Journal 3

The film I chose to watch is the Bridge On the River Kwai directed by David Lean. I chose this film because it won numerous Academy Awards including best picture (1957). It is based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. The film is about British POWs and Allied soldiers. When the British POWs build a railway bridge in enemy occupied Burma, allied commandoes are assigned to destroy the bridge. It is still praised for its excellence as a film but also behind the scenes.
The two writers of the film, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson were on the Hollywood Backlist and could only work on the film in secret. The Hollywood Backlist was a group of writers, directors and actors who were not allowed to work on films because of their political beliefs. The idea for the script came from a novel by Pierre Boulle called, Le Pont de la Rivière Kwaï. It is a fiction novel but it borrows the construction of the Burma Railway as a main part of the plot. From my research it seems that the film and the novel are very similar. It used the same plot and characters and matched the novel very well. Foreman and Wilson did not collaborate on the script which led to Foreman walking out on the project and Wilson taking over. Previously Carl Foreman wrote the script for High Noon, a popular western film. Michael Wilson also wrote the script for The Planet of the Apes. The credit for the screenplay was given to Pierre Boulle because the two were on the Backlist and Boulle was awarded an Oscar for writing even though he did not speak a word of English. In 1984 Foreman and Wilson were finally awarded an Oscar for the writing of the film.
Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles. They finally decided on David Lean, a British Director who was virtually unheard of outside of Britain. But that didn’t mean he was a nobody, he directed films such as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Lean was a person who wanted a lot to do with the actors and wanted them to be the type of character he wanted. Often times he would get into fights with the actors, most importantly Alec Guinness, the star of the film. Lean had a totally different view of how to play Nicholson (Guinness) as Guinness did. It seemed like Lean stayed away from the Cinematography aspect and focused more on the acting. He was awarded Best Director in the 1957 Academy Awards for his work in the film.
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a fantastic film that was one of the first of its kind. It was praised for its direction and writing and is still a popular film today. It incorporated very new ideas and was a very entertaining and in depth film.

Journal 2

From what I know about the typical western film there is the hero, who is most often a lawman of some kind, there is a bad guy, and the hero is called upon to save someone or something from danger. The film Unforgiven directed by Clint Eastwood is not the typical western. Eastwood and the writer, David Webb Peoples, found a way to turn the whole western genre around and revise the genre to a story which is completely backwards than the traditional western film. The cast includes Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. The film provides a new twist to westerns that is completely original.
The story begins with a cowboy with the aid of another cowboy slashes a prostitutes face. The venomous local sheriff and former gunfighter, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) only fines the two cowboys seven ponies. The other prostitutes who are furious about the easy punishment decide to pool their money together and pay a $1000 dollar reward for anyone who kills the two. A long ways away the Schofield Kid approaches a ranch owned my William Munny (Eastwood) looking for a partner to do the hit. In previous years Munny was an infamous gunslinger, murderer, and bandit has since retired, having forsworn his criminal ways through the influence of his late wife. After initially declining the Kid's offer to join up and split the reward money, Munny reconsiders amidst his financial troubles and recruits a former associate and neighbor, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), as his partner before catching up with the Schofield Kid. The three men ride until they find one of the cowboys and they shoot him. After the killing Ned Logan (Freeman) decides he can no longer kill anymore. He rides off to go back home with his wife. Meanwhile William Munny and the Schofield Kid find the other cowboy and kill him. After the killing of the second cowboy Munny catches word that Little Bill (Hackman) found Ned Logan and had tortured and killed him. Munny leaves the Schofield Kid and goes into town to get vengeance for his friends murder. Munny’s past life is reopened as he kills Little Bill and everyone else who had a part in the killing. After shouting threats of wanton violence through the open door to anyone who might be outside waiting for him, he leaves the saloon and rides away on a white horse.
Although the film may seem like a simple, shoot em’ up western it has an underlining purpose that is somewhat hard to pick up. The reoccurring theme in the film is the violence that characters exhibit. When Ned Logan returns to him home after the killing of the first cowboy he seems to be the more rehabilitated one of the two. Munny is still a very mysterious character in that because the viewer still doesn’t know much about his vicious past. Later in the film it is revealed that he was a true monster, he had killed women and children and “just about anything that walked or crawled”. When this is revealed it is clear that Munny hadn’t changed and is still the evil murderous man he always was. A significant part in the film is when Munny is about to kill Little Bill, “I don’t deserve this,” pleads Little Bill. “Deserves got nothing to do with it,” says Munny. This quote sums up the insanity of western violence and what it is to be truly a bad man.
The Dramatic aspects of the film were very well supported. The film had a great cast including Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris all of which acted very well. The film used a lot of low key lighting to make the characters look mysterious. Also the Cinematographer used a lot of low angle shots to make the characters look powerful and deadly.
Eastwood’s directing and acting in the film made this one of the best westerns I have seen. It had a completely different story than I was used to seeing and he took on the idea of the “revisionist” western very well. I think this film deserved best picture in 1992 because if its theme and overall cinematic excellence.