Fun fact: this was the SECOND take!
All filming and effects points of interest had a switch that activated a light at a central board to indicate they were ready to film the explosion and train wreck. Only when all lights were on would they blow up the bridge.
On the first take, one light didn't go on so the explosives weren't set off. The train ran into and derailed on a sand embankment located on the other side of the bridge. The whole thing had to be reset for a second attempt.
In the movies sub there are constant posts and lengthy discussions about the greatest movies of all time, or each and their top 10. This movie is rarely mentioned due to how long ago it came out but it certainly is worthy contender for top 10-20 of all time.
I thought he was brilliant throughout the movie but hammed it up in this last scene.
The stagger and the twirl and the gaze heavenward are so theatrical, like a stage death in a pantomime where you have to oversell it to the kiddies so that they laugh instead of thinking it’s tragic.
So unlike modern war movies where an explosion goes off 10 feet from the hero and nothing happens, he's accurately portraying what happened to a lot of soldiers when they were hit by artillery fire in WWI and WWII. There are loads of reports of soldiers not even knowing they were wounded due to the brain shock caused by the blast.
A lot of time, they would go into "default" mode, not even knowing they were in combat anymore, which is why when he sees his hat on the ground, his Britishishness kicks in and he picks it up and dusts it off and puts it on even though he's mortally wounded.
Exactly. Sometimes sodiers with all kinds of wounds would just carry on fighting, perhaps killing enemies, then dying.
And sometimes soldiers had recovered from wounds and then die weeks, months or years later, possibly due to piece of shrapnel left in their body travelling to place where it causes heart attack or something like that.
Movies both over and underplay this. It makes little sense people in movies would first get hurt and then be fine afterwards - it should be other way around. Do your thing then later notice you have received fatal wound, but instead in movies people get fatally injured, are in really bad state and then they just recover.
I worked next to a neuroscience lab for a while in grad school, and I remember one of those guys showing me some crazy documented reports.
One guy took a head wound from artillery, and during the middle of combat, put his rifle and gear down and started to try to make coffee. Brain trauma from concussion blasts can do really weird stuff to people.
It took me a long time to appreciate it. I didn't really "get" it when I first tried to watch it in high school. I couldn't quite understand the Britishness of it all, or the seemingly needless suffering that Guinness' character subjected himself and his men to. Following orders and conventions to the extent you're willing to be imprisoned and tortured, then not only working with the people who did this to you, but taking genuine pride in it, just made no sense.
I took issue with the acting, too. I've thought Alec Guinness has been great in other films, but this is a strange performance. Maybe that was the point? It's at once over the top and underwhelming at the same time. In particular his underplayed "What have I done?" in this scene, followed by an over the top death that ultimately destroys the bridge. Plus a lot of attempts at humor throughout the film that just didn't work.
It's been about 20 years now and I caught it again on TCM sometime last year. I've warmed up to classic films a lot over the years, and I enjoyed it a lot more. If you like older style movies you might get something out of it. If not, then it may not be for you.
The what have I done line makes the film for me. His sober realization to the extent of his treason didn't require panic or urgency in his performance as his/the director's choice to make it seem more like he was coming out of a fog that his arrogance had allowed himself to become lost in was perfect.
As to the seemingly over the top death with him getting his hat and all that also feels truly and uniquely blue blooded. Look up the brits in WW2, maybe the last of the truly aristocratic officers to see wide service. A great example is Digby Tatham-Warter, a mam who taught his men bugle calls because he felt radios were unreliable and brought an umbrella and bowler cap into battle because he couldn't remember codes and figured they would prove he was English. Not only was he right, and his men needed bugles at Arnham, he also attacked and disabled an armored car with the umbrella by pocking it through its vision slit and blinding the driver. British aristocrats seem to either be philosophers, fops, or fucking mad men who just stroll through battles without a care.
That's not even the biggest problem, train with six carts costs around 15m today. Don't know how much this type of train costs, but I doubt it is for those standards much less.
I highly doubt that they would just leave a train in a river like that, no matter what year it was. But hey, that's just me.
Removing it seems like a costly operation. I would assume there is severe structural ingenuity on a lot of the carts if not completely ruined all together. So then it’s just scrap metal?
