A Bridge Too Far

A Bridge Too Far
* * * out of 4

- 1977 • released by United Artists
- directed by Richard Attenborough
- written by William Goldman (from book by Cornelius Ryan)
- starring Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, and numerous others
- 175 minutes

In the opening hour of Richard Attenborough's monumental Second World War epic, Major General Robert Urquhart, played by Sean Connery, is greeted upon parachuting into Holland by lunatics who have escaped from a nearby asylum. This image sums up perfectly the tragicomic circumstances of Operation Market Garden, an Allied offensive in 1944 that led to some 30,000 casualties between the two sides.

A Bridge Too Far is the last in cinema's tradition of grand battle epics, marked by such blockbusters as The Guns of Navarone, The Longest Day, and Patton. All of these titles sported major casts, large-scale action, and outstanding production values. While Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan has paved new roads for the genre, A Bridge Too Far marks the end of a special time in Hollywood when vast arrays of talent came together for a single project. It seems unlikely that another such film will appear in the near future with production costs skyrocketing, so it's quite appropriate that A Bridge Too Far has something of a last word on the Second World War's bloodshed.

Adapted by screenwriter William Goldman from Cornelius Ryan's popular book, A Bridge Too Far steers us through the hasty planning, poor execution, and horrific aftermath of Market Garden, a high-stakes offensive for ending the war in Europe by Christmas 1944. The plan, 'credited' to Bernard Montgomery, involved dropping 35,000 Allied soldiers into Holland to secure key bridges, funnel trailing armies into Germany, and capture Berlin. In other words, Market Garden - the largest aerial operation in world history - was a parachute version of D-Day.

Montgomery's plan was first revealed by Lieutenant General Frederick Browning, depicted as a snooty figure by Dirk Bogarde. Several generals received the plan with enthusiasm, such as Lieutenant General Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox) of British 30 Corps and U. S. Major General Maxwell Taylor (Paul Maxwell). Others, however, looked upon it with reservations: Robert Urquhart, Brigadier General James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal), and Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski (Gene Hackman) were amongst those who found the risks too great. Yet Allied leadership, seeking an end to the war, cooperated. Warnings from Dutch intelligence on the presence of German tank divisions were ignored and the Allied generals quickly discovered their mistake.

Most of the film's running time is comprised of Allied efforts to secure the Dutch bridges, with leading Hollywood and European actors making appearances. Included are Michael Caine, James Caan, Elliott Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Liv Ullmann, and Hardy Krüger. Because of space limits, a great deal of talent must be left out here. Filmed at original battle sites, A Bridge Too Far is packed with tanks, jeeps, airplanes, and heavy artillery. Hundreds of extras, including paratroopers, fill expansive action scenes made years before the digital magic of CGI.

While sympathetic to men in combat, A Bridge Too Far portrays the Allies as bringing a great deal of failure upon themselves. Besides paratroopers fighting with rifles against German tanks, we hear of crystal radios that don't work, watch supply drops that always miss their target, and enjoy Allied vehicles standing on roadsides (in a plan of 'thunderclap surprise'). Caution should be exercised in watching history through the lens of a filmmaker, but it's hard not to think of Market Garden as a study in human ineptitude and ask how the Allied generals could've won any battles, let alone this one.

Bridge reaches its high point at the 130-minute mark when Allied soldiers become increasingly desperate to break through Nijmegen. In need of boats to move across the River Waal, a unit led by U. S. Major Julian Cook (Robert Redford) is forced to row through a smoke screen in rafts while S. S. Panzer divisions leisurely wait on the other side. Amidst these soldiers' incredible bravery, the operation takes on an air of farce, as if the Allied leadership planned these tactics while in a nightclub.

Richard Attenborough, whose directorial résumé includes Gandhi, A Chorus Line, and Chaplin, has given more than enough justice to these broad events. Despite having to manage a huge cast of stars, Attenborough makes his actors work as a cohesive unit, with none of the roles taking on a cameo-like feel. His characters are interwoven through the storyline, returning to the fore at various times and maintaining their human interest. Though William Goldman's script feels clichéd and spits up encyclopedic facts to keep the viewer informed, the actors' enthusiasm overcomes most of its weaknesses.

The production was nicely filmed by Geoffrey Unsworth (Cromwell, Superman) and superbly edited by Antony Gibbs (Rollerball, Dune). Composer John Addison has made a repetitive soundtrack, but gives appropriate color to the film's plotline. Interestingly, Addison was a soldier in British 30 Corps during the Market Garden operation.

