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136-661: Boulle was an engineer serving as a secret agent with the Free French in Singapore, when he was captured and subjected to two years' forced labour. He used these experiences in The Bridge on the River Kwai , about the notorious Death Railway , which became an international bestseller. The film, named The Bridge on the River Kwai , by David Lean won seven Academy Awards (including Best Adapted Screenplay), and Boulle

272-483: A Catholic , although later in life he became an agnostic . He studied at the prestigious École supérieure d'électricité ( Supélec ) where he received an engineer's degree in 1933. From 1936 to 1939, he worked as a technician at SOCFIN plantations in Malaya . As fate would have it at, he met a Frenchwoman at a dinner held at his boss's residence The White Palace, she was separated from her husband, lost and lonely. She

408-477: A bizarre world where intelligent apes are the Master Race and humans are reduced to savages: caged in zoos, used in laboratory experiments and hunted for sport. The story focuses on Ulysse's capture, his struggle to survive, and the shattering climax as he returns to Earth and a horrific final discovery. The novel is also a wry parable on science, evolution, and the relationship between man and animal. In 1968,

544-400: A clear idea of how his characters should be portrayed and would not accept much deviation. He had a reputation for being tough with his actors and for refusing to let them indulge in "their natural propensity for histrionics". Yet once the rules were laid down, Lean allowed his actors considerable space for interpretation and he showed a genuine understanding of their exposed position in front of

680-464: A combination ( In Which We Serve and, implicitly, Lawrence of Arabia ). In any narrative context, shots may be intercut to suggest the thoughts or sensations of a character, as in Oliver Twist and Brief Encounter , or characters, as in the sparking streetcar terminal when Zhivago and his still-unknown future love, Lara, brush against each other early in that film. Shots may become literally what

816-511: A dam, but we are soon invited to alight on individuals, and through the use of simple, visual clues, wonder about them and care about them. Alain Silver analyses Lean's technique as "one that elucidates story and characters through pictures." He states that Lean is able to subjectify a film's perspective through visuals regardless of whether the film has a "third-person" or "first-person" narrative: Since most of Lean's narratives are organised in

952-477: A former lover. "Once more", writes film critic David Thomson "Lean settles on the pressing need for propriety, but not before the film has put its characters and the audience through a wringer of contradictory feelings." The last of the films with Todd, The Sound Barrier (1952), has a screenplay by the playwright Terence Rattigan and was the first of his three films for Sir Alexander Korda 's London Films . Hobson's Choice (1954), with Charles Laughton in

1088-481: A hotel until his recently widowed sister, Madeleine Perrusset, allowed him to move into her large apartment. She had a daughter, Françoise, whom Pierre helped raise, but plans for him to officially adopt the girl never materialized. While in Paris, Boulle used his war experiences in writing Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1952; The Bridge on the River Kwai ), which became a multi-million-copy worldwide bestseller, winning

1224-652: A major part of the Vichy regular forces allowed by the 1940 armistice) were merged to form the French Liberation Army , Armée française de la Libération , and all subsequent enlistments were in this combined force. In many sources, Free French describes any French individual or unit that fought against Axis forces after the June 1940 armistice. Postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage,

1360-623: A mixed brigade of French Troupes de marine and the Pacific island volunteers. It also included the Foreign Legion Brigades. In late September and early October 1944, both the Tirailleurs Sénégalais brigades and Pacific Islanders were replaced by brigades of troops recruited from mainland France. This was also when many new Infantry divisions (12 overall) began to be recruited from mainland France, including

1496-652: A position to support a German invasion of Britain, though he feared that a direct attack on the French Navy might cause the Vichy regime to actively ally itself with the Nazis. On 3 July 1940, Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul was provided an ultimatum by the British: It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until

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1632-735: A riot. It caused problems too in New York, and after private screenings, was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Board of Rabbis. "To our surprise it was accused of being anti-Semitic", Lean wrote. "We made Fagin an outsize and, we hoped, an amusing Jewish villain." The terms of the production code meant that the film's release in the United States was delayed until July 1951 after cuts amounting to eight minutes. The next film directed by Lean

1768-566: A secret agent during the Second World War. The movie is being produced by Tessa Bell and Andrea Chung . Boulle died in Paris, on 30 January 1994, at the age of 81. Free France Free France ( French : France libre ) was a political entity claiming to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic during World War II . Led by General Charles de Gaulle , Free France

1904-462: A story's momentous events are not only framed against landscape settings but also integrated into the very texture of the image that his camera produces." He argues that "Lean could have given us kitsch, syrupy imitations of landscape photography, but his staging and cutting blend so fluently that his evocation of the romantic sublime is linked, inextricably, to his découpage and sense of place." In The Rough Guide to Film , Tom Charity argues: "It's in