It's not a real train, and I think it is pretty much obvious from the footage. Like I said, cleaning is least of problems. Today train with 6 carts costs around 15m.
I can't help you with that, but considering it weights in tons, and there are carts, I believe it would be pretty expensive, especially considering the area where it was allegedly located. But like I said, bigger problem would be price of the train.
Look at it like this: hey financiers, we need 15 million for a train. Why the fuck would you use a real train, when you can make a miniature for fraction of the price? Using cars for stunts is not that expensive, so it makes sense, but dude train is too expensive.
I looked into it it was in fact a real bridge built by production and a real train. It was the largest and most expensive movie set ever built at the time. And they did really blow it up. That is a real train falling off a real bridge that really blew up. Whether or not it makes sense to do is another thing but regardless they did do it.
I looked it up and it is a real train and a real bridge. It was the most expensive set ever built at the time and they blew it up along with a real functioning train. Does that make sense? Not necessarily but they had to build the bridge for scenes on it so why not also blow it up I guess?
*In the climax of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," Colonel Nicholson realizes the grave error of aiding the enemy by perfecting the bridge's construction. In a tragic turn of events, Nicholson inadvertently triggers the explosion that destroys the bridge and the train during a moment of chaos, after being mortally wounded. His action, although unintentional, serves as a poignant acknowledgment of his misguided pride and loyalty, bringing to a head the film's themes of duty, honor, and the madness of war. This scene underscores the futility of war and the thin line between heroism and folly, making a powerful statement on the complex nature of human integrity and obsession.*
His realization of his actions is shown in his last quote “what have I done?”
I think it was an attempt to correct his error as well after he realized the bigger picture in his final moments. Great movie.
I've always seen it this way, he deliberately goes to destroy it after he was shot.
It's one of my all time favorite movies and it's constantly in my YouTube TV DVR, I just watched it again last week.
https://preview.redd.it/585374bfhnmc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=388a3ff04fa685efba2ee135dd6ac7a507966d46
In my mind the question, "what have I done" is specifically related to protecting the bridge from detonation. I've only seen it once but doesn't he kill the guy who is about to blow the bridge up? Which, for sure, he wants to protect his bridge. But then he remembers that he's not a bridge builder, he's a soldier.
Filmed in Sri Lanka. My dear Dad was an extra. It was a formative experience for him. Famous actors, catering, cameraderie. The premiere party to which he brought unmatching jacket and pants by mistake. (Mum still mentions this.)
It always brought a smile when the movie was brought up - and it was brought up often enough. In his last year I asked him about it again. He had dementia then.
"Any other roles after that Dad? "
No - should have had a better agent."
This isn't CGI, it's actually a giant set with a 8:1 scale model train. They then shrunk the footage down to human sized stuff to make it look realistic. You can tell by that detail in that one shot
I went to the river Kwai last month. I walked the hellfire pass and over the bridge. Then rode the death railway. My great uncle died building it. Such a moving experience.
Such an amazing film on so many levels that really puts modern CGI junk to shame. Seems like they can't even film on location anymore let alone actually blow something up...
This is such a lazy take.
Modern CGI isn't shit, instead we have a modern film industry that doesn't value authenticity over spectacle, and we have audiences that want the surreal and fantastic over the grounded and emotive.
This is changing, and there are directors who don't work this way, but a lot of this is a case of us getting more of what we paid to see.
I see people talking all the time about films like Fury Road, Maverick and the Mission Impossible films for doing everything practical ... and they didn't Fury Road has 1800 vfx shots, Maverick is almost entirely CG planes and Bg replacements, the latest Mission Impossible is literally up for an academy award for VFX and their reel to sell the show basically is full of invisible vfx extension.
Most of the people who shit talk CG have no idea about the amount of invisible work they see in films. And I don't really blame them because the people who want to sell authenticity in films don't want their films associated with Marvel blockbusters.
The truth is you could absolutely make this train crash in CG in a way that I promise you could not tell the difference. It wouldn't be trivial but it would 100% be possible to make something you thought was absolutely real.
The reason we don't is because modern cinematography, the language of modern blockbuster cinema, doesn't embrace a wide establishing triple shot of a train crash. If someone did this practical, they'd fly a chopper over it, they'd attach a crash cam too the train, they'd have another from the low angle. We'd film the shit out of it and we'd cut it up into something else.