While epic war films are nowadays compared to Saving Private Ryan, much has to be said for A Bridge Too Far, which offers a different perspective on how the Second World War was fought. Aside from moments of lame humor, Gene Hackman's bad Polish accent, and (for many viewers) an extreme running time, Attenborough's opus is a fitting tribute to the men who fought in an operation of good intentions but atrocious design.

In 2005, MGM appropriately released a collector's edition DVD set of A Bridge Too Far with commentary and extras. Already in wide circulation is a 1998 disc with only United Artists' theatrical trailer supplied. Though this earlier release is lacking in sound balance, its visual transfer is well-done with minimal artifacts. The film is presented in widescreen with its original stereo track and a French 'dubbing' option; subtitles are provided in French and English. Monumental by today's standards, A Bridge Too Far is an absolute must for war film collectors and those with historical interests in Europe.

The Colossus & Other Poems

The Colossus & Other Poems
by Sylvia Plath
1957 (reprinted 1998) • Vintage International
96 pages / ISBN 0375704469 (paperback)

In a well-known 1962 radio interview with Peter Orr of the British Council, Sylvia Plath downplayed her achievements in The Colossus by explaining that she was 'bored' with the poems. By this time, she had entered the period of freer forms and dazzling imagery that fueled Ariel, a volume now securing her legacy.

Plath died at a young age and might have changed her mind about The Colossus poems had she lived long enough to reevaluate them. Fortunately, her public sees a great deal of the collection's value, at least in terms of its refinement and precision. Even when disregarding its subject matters, The Colossus can be viewed as a woman's treatise on the poetic art.

First published in 1960, The Colossus & Other Poems offers forty titles, many of which were written at the Yaddo artists' colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, and published in such magazines as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Encounter. The poems do not follow a specific order, but are arranged to supply contrasts in mood. Several of Plath's best known poems, including 'Night Shift,' 'The Colossus,' 'The Disquieting Muses,' 'The Beekeeper's Daughter,' and 'The Stones,' can be found in this 84-page collection.

On the surface, Plath's early poetry looks naïve. Her stanzas are always flush left with capital letters. The number of lines per stanza is usually consistent. Her metrics are flawless. But when examining the poems repeatedly, it becomes clear that Plath's work has manifold meanings; how deeply we see is based on how deeply we're willing to look. Even in simple narratives like 'Sow,' 'The Bull of Bendylaw,' and 'Snakecharmer,' Plath seems to be winking at us through her underlying ideas on human relationships.

Perhaps the strongest element of Plath's verse is its compactness. For such a range of images and emotions, her poems are quite short, rarely lasting beyond two pages. By her mid-to-late twenties, Plath had already disposed of excess, working powerful ideas into taut lines and stanzas. She had also completely mastered techniques such as 'internal' rhyme, alliteration, and enjambment, helped by her love of Shakespeare, Donne, Yeats, Auden, and other immortals.

Plath's choice of 'The Colossus' as her focal poem is interesting, since female oppression does not seem a prevailing theme of this volume. 'The Colossus' is a poem of thirty lines, the first-person account of a woman who must serve as caretaker to the Colossus of Rhodes, a crumbling monument for god Helios. This poem foresees the later Plath of 'Daddy,' 'Lady Lazarus,' and 'The Moon and the Yew Tree,' where she openly rebels against a society that has confined women to limited roles.

Signs of the later Plath are also noticeable in poems such as 'Lorelei,' 'The Ghost's Leavetaking,' 'Full Fathom Five,' and 'The Stones.' These poems are intensely personal, stem from Plath's distinctly feminine voice, and seamlessly combine the real with the subconscious. The only factor working against this volume is the repetitiveness of Plath's imagery as her poems roll on: we are shown oceans, the Moon, and rocks a few times too many. Still, this can be forgiven with the variety of form and approach that Plath offers us. Even if we are looking at a sea or rock for the umpteenth time, we are never looking at it in exactly the same way.

The Colossus & Other Poems is too frequently judged as a testing ground for Ariel rather than as a mature collection in its own right. The fact that Ariel became a posthumous sensation hasn't helped The Colossus at all, but it has luckily held its ground amongst readers. I have to claim myself as a member of the group who prefers these poems over Ariel. As a person interested in new ways to utilize old ideas, I am fascinated by how Plath used strict forms as a foundation for her modern creative energies.

Those who have read The Colossus may recall a Vintage softcover edition with blue and orange bars on its cover. In 1998, Vintage International made cosmetic changes; while the inside retains its large typeface, the cover is now in orange, black, and cream with a famous photograph of Plath sitting with her typewriter atop a stone barrier in Yorkshire. This edition and past releases are available just about everywhere, along with her Ariel poems, prose, and published journals.