2040-473: A symbol of the Free French. This was chosen to recall the perseverance of Joan of Arc , patron saint of France, whose symbol it had been, the province where she was born, and now partially annexed into Alsace-Lorraine by Nazi Germany , and as a response to the symbol of national-socialism , the Nazi swastika . In his general order No. 2 of 3 July 1940, Vice Admiral Émile Muselier , two days after assuming

2176-430: A way which is neither "first" nor "third" person, shots or sequences […] may suddenly shift the film into either mode without disrupting or overwhelming the basic structure. Subjectivity might be accomplished in several ways. The narrative itself may be literally bracketed by being presented as a flashback from either the central character ( Brief Encounter , The Passionate Friends ), a subordinate one ( Doctor Zhivago ), or

2312-420: Is so clear to everyone else." In Sragow's view, Lean has "depicted the need for constricted modern men and women either to act out their dreams or preserve the life they have by making a scene or putting on a show―indulging in the histrionic to renew their sense of self and purpose." Michael Newton of The Guardian , analysing Brief Encounter and Doctor Zhivago , says: Today, 50 years on, we can see how

2448-414: Is the portrayal of the colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Here is a man using the military discipline that was the result of hundreds of years of British tradition to survive the hardships, torture and degradation of being a Japanese prisoner of war, yet whose addiction to that same discipline and tradition has turned him mad. The man is both a hero and a fool – a remarkable device to illustrate

2584-412: Is to see the complete spectrum of tools available to the filmmaker – and used to their fullest potential." According to David Ehrenstein , "What all [his] brilliant, seemingly disparate works have in common is the clarity and precision of Lean's filmmaking technique, as well as his steely resolve in using it to attain poetic grandeur." Michael Sragow calls Lean "a superb romantic moviemaker and one of

2720-560: The 2e Division Blindée and 1er Division Blindée were made up of around 75% Europeans and 25% Mahgrebians, which is why the 2e Division Blindée was selected for the Liberation of Paris . The 5e Division Blindée was almost entirely made up of white Frenchmen. Records for the Italian campaign show that both the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division and 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division were made up of 60% Mahgrebians and 40% Europeans, while

2856-549: The 4th Moroccan Infantry Division was made up of 65% Mahgrebians and 35% Europeans. The three North African divisions had one brigade of North African soldiers in each division replaced with a brigade of French Forces of the Interior in January 1945. Both the 1st Free French Division and 9th Colonial Infantry Division contained a strong contingent of Tirailleurs Sénégalais brigades. The 1st Free French Division also contained

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2992-692: The Empire Defense Council ( Conseil de défense de l'Empire )—later the French National Committee ( Comité national français or CNF)—formed to govern French territories in central Africa, Asia, and Oceania that had heeded the 18 June call. Initially, with the exception of French possessions in the Pacific, India , and Equatorial Africa , all the territories of the French colonial empire rejected de Gaulle 's appeal and reaffirmed their loyalty to Marshall Pétain and

3128-662: The Foreign Legion . There were also escaped Spanish Republicans, veterans of the Spanish Civil War . In August 1944, they numbered 350 men. The ethnic composition of divisions varied. The main common difference, before the period of August to November 1944, was armoured divisions and armour and support elements within infantry divisions were constituted of mainly white French soldiers and infantry elements of infantry divisions were mainly made up of colonial soldiers. Nearly all NCOs and officers were white French. Both

3264-551: The French Air Force had the means or opportunity to escape. Like all military personnel trapped on the mainland, they were functionally subject to the Pétain government: "French authorities made it clear that those who acted on their own initiative would be classed as deserters, and guards were placed to thwart efforts to get on board ships." In the summer of 1940, around a dozen pilots made it to England and volunteered for

3400-737: The French Liberation Army ( Armée française de la Libération, AFL). By June 1944, the AFL numbered more than 500,000, and the CFLN was succeeded by the Provisional Government of the French Republic ( Gouvernement Provisoire de la République française , GPRF), which was established in anticipation of the liberation of France . The AFL participated in the Normandy landings and the invasion of southern France , ultimately leading

3536-620: The French domains of Saint Helena (on 23 June at the initiative of Georges Colin, honorary consul of the domains ) and the Franco-British ruled New Hebrides condominium in the Pacific (on 20 July) answered de Gaulle 's call to arms. It was not until late August that Free France would gain significant support in French Equatorial Africa . Unlike the troops at Dunkirk or naval forces at sea, relatively few members of