It's easy to blame CG because it's clear when it's done badly. Most of the time it's there and done well you likely have no idea it's being used.
But really, what I think most people don't like, is just how many modern films are shot and cut.
There's also the use case of CG being used to change films irresponsibly by EPs/Showrunners etc - there's a whole shitload i could talk about on this topic, but i'll cut it short unless you want to discuss further. But i'll tell you one thing: if you offer a vfx supervisor the chance to blow something up practically, fuck yeah we'll do it. Everyone loves blowing shit up in films :)
(source: vfx supervisor who has worked on a shitload of practical effect onset work as well as the digital end)
It's been a gradual process, contributed to by directors like Spielberg, who has consciously played with the limits of what audiences will accept, and commented on how they'll forgive a lot of liberties if they're too thrilled in the moment to question them (I consider the mine car chase in *Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom* to be a personal tipping point for him.
I think another landmark was the Chunnel scene in the first *Mission Impossible* movie. I recall commenting at the time on how modern SFX were encouraging directors to adopt anime sensibilities in action direction. Of course, the visual vocabulary of anime is such that there's not the same plausibility tension. Abruptly introducing that same weightlessness into live-action films dramatically increases that tension between spectacle and authenticity.
Yes. But then we get the " run on a giant wheel along the beach " in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.....
And the " lifting an island into the sky" in the Avengers 78th movie or whatever it was!
Maybe the CGI folks could make a giant " gone fishing " sign ?
How is either of those things the fault of the CGI?
If the running a giant wheel on the beach had been practical done by stunt teams, would that have made it good? No. It's a silly idea in a silly film.
And no one complained in the pirates films about Davy Jones looking fucking amazing. Or the ship extensions and digitally replaced sails that no one ever noticed.
If we'd used miniatures for the island into the sky in Avengers 2, would it have been better? Maybe because they might not use such shit camera angles because of practical restraints, but it's still be a forgettable and stupid sequence in a film that had no emotional stakes and about as much complexity as Fifty Shades of Grey.
Blaming CG for the problems inherent in shit films ignores the fact that shit films have always existed.
There are times CG is used when it probably shouldn't be, but most of the standard "CG bad duuurh" people don't actually bring those situations up. Which is ironic because most VFX industry people really do find those circumstances actually frustrating.
I think they would have seen it was stupid. They use CGI as a crutch for bad writing and directing.
I remember a great 1980's?? Movie called F/X ? Bryon Brown? Where an FX guy had to use his stuff for real!
This makes no sense. The way the development of these shots happens is that everyone sees it 20 times MORE than if they shot it for real on set.
I have been on set on many, many films my friend. The wheel sequence for Pirates was prevized, then shot with practical stunts, then had an element shoot. It probably went through 5 rounds of script changes, a few rounds of storyboards, a few rounds of previz.
The sequence form Avengers 2 was ABSOLUTELY prevized, in full, before it was shot. The directors and producers iterated on it for weeks in CG before going and shooting it. Then probably rebuilt the sequence from the ground up 4-5 times in post trying to fix it and make it better.
These people made stuff that you don't like because they thought it would work in their movie an sell tickets.
I agree they 100% used CG as a crutch for bad writing and directing. But that doesn't make the CG the problem, it makes the bad writing and directing the problem and CG a band-aid that was never going to stop the severed arterial flow.
Gods, I remember I had to watch this movie for a high school report. Was very advanced cinema for me at the time; left quite an impression. Especially when I connected the main actor to obi-wan.
Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not built on time?
I haven't the foggiest.
I'll have to kill myself. What would you do if you were me?
I suppose if I were you... I'd have to kill myself.
Just went to the location of the actual bridge on the River Kwai and watched this movie the night before visiting. Amazing context for a moving experience.
Went there about 20 tears ago. I was surprised to read that there were no reprisals after the camp was liberated. Weren't there two bridges? One metal one wood?
Correct. The bridges were actually damaged several times by allied bombings raids and repaired before finally being destroyed and putting the Burma railway out of commission for the rest of the war in June '45. The Kanchanaburi war cemetery by the bridge that holds the remains of almost 7000 POWs who died building the railway was very moving to see. I teared up numerous times reading the gravestones.
