The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Plot synopsis:
=== Part One: Perhaps an Accident ===
The first few pages of the first chapter of The Bridge of San Luis Rey explain the book's basic premise: this story centers on a (fictional) event that happened in Peru on the road between Lima and Cusco, at noon on Friday, July 20, 1714. A bridge woven by the Incas a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk who was on his way to cross it. Wanting to show the world God's Divine Providence, he sets out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he compiles a huge book of all of the evidence he gathers to show that the beginning and end of a person is all part of God's plan for that person. Part One foretells the burning of the book that occurs at the end of the novel, but it also says that one copy of Brother Juniper's book survives and is at the library of the University of San Marco, where it sits neglected.
=== Part Two: the Marquesa de Montemayor; Pepita ===
The second section focuses on one of the victims of the collapse: Doña María, the Marquesa de Montemayor. She was the daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant, an ugly child who eventually entered into an arranged marriage and bore a daughter, Clara, whom she loved dearly. Clara was indifferent to her mother, though, and became engaged to a Spanish man and moved across the ocean to Spain where she married. Doña María visits her daughter, but when they cannot get along, she returns to Lima. The only way that they can communicate comfortably is by letter, and Doña María pours her heart into her writing, which becomes so polished that her letters will be read in schools for hundreds of years after her death.
Doña María takes as her companion Pepita, a girl raised at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de la Rosas. When she learns that her daughter in Spain is pregnant, Doña María decides to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa María de Cluxambuqua. Pepita goes along as company and to supervise the staff. When Doña María is out at the shrine, Pepita stays at the inn and writes a letter to her patron, the Abbess, complaining about her misery and loneliness. Doña María sees the letter on the table when she gets back and reads it. Later, she asks Pepita about the letter, and Pepita says she tore it up because the letter was not brave. Doña María has new insight into the ways in which her own life and love for her daughter have lacked bravery. She writes her "first letter" (actually Letter LVI) of courageous love to her daughter, but two days later, returning to Lima, she and Pepita are on the bridge when it collapses.
=== Part Three: Esteban ===
Esteban and Manuel are twins who were left at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de la Rosas as infants. The Abbess of the convent, Madre María del Pilar, developed a fondness for them as they grew up. When they became older, they decided to be scribes. They are so close that they have developed a secret language that only they understand. Their closeness becomes strained when Manuel falls in love with Camila Perichole.
Perichole flirts with Manuel and swears him to secrecy when she retains him to write letters to her lover, the Viceroy. Esteban has no idea of their relationship until she turns up at the twins' room one night in a hurry and has Manuel write to a bullfighter with whom she is having an affair. Esteban encourages his brother to follow her, but instead Manuel swears that he will never see her again.
Manuel cuts his knee on a piece of metal and it becomes infected. The surgeon instructs Esteban to put cold compresses on the injury: the compresses are so painful that Manuel curses Esteban, though he later remembers nothing of his curses. Esteban offers to send for Perichole, but Manuel refuses. Soon after, Manuel dies.
When the Abbess comes to prepare the body, she asks Esteban his name, and he says he is Manuel. Gossip about his ensuing strange behavior spreads all over town. He goes to the theater but runs away before Perichole can talk to him; the Abbess tries to talk to him, but he runs away, so she sends for Captain Alvarado.
Captain Alvarado goes to see Esteban in Cuzco and hires him to sail the world with him, far from Peru. Esteban agrees, then refuses, then acquiesces if he can get all his pay in advance to buy a present for the Abbess before he departs. That night Esteban attempts suicide, is saved by Captain Alvarado. The Captain offers to take him back to Lima to buy the present, and at the ravine, the Captain goes down to a boat that is ferrying some materials across the water. Esteban goes to the bridge and is on it when it collapses.
=== Part Four: Uncle Pio; Don Jaime ===
Uncle Pio acts as Camila Perichole's valet, and, in addition, "her singing-master, her coiffeur, her masseur, her reader, her errand-boy, her banker; rumor added: her father." The story tells of his background. He was born the bastard son of a Madrid aristocrat, has traveled widely engaged in a wide variety of dubious, though legal, businesses, most related to being a go-between or agent of the powerful, including (briefly) conducting interrogations for the Inquisition. His life "became too complicated" and he fled to Peru. He came to realize that he had just three interests in the world: independence; the constant presence of beautiful women; and work with the masterpieces of Spanish literature, particularly in the theater.
