Oh! What a Lovely War

Rating: 8/10 (1 September 2014)

"A Bridge Too Far" is a bit of an odd bird: an all-star blockbuster epic about an epic failure. It probably demolished the whole genre of epic war films single-handed, at least for about twenty years or so. It's a bit of a downer, to be honest. But compared to "The Longest Day" or "Tora! Tora! Tora!" or "The Battle of Britain", it's a better film, with stronger performances, finer craft, and greater feeling.
Director Richard Attenborough, himself a veteran of the war, shows Operation Market Garden from as many angles as he can. The film actually begins with a Dutch family in Arnhem, before moving on to the Allied and German generals. From the plans and briefings the story moves into the field with the paratroopers, and Sir Richard manages the great feat of rendering all the scene changes and different points of view quite clear. Recognizable actors -- Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford, Elliott Gould, Michael Caine -- help more than hinder the production, though I'm sure some viewers will find their presence distracting and unnecessary.
Most remarkable is the balance achieved between praise and criticism. The heroism and bravery of the soldiers is never questioned -- nor, for that matter, is the sincerity of the generals who led the operation. The catastrophic failure is depicted as a combination of poor planning, uncooperative weather, and faulty intelligence that underestimated the size of the German opposition. No one is made a scapegoat: a failure of this size is a group effort.
This approach makes portions of "A Bridge Too Far" quite stirring and exciting, if you like that sort of thing. The sight of Dakotas dropping hundreds of paratroopers over Holland is a stunning spectacle, as are the columns of tanks and battalions of costumed extras. The music by John Addison -- who had actually served in XXX Corps during Market Garden -- is at times uplifting, at other times ironic, and ultimately melancholy, all with variations on the same melody.
The destruction of Arnhem and the brutal fighting between the British paras and the German SS is shown in unflinching detail. Attenborough is less interested in the combat -- though there's plenty of it -- and more determined that we see the wounded soldiers who pile up after every battle. In one scene an officer has to step over the bodies of his men to get from one part of the house to the other; they crowd the hallways and staircases and cover the floor. In a later scene, he communicates with his radio operator through a hole that's been blown in the floor. The Hollywood style has always been to show the action and skip over the aftermath, making "A Bridge Too Far" startling in its realism. The last scene shows the Dutch civilians leaving the devastated town, a reminder that wars and battles don't simply end once the shooting stops.