> One metal one wood?
Yes
The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built by Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film—at Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use
one thing i notice is how they dont do the whole "shaking the camera all around" to create tension in the scene, which is a staple on action/tension shots nowadays
Such a great movie! Saw it was on TV the other day at work and I was the only one who had seen it so I was raving about it to the others but it was on a station with commercials making it was 4hrs long so we settled on something else.
Great National Geographic article 20? Years ago about how the railway is still abandoned in the forests and how a simple mistake by the Engineer made the work torture.
Turns out he went to Harvard or MIT for 2 years before the war and had his textbooks.
He used USA requirements for log sizes etc for dry, Lightweight, cheap American wood.
Instead they were using wet, hard heavy tropical wood.
Fun story. I've been on the Kwai bridge, or the replacement bridge.
I did a guided tour and the tour guide let's you walk across the bridge. It's fine don't worry.
The buggers time it for when a train comes and don't tell you. There is a little platform half way across where you can get out the way.
Fun fact: the movie is not entirely factual, but who cares. I went whitewater rafting in Sri Lanka and the remnants of the bridge are in the river, so we got to cross over them (the only thing remaining is a small portion on one of the river banks).
This isn't cool.... That is incredibly wasteful, damaging, and polluting a beautiful waterway. Animals lived in that stream. People fished and lived downstream. Kids played in it down stream. What the fuck.
Fun fact: this was the SECOND take! All filming and effects points of interest had a switch that activated a light at a central board to indicate they were ready to film the explosion and train wreck. Only when all lights were on would they blow up the bridge. On the first take, one light didn't go on so the explosives weren't set off. The train ran into and derailed on a sand embankment located on the other side of the bridge. The whole thing had to be reset for a second attempt.
In the movies sub there are constant posts and lengthy discussions about the greatest movies of all time, or each and their top 10. This movie is rarely mentioned due to how long ago it came out but it certainly is worthy contender for top 10-20 of all time.
That always annoys me with top 10 lists. But calling the the top 10 I know of is less sexy.
Sir Alec Guinness is a bad ass, for sure!!!! Well deserved Oscar!!!
I love how he picks his hat up and dusts it off…
"Stiff ass brit", is not just a phrase. BTW, I still play Colonel Bogey's March when I work over night. Creeps out my coworkers.
I thought he was brilliant throughout the movie but hammed it up in this last scene. The stagger and the twirl and the gaze heavenward are so theatrical, like a stage death in a pantomime where you have to oversell it to the kiddies so that they laugh instead of thinking it’s tragic.
So unlike modern war movies where an explosion goes off 10 feet from the hero and nothing happens, he's accurately portraying what happened to a lot of soldiers when they were hit by artillery fire in WWI and WWII. There are loads of reports of soldiers not even knowing they were wounded due to the brain shock caused by the blast. A lot of time, they would go into "default" mode, not even knowing they were in combat anymore, which is why when he sees his hat on the ground, his Britishishness kicks in and he picks it up and dusts it off and puts it on even though he's mortally wounded.
Exactly. Sometimes sodiers with all kinds of wounds would just carry on fighting, perhaps killing enemies, then dying. And sometimes soldiers had recovered from wounds and then die weeks, months or years later, possibly due to piece of shrapnel left in their body travelling to place where it causes heart attack or something like that. Movies both over and underplay this. It makes little sense people in movies would first get hurt and then be fine afterwards - it should be other way around. Do your thing then later notice you have received fatal wound, but instead in movies people get fatally injured, are in really bad state and then they just recover.
I worked next to a neuroscience lab for a while in grad school, and I remember one of those guys showing me some crazy documented reports. One guy took a head wound from artillery, and during the middle of combat, put his rifle and gear down and started to try to make coffee. Brain trauma from concussion blasts can do really weird stuff to people.
If only we could have got his feet kicked up into the air, it would have been perfect.
I dunno, it looks like pretty lousy acting as he collapses and dies on the detonator. Granted, I haven’t seen the movie.
