The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai is an achievement in war movie making. It stars Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa who all give great and convincing performances. This film is about soldiers in a prisoner of war camp struggling to build and destroy a bridge in Southeast Asia during World War II. The films art direction and sets are so convincing that you believe you a looking through a time machine. Most films in this scale usually had a few scenes of a green screen, but David Lean was well-known for not using green screens and shot on location. This method makes his films so convincing as it gives the audience more to see and how the actors relate to the area around them.

Alec Guinness and William Holden’s portrayals of their characters as Sheers and Colonel Nicholson are memorializing because of their distance relationship throughout the film. We only see them together for a few minutes at the beginning of the film and spend the majority of their screen time on opposite ends of Southeast Asia, and then they slowly make their way back to each other with their situations changing in the process. It all adds up tot he last five minutes of the film where everything literary “blows up”. This type of story telling makes the audience an active participant because we know something that the characters don’t. Another movie with this type of story telling is Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006) about two moles trying to smoke the other out. The Bridge of the River is similar in that it involves a military demolition operation.

My last take on the Bridge on the River Kwai is on the performance of Sussue Hayakawa. Alec Guinness gave a performance of a lifetime, but it was Hayakawa that adapted and changed his character throughout the film. Hayakawa plays Colonel Saito who at first is the ruthless dictator of a prison camp who would murder prisoners if they didn’t obey orders. Throughout his screen time with Guinnes (Nicholson) he changes his demeanor and his attitude toward the prisoners and obtains a type of charity as he got to know Nicolson. He turns from a tyrant to a cooperative ally, which adds friction to the plot because he is supposed to be the enemy. It’s great that David Lean can do that on-screen and be successful.

Alec Guinness (R) in The Bridge on the River Kwai

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Franco Zeffirelli’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet brings the stage tragedy into a real-life perspective. This is the best motion picture of this love story because it doesn’t shy away from the reality of the consequences of a family feud and death. Michael York is the largest name associated with this Italian produced film and gives a great performance as the antagonistic Tybalt that is both moving and convincing. When he dies at Romeo’s hand we are both happy and sad at the same time. A very rare combination of feelings.

The most powerful and unforgettable element in the film is Nino Rota’s original score. It is the most beautiful piece of music that I have ever heard for the screen. Sorry for those who think it’s John Williams’ Star Wars (1977). Nino Rota’s score gives Romeo and Juliet an antiquarian feeling and sets the right mood to give a tragic event such as two killings and two suicides a beautiful picture. It is very difficult to make a tragic event into something beautiful as the Romantic artists would agree. The melody is something unforgettable and yet simple.

I want to lastly emphasize the fight scene between Romeo and Tybalt and how it is the most realistic Shakespearean duel put to screen. There are no fancy choreographed steps or impressive sword play, only two desperate men fighting to stay alive. There is a sword fight, but in any hasty duel fueled by rage, the swords come down and up comes the fists. There is punching, cutting, wrestling, and shouting with a crowd cheering them on and being aware of their illegal activity. To say that it was a tense moment is an understatement.

Leonard Whiting (L) and Michael York (R) in Romeo & Juliet

Platoon (1986)

If ever you ever want to learn about the Vietnam war in motion pictures, then Platoon is the number one pick. It follows a young private played by Charlie Sheen who has been assigned to an infantry platoon that is practically corrupt. The only soldier that he sees as a moral judge is Staff Sergeant Elias who takes the private under his wing.

This is a very accurate, realistic and dark war film that will get emotions out of you whether it be sadness, anger, relieved, and downright horror of what war was like in Vietnam. The film’s accuracy and realism is to the thanks of director Oliver Stone’s own experiences as an infantryman in 1960’s Vietnam. A very rare antidote for a war film. John Wayne’s ‘Green Berets’ (1968) and Randall Wallace’s ‘We Were Soldiers’ (2002) are both visually pleasing with a lot of war sequences, but they miss the mark of an unbiased Vietnam film. John Wayne was very one-sided for pro-Vietnam involvement and Randall Wallace romanticized it. Oliver Stone makes it real with your own interpretation if Vietnam was worth the fighting. He puts a lot of accuracies into he film and doesn’t explain them making you to research after you watched the film.

A director (including the producers) of a great film do not frankly tell you (the audience) what to think about their film with endless commentary or romanticized images. They simply show how it is and let the audience take it in. Actions speak louder than words in a film. Oliver Stone is that kind of director who does not shy away from showing the audience how it is in his films. No matter how violent or controversial, he shows you desperate people trying to survive. Being human in a foreign land such as 1960s Vietnam is desperate. The score borrowed from Samuel Berger’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ definitely helps.

Willem Defoe (L) and Tom Berenger (R) in Platoon