3672-593: The Mutiny on the Bounty . It was originally to be released as a two-part film, one named The Lawbreakers that dealt with the voyage out to Tahiti and the subsequent mutiny, and the second named The Long Arm that studied the journey of the mutineers after the mutiny as well as the admiralty's response in sending out the frigate HMS Pandora , in which some of the mutineers were imprisoned. Lean could not find financial backing for both films after Warner Bros. withdrew from

3808-581: The RAF to help fight the Luftwaffe . Many more, however, made their way through long and circuitous routes to French territories overseas, eventually regrouping as the Free French Air Force . The French Navy was better able to immediately respond to de Gaulle 's call to arms. Most units initially stayed loyal to Vichy, but about 3,600 sailors operating 50 ships around the world joined with

3944-698: The Royal Navy and formed the nucleus of the Free French Naval Forces (FFNF; in French: FNFL). France's surrender found her only aircraft carrier, Béarn , en route from the United States loaded with a precious cargo of American fighter and bomber aircraft. Unwilling to return to occupied France, but likewise reluctant to join de Gaulle , Béarn instead sought harbour in Martinique , her crew showing little inclination to side with

4080-725: The Royal Navy and, in the North Atlantic, to the Royal Canadian Navy . Free French units also served in the Royal Air Force , Soviet Air Force , and British SAS , before larger commands were established directly under the control of the government-in-exile. On 13 July 1942, "Free France" was officially renamed Fighting France ( France combattante ) to mark the struggle against the Axis both externally and within occupied France. Exile officially ended after

4216-696: The liberation of Paris in August 1944, which ushered in the provisional government on French soil. The AFL took part in the Allied advance through France and subsequent invasion of Germany , and by end of the war totaled over 1.3 million troops—the fourth-largest Allied army in Europe. The provisional government ruled France until the establishment of the Fourth Republic in October 1946, having preempted

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4352-464: The 10th Infantry Division and many Alpine Infantry Divisions. The 3rd Armoured Division was also created in May 1945 but saw no combat in the war. The Free French units in the Royal Air Force , Soviet Air Force , and British SAS were mainly composed of men from metropolitan France. Before the addition of the assemblies of Northern Africa and the loss of the runaways who fled France and went to Spain in

4488-485: The 1946 Cannes film festival and garnered Lean his first Academy nominations for directing and screen adaptation, and Celia Johnson a nomination for Best Actress. It has since become a classic, one of the most highly regarded British films. Two celebrated Charles Dickens adaptations followed – Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948). David Shipman wrote in The Story of Cinema: Volume Two (1984): "Of

4624-544: The Apes . With inspiration drawn from observing the wildlife from his years in the plantations in Malaya, the book was highly praised and given such reviews as this example from England's Guardian newspaper: "Classic science fiction ... full of suspense and satirical intelligence." In the year 2500, a group of astronauts, including journalist Ulysse Mérou, voyage to a planet in the star system of Betelgeuse . They land to discover

4760-521: The Arab leader, Prince Faisal, despite his misgivings from their conflicts on Bridge on the River Kwai . French composer Maurice Jarre , on his first Lean film, created a soaring film score with a famous theme and won his first Oscar for Best Original Score. The film turned actor Peter O'Toole , playing Lawrence, into an international star, and was nominated for ten Oscars, winning seven, including Best Picture and Lean's second win for Best Director. He remains

4896-642: The Army (dozens of women) and the Woman Service of the Naval Fleet with the Navy (9 women). Their role consisted of administering first aid to the first line of injured soldiers (often to stop bleeding) before evacuating them by stretcher to ambulances and then driving these ambulances under enemy fire to care centers several kilometers behind the lines. The following anecdote by Pierre Clostermann suggests

5032-624: The BEF, along with the 1st Canadian Division , the only remaining fully equipped formation in Britain. Contrary to what is often assumed, French morale was higher in June than May and they easily repulsed an attack in the south by Fascist Italy . A defensive line was re-established along the Somme but much of the armour was lost in Northern France; they were also crippled by shortages of aircraft,

5168-629: The British character in the 20th century: Born in the Edwardian era, Lean experienced first-hand the decline of the British Empire. He lived through two world wars and matured as an artist during the 50s, when Britain was being forced to re-examine her new role. His natural taste was for a mixture of the nineteenth-century novel and landscape painting of the same period – something he never tried, nor wanted, to change. But having grown up during