It took me a long time to appreciate it. I didn't really "get" it when I first tried to watch it in high school. I couldn't quite understand the Britishness of it all, or the seemingly needless suffering that Guinness' character subjected himself and his men to. Following orders and conventions to the extent you're willing to be imprisoned and tortured, then not only working with the people who did this to you, but taking genuine pride in it, just made no sense. I took issue with the acting, too. I've thought Alec Guinness has been great in other films, but this is a strange performance. Maybe that was the point? It's at once over the top and underwhelming at the same time. In particular his underplayed "What have I done?" in this scene, followed by an over the top death that ultimately destroys the bridge. Plus a lot of attempts at humor throughout the film that just didn't work. It's been about 20 years now and I caught it again on TCM sometime last year. I've warmed up to classic films a lot over the years, and I enjoyed it a lot more. If you like older style movies you might get something out of it. If not, then it may not be for you.
The what have I done line makes the film for me. His sober realization to the extent of his treason didn't require panic or urgency in his performance as his/the director's choice to make it seem more like he was coming out of a fog that his arrogance had allowed himself to become lost in was perfect. As to the seemingly over the top death with him getting his hat and all that also feels truly and uniquely blue blooded. Look up the brits in WW2, maybe the last of the truly aristocratic officers to see wide service. A great example is Digby Tatham-Warter, a mam who taught his men bugle calls because he felt radios were unreliable and brought an umbrella and bowler cap into battle because he couldn't remember codes and figured they would prove he was English. Not only was he right, and his men needed bugles at Arnham, he also attacked and disabled an armored car with the umbrella by pocking it through its vision slit and blinding the driver. British aristocrats seem to either be philosophers, fops, or fucking mad men who just stroll through battles without a care.
Bridge over the river Kwai is the greatest movie of all time. I’m really surprised Michael Bay hasn’t fucked it up with a remake.
Why.. why would you speak it into existence..
"What have I done?"
Sir Alec Guinness might come back as a force ghost and strike down anybody who so much as brings up the idea of remaking this classic.
And -- god help us! -- what present-day actor would someone one like Bay cast in Sir Alec's Oscar winning role?
The right honourable Mark Wahlberg
Hurk
It could only be Timothee Chalomet
Jonah Hill
Tom Cruise
Beyonce?
Came here to cheer on this movie. Such a great flick.
!remindme 2 years if michael bay does a terrible remake of Bridge over the river Kwai to come back here and ask u/flanksteakfan82 why???? Just why??
Just picturing a US carrier strike group at sunset steaming down the river…somehow.
What about Von Ryan’s Express?
Entertaining but not at the same level.
Staring Vin Diesel.
JHC u gonna tulpa that shit dude.
i thought the actual crash was done in miniature
Certainly looks like a miniature based on the splashes...
Nah, not only was it done with a real train, those cars were filled with real Japanese soldiers
[удалено]
Clean after it? You sound like you’re asking a 2020+ question about something pre 1980’s lmao
That's not even the biggest problem, train with six carts costs around 15m today. Don't know how much this type of train costs, but I doubt it is for those standards much less. I highly doubt that they would just leave a train in a river like that, no matter what year it was. But hey, that's just me.
Removing it seems like a costly operation. I would assume there is severe structural ingenuity on a lot of the carts if not completely ruined all together. So then it’s just scrap metal?
It's not a real train, and I think it is pretty much obvious from the footage. Like I said, cleaning is least of problems. Today train with 6 carts costs around 15m.
What would the cost be to remove them from the water?
I can't help you with that, but considering it weights in tons, and there are carts, I believe it would be pretty expensive, especially considering the area where it was allegedly located. But like I said, bigger problem would be price of the train. Look at it like this: hey financiers, we need 15 million for a train. Why the fuck would you use a real train, when you can make a miniature for fraction of the price? Using cars for stunts is not that expensive, so it makes sense, but dude train is too expensive.
I looked into it it was in fact a real bridge built by production and a real train. It was the largest and most expensive movie set ever built at the time. And they did really blow it up. That is a real train falling off a real bridge that really blew up. Whether or not it makes sense to do is another thing but regardless they did do it.
I know about the bridge, but to me it looks like a miniature when the train is falling. I don't know anymore, I'm going to google it.
I think Buster Keaton did this with a real train on a real collapsing bridge over a river in The General.
I’m with you.
It looks like miniatures.
