Madness, Madness

So I was watching Bridge on the River Kwai last night. Wow, what a movie, what a finale.

Let's look ant the characters.

We have Nicholson, the quintessential British peacetime officer. No one is better at peace time soldiering than the Brits, and it shows through here. Nicholson insists on the book, on regulations, not just for form, but to keep the battalion together. He knows the instant he gives in, the battalion will fall apart. His means of keeping the battalion together is to build the bridge consequences be damned.

Colonel Saito is as dedicated to the Japanese Bushido way of soldiering as Nicholson is to the British way. He is baffled by the Brits, stubborn without shame, brave without honor.

Then there is Shears, the American skeptic who just wants out of the war.

We have leading Force 316 Colonel Warden, the Oxford don who seems to be having a great time, whose all for giving the project a go.

And finally, Joyce, the bored Canadian mathematician who wants adventure.

It all comes together in the final, epic ending.

During the march back into the camp, Shears, out of endurance and spite transforms into an iron-willed commando determined to get the job done. He takes it out on Warden who insists on being left behind after he is hurt, but Shears won't let him. Instead Shears hurts Warden in the best way he knows how, they carry him to the bridge, denying Warden his stiff-upper-lipped British ending.

Here's the confrontation between Shears and Warden appropriately titled 'How to live like a human being.':

Behold the skepticism right there, just look at Shears' face. 'You make me sick with your heroics.'

Joyce gets his adventure, alright. He's posted to the far side of the river to blow up the bridge. When Nicholson and Saito realize the Force 316 has mined the bridge, Joyce has to kill Saito in cold blood.

It is here that we see Shears ultimate transformation. Nicholson tries to stop Joyce. Shears stands up and gutterally, savagely shouts, 'Kill him! Kill him!' Look at the man's face, first as Joyce murders Saito:

Then as he shouts 'Kill him! Kill him!':

And finally, when Joyce is killed, Shears hurls himself into the water and swims to the far bank for no other reason than to murder Nicholson out of pure hate:

Look at the pure savagery in Shear's eyes. He'd tear Nicholson apart with his bear hands if he could. The only reasonable man in the whole movie transformed into a blood thirsty savage.

Not even Warden, who blows up his brdge comes out unscaithed. He throws his mortar away, rejected everything they have just done.

I said Shears was the only reasonable man in the whole movie, but that's not really true:

Here's the whole ending clip, an incredible explosion of tensions and anticipation. Just magnificent in every way:

 With the uproarious music, the movie ends as tragedy and farce.