5304-667: The British cultural figures of his lifetime that he most admires. In 1999, the British Film Institute compiled its list of the Top 100 British films . Seven of Lean's films appeared on the list: In addition, on the American Film Institute 's 1998 list of 100 Years...100 Movies , Lawrence of Arabia placed 5th, The Bridge on the River Kwai 13th, and Doctor Zhivago 39th. In the 2007 revised edition , Lawrence of Arabia placed 7th and The Bridge on

5440-478: The British in their continued fight against the Nazis. Already obsolete at the start of the war, she would remain in Martinique for the next four years, her aircraft rusting in the tropical climate. Many of the men in the French colonies felt a special need to defend France, their distant "motherland," eventually making up two-thirds of de Gaulle 's Free French Forces. The Free French forces included men from

5576-489: The Christmas Term of 1926, at the age of 18, and entered his father's chartered accountancy firm as an apprentice. A more formative event for his career than his formal education was an uncle's gift, when Lean was aged ten, of a Brownie box camera . "You usually didn't give a boy a camera until he was 16 or 17 in those days. It was a huge compliment and I succeeded at it." Lean printed and developed his films, and it

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5712-562: The Dutch and Belgians, while armoured units attacking through the Ardennes cut off the Franco-British strike force in Belgium. By the end of May, the British and French northern armies were trapped in a series of pockets, including Dunkirk , Calais , Boulogne , Saint-Valery-en-Caux and Lille . The Dunkirk evacuation was only made possible by the resistance of these troops, particularly

5848-415: The French " Prix Sainte-Beuve ". The book was a semi-fictional story based on the real plight of Allied POWs forced to build a 415 km (258 mi) railway that passed over the bridge, and which became known as the " Death Railway ". 16,000 prisoners and 100,000 Asian conscripts died during construction of the line. His character of Lt-Col. Nicholson was not based on the real Allied senior officer at

5984-522: The French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives; (a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans. (b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment. If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at

6120-863: The French Pacific Islands. Mainly coming from Tahiti, there were 550 volunteers in April 1941. They would serve through the North African campaign (including the Battle of Bir Hakeim ), the Italian Campaign and much of the Liberation of France. In November 1944, 275 remaining volunteers were repatriated and replaced with men of French Forces of the Interior to deal better with the cold weather. The Free French forces also included 5,000 non-French Europeans, mainly serving in units of

6256-539: The French army divisions at Lille. From 27 May to 4 June, over 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force and 140,000 French troops were evacuated from Dunkirk. Neither side viewed this as the end of the battle; French evacuees were quickly returned to France and many fought in the June battles. After being evacuated from Dunkirk, Alan Brooke landed in Cherbourg on 2 June to reform

6392-695: The French army in Indochina. After German troops occupied France, he joined the Free French Mission in Singapore . During the war he was a supporter of Charles de Gaulle . Boulle served as a secret agent under the name Peter John Rule and helped the resistance movement in China, Burma , and French Indochina . In 1943, he was captured by Vichy France loyalists on the Mekong River and

6528-405: The French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this "ministerial instruction of July 1953" ( instruction ministérielle du 29 juillet 1953 ), only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940 and before 1 August 1943 may correctly be called "Free French". On 10 May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and the Low Countries , rapidly defeating

6664-410: The Kwai bridges, Philip Toosey , but was reportedly an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. Both the book and film outraged former prisoners because Toosey did not collaborate with the enemy, unlike the fictional Colonel Nicholson. Boulle outlined the reasoning which led him to conceive the character of Nicholson in an interview which forms part of the 1969 BBC2 documentary Return to

6800-426: The River Kwai made by former POW John Coast. A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book Railroad of Death . David Lean made the book into a motion picture that won seven 1957 Academy Awards , including the Best Picture , and Best Actor for Alec Guinness . Boulle himself won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay despite not having written

6936-418: The River Kwai placed 36th. With five wins out of six nominations, Lean directed more films that won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the Oscars than any other director, for Great Expectations , The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia , Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter —the last nomination being for A Passage to India . Lean died in Limehouse, London on 16 April 1991, at

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7072-408: The Russian aristocracy, and a father, falls in love with a beautiful abandoned young mother named Lara ( Julie Christie ) and struggles to be with her in the chaos of the Bolshevik revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War . Initially, reviews for Doctor Zhivago were lukewarm, but critics have since come to see it as one of Lean's best films, with film director Paul Greengrass calling it "one of

7208-405: The Vichy government. It was only progressively, often with the decisive military intervention of the Allies, that Free France took over more Vichy possessions, securing the majority of colonies by November 1942. The Free French fought both Axis and Vichy troops and served in almost every major campaign, from North Africa to Indochina. The Free French Navy operated as an auxiliary force to