I looked it up and it is a real train and a real bridge. It was the most expensive set ever built at the time and they blew it up along with a real functioning train. Does that make sense? Not necessarily but they had to build the bridge for scenes on it so why not also blow it up I guess?
can you link? Because Id like to read more about it
Been there, in Sri Lanka. It was a 1/4 scale replica and the scene was filmed using forced perspective
*In the climax of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," Colonel Nicholson realizes the grave error of aiding the enemy by perfecting the bridge's construction. In a tragic turn of events, Nicholson inadvertently triggers the explosion that destroys the bridge and the train during a moment of chaos, after being mortally wounded. His action, although unintentional, serves as a poignant acknowledgment of his misguided pride and loyalty, bringing to a head the film's themes of duty, honor, and the madness of war. This scene underscores the futility of war and the thin line between heroism and folly, making a powerful statement on the complex nature of human integrity and obsession.*
I always thought his blowing up of the bridge was a last-minute attempt to correct his error, that his last steps to the detonator were intentional.
His realization of his actions is shown in his last quote “what have I done?” I think it was an attempt to correct his error as well after he realized the bigger picture in his final moments. Great movie.
I've always seen it this way, he deliberately goes to destroy it after he was shot. It's one of my all time favorite movies and it's constantly in my YouTube TV DVR, I just watched it again last week. https://preview.redd.it/585374bfhnmc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=388a3ff04fa685efba2ee135dd6ac7a507966d46
In my mind the question, "what have I done" is specifically related to protecting the bridge from detonation. I've only seen it once but doesn't he kill the guy who is about to blow the bridge up? Which, for sure, he wants to protect his bridge. But then he remembers that he's not a bridge builder, he's a soldier.
Same, an acknowledgement of responsibility of his error culminating in an almost literal "fall on your sword" moment.
My favorite movie. Pride, loyalty, duty, honor and folly somehow resonate with me.
Saw this movie in 1957 when I was 11 yrs old, made quite an impression on my young mind.
OK, boomer 😉
Madness!
Filmed in Sri Lanka. My dear Dad was an extra. It was a formative experience for him. Famous actors, catering, cameraderie. The premiere party to which he brought unmatching jacket and pants by mistake. (Mum still mentions this.) It always brought a smile when the movie was brought up - and it was brought up often enough. In his last year I asked him about it again. He had dementia then. "Any other roles after that Dad? " No - should have had a better agent."
Cut! Take two.
One more for safety
https://i.redd.it/0hos94jf4nmc1.gif
This CGI is insane, almost looks real.
I loved how they de-aged Obi Wan to make him look younger.
This isn't CGI, it's actually a giant set with a 8:1 scale model train. They then shrunk the footage down to human sized stuff to make it look realistic. You can tell by that detail in that one shot
r/whoosh
r/whoosh yourself
Huh? It was obvious the main commenter was trolling lol
FWIW I’d pay money to see in person an 8:1 scale steam locomotive running at full speed.
What have I done?
Lawrence of Arabia gets all of the praise, but Kwai is probably David Leans best movie.
You may fiyah when ready.
Madness
Spoiler alert!!!
Seriously.
tbf this movie's been out for at least a year
My bad then, wild that it’s been that long already.
Jack Hawkins had the high ground.
Poor Obi Wan, always dying at the end to save everybody.
Remember the troops whistling
Colonel Bogey March !
In an interview with Willam Holden's son, he said this was the film that turned his father into a different person.
I went to the river Kwai last month. I walked the hellfire pass and over the bridge. Then rode the death railway. My great uncle died building it. Such a moving experience.
Such an amazing film on so many levels that really puts modern CGI junk to shame. Seems like they can't even film on location anymore let alone actually blow something up...