He finds work as the confidential agent of the Viceroy of Peru. One day, he discovers a twelve-year-old café singer, Micaela Villegas, and takes her under his protection. Over the course of years, as they travel from tavern to tavern throughout Latin America, she becomes beautiful and talented. Uncle Pio teaches her and goads her to greatness by expressing perpetual disappointment with her performances. She develops into The Perichole, the most honored actress in Lima.
After years of success, Perichole becomes bored with the stage. The Viceroy takes her as his mistress, and she and Uncle Pio and the Archbishop of Peru and, eventually, Captain Alvarado meet frequently at midnight for dinner at the Viceroy's mansion. Through it all, Uncle Pio is faithfully devoted, but as Camila ages and has three children by the Viceroy she focuses on becoming a lady, not an actress. She avoids Uncle Pio, and when he talks to her she tells him to not use her stage name.
When a smallpox epidemic sweeps through Lima, Camila is disfigured by it. She takes her son Jaime to the country. Uncle Pio sees her one night trying hopelessly to cover her pock-marked face with powder: ashamed, she refuses to ever see him again. He begs her to allow him to take her son and teach the boy as he taught her. They leave the next morning. Uncle Pio and Jaime are the fourth and fifth people on the bridge to Lima when it collapses.
=== Part Five: Perhaps an Intention ===
Brother Juniper works for six years on his book about the bridge collapse, trying various mathematical formulas to measure spiritual traits, with no results beyond conventionally pious generalizations. He compiles his huge book of interviews with complete faith in God's goodness and justice, but a council pronounces his work heresy, and the book and Brother Juniper are burned in the town square.
The story shifts back in time to the day of a service for those who died in the bridge collapse. The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and Captain Alvarado are at the ceremony. At the Convent of Santa María Rosa de la Rosas, the Abbess feels, having lost Pepita and the twin brothers, that her work will die with her. A year after the accident, Camila Perichole seeks out the Abbess to ask how she can go on, having lost her son and Uncle Pio. Camila gains comfort and insight from the Abbess and, it is revealed later, becomes a helper at the Convent. Later, Doña Clara arrives from Spain, also seeking out the Abbess. She is greatly moved by the work of the Abbess in caring for the deaf, the insane, and the dying. The novel ends with the Abbess's observation: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

Tags: romantic, boring, flashback

Review:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a film that held a minor theatrical release in 2005, spotlights an all star cast including Kathy Bates, F.
The story takes place during the Colonial period of Spanish rule in Peru and this allows for grand scenery, art, and costume design that gives the film a very attractive look.
The story is not so much based on plot and pace but rather a honest, timed look at the lives of the characters and their relationships with others.
From Kathy Bates' Marquesa character seeking the love of her daughter, and Harvey Keitel parental love and affection for the actress "La Perichola" to the fraternal love of silent twin Indian brothers, and the love committed to God and society as portrayed by the nuns in the film.
This movie can leave you behind, both with regard to plot details and these moments of attachment to the characters.It may feel as though they tried to cram a whole array of interesting characters into a two-hour film.
The camera, though, was annoying from time to time, particularly in the opening and ending scenes.The movie did a remarkable job of portraying the relationship between Manuel and Esteban; for having no lines whatsoever, the actors (who I have never seen before) were incredible.
I think that, given the privilege the writer and director had in having these actors, it would have been more than forgivable to take some liberties from the novel just to flesh out these characters and let these actors play for a bit more.
The movie is simply not _that_ bad, and I cannot see what possible reasons can bring such a negative conclusion out, other than that people cannot resist the opportunity to make pithy remarks about a movie in which the main characters fall off a bridge.
Stars include Robert Deniro, Kathy Bates, F Murray Abraham (all Oscar winners) and Harvey Keitel, Gabriel Byrne and Geraldine Chaplin.
Bates and Keitel, on the other hand, were mesmerizing.Based of course on Thornton Wilder's 1929 novel (he also wrote "Our Town" and "Hello, Dolly!"), the film suffers from spotty direction by (relative unknown) Mary McGuckian.
