DVD cover
Thornton Wilder, an American, won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Yet the book is not American in style or outlook. That was deliberate on Wilder’s part. A fan of 17th and 18th century classic French literature, the book has an odd detachment that somehow or another greatly enhances the tragedy that he is describing: “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.” Through the device of a Franciscan monk who tries to determine if it was divine intervention rather than random chance that led to those deaths, the stories of those five lives emerge. Every single one, just shortly before their deaths from the fall, was starting a radical change in their lives, one of great hope and opportunity.
Ended by the fall.
It is a very powerful book, one that still lingers in my mind even though I read it about 6 weeks or so ago. I decided to get the DVD of the movie made in 2005 from an adaptation of the novel.
Wilder himself believed that the book would not lend itself to what he called theatrical presentation, including a movie, saying that the book’s subtleties could not be caught on film.
However he might have viewed this film, I for one thought it one of the best and most powerful films I have seen for some time, capturing perfectly, for me, the real tragedies of lives ended so abruptly. The reason for that is in no small measure to the script, written by the director, a woman from Northern Ireland. The rest is due to incredibly moving, powerful performances by the actors. Kathy Bates as the Marquesa de Montemayor gives an utterly superlative performance, filled with nuance (giving the lie, in my opinion, to Wilder’s belief that it couldn’t be done); Robert De Niro is perfect as the Archbishop; F. Murray Abraham makes the role of the Viceroy three-dimensional; and Harvey Keitel is simply outstanding as Uncle Pio, in a performance I never would have believed he could give. The other actors are equally as good.
It takes place in Peru, not Panamá, but there is that Latin American feel to it. The movie was shot in Madrid and another Spanish city, but cleverly–you believe you’re in Peru.
I don’t know why I’ve decided to take up the role of reviewer these days, but as I was cleaning up the table by my easy chair, where I watch videos, I picked up the DVD case and thought–I’d like to write about this.
Filed under: films