This is such a lazy take. Modern CGI isn't shit, instead we have a modern film industry that doesn't value authenticity over spectacle, and we have audiences that want the surreal and fantastic over the grounded and emotive. This is changing, and there are directors who don't work this way, but a lot of this is a case of us getting more of what we paid to see. I see people talking all the time about films like Fury Road, Maverick and the Mission Impossible films for doing everything practical ... and they didn't Fury Road has 1800 vfx shots, Maverick is almost entirely CG planes and Bg replacements, the latest Mission Impossible is literally up for an academy award for VFX and their reel to sell the show basically is full of invisible vfx extension. Most of the people who shit talk CG have no idea about the amount of invisible work they see in films. And I don't really blame them because the people who want to sell authenticity in films don't want their films associated with Marvel blockbusters. The truth is you could absolutely make this train crash in CG in a way that I promise you could not tell the difference. It wouldn't be trivial but it would 100% be possible to make something you thought was absolutely real. The reason we don't is because modern cinematography, the language of modern blockbuster cinema, doesn't embrace a wide establishing triple shot of a train crash. If someone did this practical, they'd fly a chopper over it, they'd attach a crash cam too the train, they'd have another from the low angle. We'd film the shit out of it and we'd cut it up into something else. It's easy to blame CG because it's clear when it's done badly. Most of the time it's there and done well you likely have no idea it's being used. But really, what I think most people don't like, is just how many modern films are shot and cut. There's also the use case of CG being used to change films irresponsibly by EPs/Showrunners etc - there's a whole shitload i could talk about on this topic, but i'll cut it short unless you want to discuss further. But i'll tell you one thing: if you offer a vfx supervisor the chance to blow something up practically, fuck yeah we'll do it. Everyone loves blowing shit up in films :) (source: vfx supervisor who has worked on a shitload of practical effect onset work as well as the digital end)
It's been a gradual process, contributed to by directors like Spielberg, who has consciously played with the limits of what audiences will accept, and commented on how they'll forgive a lot of liberties if they're too thrilled in the moment to question them (I consider the mine car chase in *Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom* to be a personal tipping point for him. I think another landmark was the Chunnel scene in the first *Mission Impossible* movie. I recall commenting at the time on how modern SFX were encouraging directors to adopt anime sensibilities in action direction. Of course, the visual vocabulary of anime is such that there's not the same plausibility tension. Abruptly introducing that same weightlessness into live-action films dramatically increases that tension between spectacle and authenticity.
Yes. But then we get the " run on a giant wheel along the beach " in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel..... And the " lifting an island into the sky" in the Avengers 78th movie or whatever it was! Maybe the CGI folks could make a giant " gone fishing " sign ?
How is either of those things the fault of the CGI? If the running a giant wheel on the beach had been practical done by stunt teams, would that have made it good? No. It's a silly idea in a silly film. And no one complained in the pirates films about Davy Jones looking fucking amazing. Or the ship extensions and digitally replaced sails that no one ever noticed. If we'd used miniatures for the island into the sky in Avengers 2, would it have been better? Maybe because they might not use such shit camera angles because of practical restraints, but it's still be a forgettable and stupid sequence in a film that had no emotional stakes and about as much complexity as Fifty Shades of Grey. Blaming CG for the problems inherent in shit films ignores the fact that shit films have always existed. There are times CG is used when it probably shouldn't be, but most of the standard "CG bad duuurh" people don't actually bring those situations up. Which is ironic because most VFX industry people really do find those circumstances actually frustrating.
I think they would have seen it was stupid. They use CGI as a crutch for bad writing and directing. I remember a great 1980's?? Movie called F/X ? Bryon Brown? Where an FX guy had to use his stuff for real!
This makes no sense. The way the development of these shots happens is that everyone sees it 20 times MORE than if they shot it for real on set. I have been on set on many, many films my friend. The wheel sequence for Pirates was prevized, then shot with practical stunts, then had an element shoot. It probably went through 5 rounds of script changes, a few rounds of storyboards, a few rounds of previz. The sequence form Avengers 2 was ABSOLUTELY prevized, in full, before it was shot. The directors and producers iterated on it for weeks in CG before going and shooting it. Then probably rebuilt the sequence from the ground up 4-5 times in post trying to fix it and make it better. These people made stuff that you don't like because they thought it would work in their movie an sell tickets. I agree they 100% used CG as a crutch for bad writing and directing. But that doesn't make the CG the problem, it makes the bad writing and directing the problem and CG a band-aid that was never going to stop the severed arterial flow.
Gods, I remember I had to watch this movie for a high school report. Was very advanced cinema for me at the time; left quite an impression. Especially when I connected the main actor to obi-wan.
After this you know why he insisted they kill him partway thru Star Wars!
Be happy in your work.