Visually the picture is terrific, but she obviously has no feel for story telling.Flawed film worth seeing for the acting (other than Deniro) and interaction between the characters..
Thorton Wilder's novel of ruminations about the quality of love and the extremes to which it can be played out is more of a philosophical meditation than a story and this is probably the reason many people feel upended by Mary McGuckian's film, a project she both adapted for the screen and directed.
If this film seems a bit on the static side there is a reason: the tale is a testimony before court by Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) about his investigation into the deaths of five people when the rope bridge of San Luis Rey outside Lima, Peru collapsed.
Murray Abraham) and poses the question as to whether the incident was an act of God or just a simple accident.In order to present his case he has researched the lives of the five who died (mentioning those five would ruin the suspense of the story).
Brother Juniper is condemned by the Inquisition for his treason and the meaning of the story is revealed.The cast is heavy on big names and while they make the most out of the stiff script, they never really touch us the way Wilder's novel characters did.
This is one of those films that requires careful concentration from the audience, a willingness to not be disturbed by the at times static proscenium stage feeling of the setting, but the rewards of understanding the message are great.
I got it right from the word go - it was outstanding in how they brought the message of whether God has a hand in everything or whether our own actions, not only on our behalf but in our reactions towards other people and free will set things in motion that then lead to tragedy (and if we change in our behaviour, could we save or is it destiny and God's Will that overrides whatever we do?)I think it helps to be Catholic with a keen interest in Church history.
The picture is set in early 18th Century , Peru , during the old Inca empire , as it focuses a priest named Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) who investigates a highly rope bridge that collapses in Lima (Peru) .
The film is set in XVIII century , Peru , and based on the known novel by Thornton Wilder .
Based on the book by Thornton Wilder, a respected American novelist, and exploring the philosophical problem of evil - namely, why did God permit the demise of five people in the collapse of the Bridge of San Luis Rey?
The priest investigating the question, the Archbishop accusing his research findings as heresy, the cast of characters with their human strengths and failings; all of this could have made the movie a really rewarding watch.
Two out of ten for the costumes, but I'm thinking of reading the book just to avoid nurturing the impression I was left with: that Thornton Wilder lacked substance..
This is such a beautiful movie...over the top costumes (like Kathy Bates falling out of her bodices).
Both are great actors but they were big fishes in a very different pond.The music had the taste of the time and place.I loved the movie in-spite of the casting.
Casting Robert DeNiro as an arch bishop just doesn't fit especially in a period film like this.
And Kathy Bates, while a great actress, didn't work for me either.As for the story line - I had to read a summary of the novel to get what this movie was about.
I had a hard time believing Kathy Bates as a Spanish Dona, and found Robert DeNiro's role as a Spanish archbishop also very odd.
This is a great story, a beautiful movie, with great stars, a good direction, good photography, but a BAD edition.
It was probably a Hallmark production ,obviously has never replayed,and is not listed in this data base.This is all the more disconcerting as it is the only dramatized version(The silent version is unobtainable and exists in only one known copy)which in any way remained faithful to the spirit and much of the text of the original.Wilder's book calls to be read aloud and the three leading actresses in this particular production did everything possible with the essential sound values.The key role of the Marquesa was taken by Judith Anderson(of "Medea" and "Hamlet" fame) and she literally almost breached the saving boundary between make believe and reality.Unlike the recent version there is nothing funny about this woman.Her daughter certainly does not visit her in Latin America.Like King Lear ,she has been exiled from Spain at her daughter's request.And not without good reason.The Marquesa is a terrifying and vicious old drunk who is positively guaranteed to disrupt any social occasion which she attends.
