![]() A contest at which Lean nags and tests, contending that war is not a clean matter of following the rules. That they generate a form of respect is down to a kind mutual understanding of military bearing. Guinness fills him with an absurdist stridency that is at once utterly heroic, masochistic and damn near demented, standing up to the speculative cruelty meted out by Hayakawa’s irate camp commander Sessue. However, this is to downplay the daring structure, the near absence of out-and-out warfare, and the fierce investigation of cultural divides be they Japanese, British or American, as personified by William Holden’s brashly heroic Shears who will become the true enemy of Alec Guinness, in one of his most legendary roles as the indefatigable Colonel Nicholson.īeyond the rash of subplots and beachside longeurs that take the story away from the POW camp, it is Nicholson’s gradual breakdown into madness that occupies Lean’s closest attentions. It went on to soak up all the major Oscars, which has often skewed popular opinion into thinking of it as a grand, old-school opera of the British at war. The first in David Lean’s epic phase, this proud and accomplished war movie boasts all the qualities that made the British director a true great: lavish cinematography, meaty performances, and a psychologically complex script.
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