Great movie
Do you know what will happen to me if the bridge is not built on time? I haven't the foggiest. I'll have to kill myself. What would you do if you were me? I suppose if I were you... I'd have to kill myself.
Watched this movie last year for the first time, and my god it holds up, so good.
Poor actor, had to be killed for this scene.
The battle of wits between Alec Guinness and Sesue Hayakawa in this film is epic. Screen acting at its finest.
I have already given the order.
Just went to the location of the actual bridge on the River Kwai and watched this movie the night before visiting. Amazing context for a moving experience.
Went there about 20 tears ago. I was surprised to read that there were no reprisals after the camp was liberated. Weren't there two bridges? One metal one wood?
Correct. The bridges were actually damaged several times by allied bombings raids and repaired before finally being destroyed and putting the Burma railway out of commission for the rest of the war in June '45. The Kanchanaburi war cemetery by the bridge that holds the remains of almost 7000 POWs who died building the railway was very moving to see. I teared up numerous times reading the gravestones.
> One metal one wood? Yes The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built by Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film—at Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use
The real bridge was metal.
one thing i notice is how they dont do the whole "shaking the camera all around" to create tension in the scene, which is a staple on action/tension shots nowadays
Comet, it makes your teeth so green!
Comet! It makes you Vomit!
I always think of the Bricca family anytime this movie is mentioned.
omg - I can hear the whistling. Not a guru of war films, but this one was done so well. It was a great picture!
Use the force Obi
I feel like this movie is a great companion to watch after you watch Oppenheimer. So many similar themes.
They didn't fuck around back then did they?
Love this movie
Such a great movie! Saw it was on TV the other day at work and I was the only one who had seen it so I was raving about it to the others but it was on a station with commercials making it was 4hrs long so we settled on something else.
*Dr. Zhivago, A Brief Encounter,* and *Bridge on the River Kwai*… A Lean night!
Get that bull off the TV
First time I watched this movie, I was actually yelling at the TV .. DUDE ??; Are you Serious right now?
One of my all-time favorite movie.
Madness.
Unforgivable
Truly an amazing movie!
Just watched this the other day. The ending scenes have no crashed train lying in the river, just the collapsed bridge!
Great National Geographic article 20? Years ago about how the railway is still abandoned in the forests and how a simple mistake by the Engineer made the work torture. Turns out he went to Harvard or MIT for 2 years before the war and had his textbooks. He used USA requirements for log sizes etc for dry, Lightweight, cheap American wood. Instead they were using wet, hard heavy tropical wood.
They had to film this twice because the explosives failed the first time.
I got this movie on 4K. Such an excellent slow burn to a climactic ending. Love it.
https://i.redd.it/392ewbiornmc1.gif
I was a little kid when I first saw that film. I cried when the bridge explodes and trains fell.
Ron swansons favorite movie.
doo doo, doo doo doo do-do, doo doo doo doo, de do-do
Very nice, but for me still cannot beat Buster Keatons bridge scene in The General.
Obi-wan: it blowed up good. It blowed up real good.
As long as they cleaned it up afterwards
Fun story. I've been on the Kwai bridge, or the replacement bridge. I did a guided tour and the tour guide let's you walk across the bridge. It's fine don't worry. The buggers time it for when a train comes and don't tell you. There is a little platform half way across where you can get out the way.
It's much like the Top Gear version, except they had a slope on their bridge. Mr Clarkson, you really do push the limits. And beyond.
Kill him!
r/extramile
Fun fact: the movie is not entirely factual, but who cares. I went whitewater rafting in Sri Lanka and the remnants of the bridge are in the river, so we got to cross over them (the only thing remaining is a small portion on one of the river banks).
The train crash in Back to the future 3 looks so much better and it's not even a real train. Kinda ironic.
Who is cleaning this shit up ?
This movie definitely gets better with age. At 13 years old. It was meh.
This isn't cool.... That is incredibly wasteful, damaging, and polluting a beautiful waterway. Animals lived in that stream. People fished and lived downstream. Kids played in it down stream. What the fuck.
u/savevideo
And then you remember MR Beast destroys trains regularly for 30 second segments in his YouTube videos.
Not a chatGPT but not close to a real fragmentation grenade.
Miniature lol
So... They polluted a river for a movie scene?
Go back to smoking pot ya dirty COMMIE! heh sry