On the other hand,in exile,and smashing bottles in the audience's collective face,she,the most terrifying of mothers,writes epistles on her genuinely frustrated love which will go down in the history of Spanish literature.Finally she meets a teenager who isemotionally abused,and, as emotionally abusive, as the great lady herself;and so the pair scream and claw till they eventually reach a truly loving accord.It seems both women now,for the only time in their lives,will have something to live for.But that entails first crossing the Bridge of San Luis Rey.If we have any present day American actress,aside from Julie Harris,who could have recreated this part it is Kathy Bates.She must have jumped at the chance to do it.Unfortunately the incredibly uncomprehending adaptation defeats her.As it does the wonderfully gifted Polish brothers.They are literally left speechless.Similarly the fifties version ended with a great hymn to love from the Mother Superior(played by Eva LaGallienne) to the broken actress (Vivica Lindfors)who has lost(half-driven) mentor,lover, and child to the abyss.The new version gives us anti-Catholic propaganda with the woefully miscast DeNiro and Byrne struggling with materials they were not born to enunciate.Our catastrophe ridden neo-Babylonian society could use a good new production of "The Bridge" right now.Too bad that it didn't get it.If the fifties version still exists, may be this letter will be an incentive for someone to dig it from the archives.
This movie had potential, but it looked as if they put a reasonable sized production budget in the hands of people who became producers after successful careers in costume design and art direction.
The famous novel of the 20s by Thornton Wilder (sadly unknown and forgotten today) has been filmed three times, but Mary McGuckian from Nothern Ireland has chosen to take a very personal view and simply concentrated on making a masterpiece of beauty.
With actors like Abraham, Bates, Byrne, Chaplin, De Niro and Keitel, one would have expected a masterpiece, but the scenario writer and director seem to be amateurs (actually, it is the same person).
The theme of ambition, self-interest, exploitation, hypocrisy and injustice, together with uneasy (and unsuccessful) attempts to square it with faith and providence is handled well, though, probably thanks more to Wilder than to this film's too often clumsy attempts to evoke the period (nowhere more anomalous than in the acoustics: the lines spoken and the eclectic musical sound-track); visually it seems better (but hard to judge whether these effects are more faithful than the obviously off-base acoustics).
trying desperately to stoke up his fervor, which may not have been there really.I thought Kathy Bates was magnificent, playing the lady of letters exactly as i remembered it from my reading of this novel in the sixties....The scenery, as magnificent as it was, was from the Malaga region of South Spain, hardly like the Himalayas.What overwrought critics should remember is that this story is probably the last in a long series of such tales, From Chaucer to the Decameron, even to the recent film about the young Che Guevara finding himself on an epic voyage..
Thornton Wilder's novel on which this movie is based, asks what is probably the most fundamental questions that nearly every human who has ever lived has struggled with at some point: why are we here, and why do we die?
The questions can't possibly be solved; the answers can only be believed because they remain unproven.This is the third attempt to make a film adaptation of Wilder's book, and each of those three have tried to impose answers on Wilder's questions, completely missing the point of the novel.
It seems to want to point to one character in particular (I won't reveal which one) as being the influence that caused the five people to be on the bridge at the climactic moment, even though Wilder's novel makes no such suggestion.
At times it seems they are acting in different movies, and nobody seems to be in charge.The script meanders without focus, trying to fit the disparate lives into one cohesive, linear story.
RELEASED IN 2004 and directed by Mary McGuckian based on the novel by Thornton Wilder, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is a costume drama taking place in 1714 Peru, with a few scenes in Spain.
Five people fall to their deaths in the Andes when an "indestructible" rope-bridge breaks and Franciscan monk Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) becomes obsessed with the tragedy, collecting personal notes on all the victims and writing a book on his conclusions: Five people, all dying of the same cause at the same instant, cannot be mere coincidence in an understandable human universe.
He's put on trial by the Inquisition (which was running Spain and Peru at the time) for humanly trying to second-guess an Act of God. Robert De Niro plays the prosecuting Archbishop.The movie flashes back and forth between Juniper's trial and the lives of the five before their deaths.
Dominique Pinon in on hand as a fop while Mark Polish plays the twin brother of one of the victims.Despite the stellar cast, this film is the furthest thing from a blockbuster.
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey" demands intellectual investment and the willingness to entertain things not often discussed, like those in the book of Job. The movie is a call to endure the pilgrimage of this world even when it doesn't seem possible or desirable to do so.
Beyond the heavy themes, the strength of the movie is its great cast, costumes, sets and acting.
The storytelling also seems to bog down in places, but that's because this is not a movie based on plot & pace but rather a genuine look at the characters and their loving relationships.
Like a lot of Hemingway's work, The Bridge Of San Luis Rey with its emphasis on internal introspection is a hard book to bring to the motion picture screen.
