bridge on the River Kwai".
He enlisted Oscar-nominated screenwriter Carl Foreman ("High Noon") to adapt the script, but he had trouble hiring a director.
Just when he was at a loss, Catherine Hepburn, who had just starred in the romance film "Sunny Days", recommended the film's director, David Lane.
Although Lane was not very famous in Hollywood at the time, Spiegel regarded him as the last straw.
In fact, Lane needed the job as much as Spiegel needed him. In his career, Lane seems to be in a bottleneck period, although he has received five Oscar nominations, but he has not won at all;
In life, Lane spent a lot of money on the divorce process with his ex-wife, almost relying on pawns to survive.
Directing "The Bridge on the River Kwai" not only allowed him to get direct remuneration, but also helped him avoid taxes significantly by the convenience of filming in Southeast Asia.
So even though the filming of "Bridge over the River Kwai" would obviously be very arduous, Lane gladly accepted the job.
After joining the cast, Lane said that he did not like Carl Foreman's previously adapted script, and Spiegel had to invite the young screenwriter Calder Wellingham to do a second processing.
However, Lane was even more disgusted with his script. Spiegel eventually had to send Michael Wilson, the screenwriter of "Heart like Iron," to shoot ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and work with Lane on set to finalize the final script.
First draft author Carl Foreman and finalist Michael Wilson debated to their deaths who contributed the most to the script. But the most bizarre situation occurred when the filming of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was completed and widely praised.
During the three-year production phase of the film, Hollywood introduced a blacklist system, and the two screenwriters were blacklisted because they were members of the Communist Party and lost their Oscar nominations.
Finally, at the Academy Awards ceremony that year, the winner of the best adapted screenplay award for "The Bridge of the River Kwai" was pierre Bull, the author of the novel "The Bridge on the River Kwai".
The unsuccessful Boole did not appear at the awards ceremony, but commissioned actress Kim Novak to deliver the shortest acceptance speech in Oscar history for him.
"Thank you."
It wasn't until 1985 that the academy finally acknowledged Foreman and Wilson's screenwriting byline in The Bridge over the River Kwai and posthumously awarded them.
Lane had wanted his partner Charles Lawton ("Prosecution Witness", "Washington Senju") to play the protagonist in "The Great Woman", and the captured British Colonel Nicholson, but because Lawton's fat body was far from the image of the officer in the prisoner of war camp, he was unanimously opposed by the film.
But Lane insisted that Lawton could lose weight in a short period of time, until the insurance company claimed that Lawton could not withstand the harsh environment of the Ceylon jungle and refused to cover him. Just five years later, Lawton died of cancer.
After abandoning Lawton, British actor Alex Guinness (who starred in Star Wars Jedi Obi-Wan) entered Lane's sights, but Guinness was hesitant to take on the role because he did not like the script's weakening of Nicholson's role, nor was he willing to make a second choice to live under Lawton's shadow.
When Guinness finally accepted the role and rushed to Ceylon, Lane's first words to greet him were:
"Do you know how much I want Charles Lawton?"
Guinness later wrote in his autobiography: "I almost left with my sleeves up and bought myself a ticket home!" ”
To please american audiences, the script was adapted with another major character: The slippery U.S. prisoner of war Shields.
The casting of Shields was relatively smooth, as both Lane and the producers believed that only by bringing in William Horton (Sunset Boulevard, Soul of the Battlefield) could the film's box office be guaranteed.
So they didn't blink when they paid Horton $300,000 (equivalent to $2.5 million today) and 10 percent of the box office dividend, even though director Ryan's salary was only half of Horton's.
The most successful thing about Bridge Kwai is its complexity.
It has a multi-line narrative, multiple perspectives, and multiple groups of character relationships.
Narratively, Colonel Nicholson leads the prisoners of war in building the bridge, and Shields' escape and return form two parallel threads.
From the perspective of the characters, the war in Nicholson's perspective was reduced to obeying the rules of the Japanese, and then evolved into stubbornly building bridges;
Shields' perspective shows the absurdity of war, he almost paid the price of his life to escape, but finally had to return to the same place;
From the perspective of Japanese officer Sato (Hayakawa Yukisu), with the successful construction of the Bridge over the River Kwai, his former majesty in front of Nicholson has turned into a shame of having to admit that the British are stronger than himself;
In the eyes of the medic Clipperton (James Donald), war drives everyone to become more and more unfamiliar, as he has repeatedly told the Major, and he still does not understand what war is.
David Lane handles the climax of the film with both suspense and unusual coldness. While the Allied soldiers who had sneaked up on the Japanese army planted explosives under the bridge, the sound of the boots of the Japanese guards on the bridge was gripping in the quiet environment.
At the same time, the British soldiers in the POW camp were celebrating the completion of the bridge in a hilarious manner, a scene that contrasted with the tension at the bridge and was full of eerie irony.
The next morning, the sound of the slowly approaching train created a long period of suspense. The ghostly Nicholson would rather lead the Japanese army to find the explosive lead and expose the sneak attack of the coalition forces, rather than see his beloved bridge destroyed, which pushed the "madness" and "irony" throughout the film to the climax.
The artistic and commercial "Bridge of the River Kwai" immediately became the box office champion of the year after its release, and won seven awards such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Alec Guinness) in the Oscar competition the following year.
David Lane's epic career began, and he followed suit with Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter and Journey to India.
These epic masterpieces, and the reputation they gained, even allowed Lane to be knighted by the British royal family.
As the opening of his epic film sequence, Lane retains the complex emotions that characterized his smaller-scale predecessors.
The loss of the Japanese officer Sato when he was alone, and The hesitation of Colonel Nicholson when he inspected the completion of the bridge, are notable examples.
Nicholson's self-talk at the end of his recovery – "What the hell did I do", like a passage from the classic Shakespeare play King Lear;
And the film's last line, "Crazy... Madness" is not only a summary of all the absurdities in the film, but also represents Lane's overall view of the war.
And 60 years after the birth of the film, this absurdity and madness have revealed grace and elegance under the refraction of time, thanks to the gentle and elegant gentlemanly temperament of David Lane, but also to the classical era when expressing it with emotion and courtesy, and seeing without breaking.