He spends years investigating the lives of the people on The Bridge Of San Luis Rey wondering if there was some kind of cosmic connection.
Where as the Archbishop of Lima, Robert DeNiro makes a fanatical prosecutor for God. Watching the film I get the impression that it's not what conclusions that the monk Brother Juniper reached in his painstaking research, but that he was asking the questions at all.
Murray Abraham playing the Viceroy of Peru and Kathy Bates who is a powerful noblewoman and one of the victims lend their considerable talents to this film.
But with all the care lavished on it, this version of The Bridge Of San Luis Rey is a ponderous affair and moves at an elephantine pace.I'm told this is a faithful recreation of Thornton Wilder'w Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
I found that many people who enjoyed this movie had read the book.
Movie description listed for the film: "Five people are killed in a freak accident when a lofty rope bridge collapses.
Harvey Keitel was especially poignant as Don Pio. Kathy Bates was a pitiful character who only wanted the love of her daughter, and it was good to see F Murray Abraham again.
in the film, the Bridge barely ties into the Title or the storyline.Believe me, this film was a waste of effort from Robert DeNiro, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin and F, Murray Abraham.and seeing it will be a waste of your time..
When the resultant volume fell into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, Brother Juniper was found guilty of heresy and subsequently burnt at the stake with all his books.Early in the story we see the swinging bridge high up above a treacherous looking ravine.
Murray Abraham, but what ruined the film for me was the addition of an Inquisition that did not occur in the book.The whole point of the book is that we cannot tell why bad things happen to good people.
They managed to save the fine opening and ending of the book by putting them into the mouths of some of the characters (such as when the archbishop delivered the eulogy for the dead at the beginning of the film).
I would rate the second half of this film a 10 out of 10, a masterpiece of cinema and storytelling.Among all the big name veteran actors, I believe the best performances were given by the twins Michael and Mark polish, playing Esteban and Manuel.
Gabriel Byrne gave a great performance as Brother Juniper, but his best scenes were in the second half of the film.
Also, Harvey Keitel playing Uncle Pio wasn't very good in the first half, but he gave a strong performance in the second half.I'd like to give this film a 7, because the second half was so strong, but I guess to be fair, if over half deserves a 1, and a little less than half deserves a 10, I should probably give it a 5.If you can get through the first hour or so, it is worth it to see the last 50 minutes or so.
Murray Abraham,Kathy Bates,Gabriel Byrne,Geraldine Chaplin,Robert De Niro,Harvey Keitel,Pilar López de Ayala,Geraldine Chaplin, John Lynch, and brothers Mark Polish and Michael Polish.Thornton Wilder's award- winning novel is given a lavish screen adaptation in this historical drama from writer and director Mary McGuckian.In Peru in 1714, a rickety bridge collapsed as five people were attempting to cross, forcing them to plunge to their deaths.
After five years, Juniper delivers his findings to the archbishop as well as the viceroy of Peru, as the Fray tells them of the lives of the troubled Dona Maria, the nun Pepita, warm-hearted Uncle Pio, street kid- turned-actress La Perichola, and others involved in the tragedy.The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a beautiful movie.
You'd think that an author could have better researched basic historical facts in order to bring his point across.This movie is based on a period novel.
Sometimes it's justified to carry a book's foreshadowing over into the movie adaptation (as in director Francesco Rosi's 1987 film CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD).
But, unfortunately, Thornton Wilder's novel THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY is somewhat off-putting in book form.
So it's too bad BRIDGE director Mary McGuckian wound up with an "8" film from the "9" book by not being daring enough in her translation of the novel to the screen..
Kathy Bates is as usual terrific, F.Murray Abraham, Robert DeNiro, Gabriel Byrne are also very effective,.With this good cast & excellent production values, you would think it would be a more memorable & involving story, sorry to say it is not.Also, can someone tell me what this is all about, very confusing at times.rating **1/2 out of 4-- 68 points out of 100-- IMDb 5 out of 10.
A book has been sitting on my Mothers bookshelf since 1929, written by a classic American playwright, Thorton Wilder, creator of "Our Town." I have always wanted to take the time to read it, instead I ordered the 2004 movie from Netflix.