7344-579: The age of 83. He was interred at Putney Vale Cemetery . As Lean himself pointed out, his films are often admired by fellow directors as a showcase of the filmmaker's art. According to Katharyn Crabbe, "[t]he rewards of watching a David Lean film are most often described in terms of his skillful use of cinematic conventions, his editing, his alertness to the ability of film to create effects." In his introduction to David Lean: Interviews , Steven Organ claims that Lean "often straddl[ed] that fine line between commercialism and artistry. To view one of Lean's films

7480-467: The aging Hollywood 'bad boy' Robert Mitchum in an uncharacteristic role as a long-suffering Irish husband and British actress Sarah Miles as his faithless young wife, the film received far fewer positive reviews than the director's previous work, being particularly savaged by the New York critics. Some critics felt the film's massive visual scale on gorgeous Irish beaches and extended running time did not suit its small-scale romantic narrative. Nonetheless,

7616-409: The bar high for heavily populated, location-shot period sagas from literary sources, but it would be shortsighted to see Lean's greatest achievements as the filmic equivalent of skyscraping architectural edifices: good because they're there. The people may look like ants when first glimpsed against the vast sand dunes of an exacting Lean composition, or the icy Russian mountains, or the concrete façade of

7752-401: The big Hollywood studios, beginning with Summertime in 1955. The critical failure of his film Ryan's Daughter led him to take a fourteen-year break from filmmaking, during which he planned a number of film projects which never came to fruition. In 1984, he had a career revival with A Passage to India adapted from E. M. Forster 's novel . This was a hit with critics, but it proved to be

7888-407: The bondage of the enemy and all our institutions have ceased to function", that it was "the clear duty" of all French servicemen to fight on. This would form the essential legal basis of de Gaulle 's government in exile , that the armistice soon to be signed with the Nazis was not merely dishonourable but illegal, and that in signing it, the French government would itself be committing treason. On

8024-413: The book was made into an Oscar-winning film , directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston . The screenplay, originally written by Rod Serling , focused more on action and deviated in many ways from the novel, including the addition of its own classic twist ending that was different from the novel's. It inspired four sequels, a television series, an animated series, a 2001 remake of

8160-411: The camera … Lean would set his actors in the landscape by giving them the feeling of being in that time and at that place. This is where the talent of a great director comes in—setting a scene (mise-en-scène), creating a climate, painting a picture within the story and at the same time never losing the telling of that story. Steven Ross has written that Lean's films "reveal a consistently tragic vision of

8296-457: The character sees; or shots of the character may be manipulated to focus on an interior state. Simple instances would be the hanging in Great Expectations (1946) or the Cossack charge in Doctor Zhivago , where there is no point-of-view shot of the terrible event but merely a slow move in to reveal the horror on the actors' faces. Lean was notorious for his perfectionist approach to filmmaking; director Claude Chabrol stated that he and Lean were

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8432-532: The conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile. David Lean Sir David Lean CBE (25 March 1908 – 16 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of British cinema . He directed the large-scale epics The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970), and A Passage to India (1984). He also directed

8568-429: The country's occupation by Allied forces and secured its status as a major power. Historically, an individual became "Free French" by enlisting in the military units organised by the CFN or by employment by the civilian arm of the Committee. On 1 August 1943 after the merger of CFN and representatives of the former Vichy regime in North Africa to form the CFLN earlier in June, the FFF and the Army of Africa (constituting

8704-578: The creation of the Free French forces in the Summer 1940 and the merger with the Army of Africa in summer 1943, 73,300 men fought for Free France. This included 39,300 French (from metropolitan France and colonial settlers), 30,000 colonial soldiers (mostly from sub-Saharan Africa) and 3,800 foreigners. They were divided up as follows: Army: 50,000; Naval: 12,500; Aviation: 3,200; Communications in France: 5,700; Free French Forces committees: 1,900. General Leclerc's second armored division included two units of female volunteers: The Rochambeau Group with

8840-465: The cutting that you feel both the romantic ardour and the repression that create the central tension in [Lean's] work." Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese in particular are fans of Lean's epic films and claim him as one of their primary influences. Spielberg and Scorsese also helped in the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia , which had been substantially altered both by the studio in theatrical release and in particular in its televised versions;

8976-415: The defeat of the Third Republic by Nazi Germany, Marshal Philippe Pétain led efforts to negotiate an armistice and established a German puppet state known as Vichy France . Opposed to the idea of an armistice, de Gaulle fled to Britain and from there broadcast the Appeal of 18 June ( Appel du 18 juin ) exhorting the French people to resist the Nazis and join the Free French Forces. On 27 October 1940,

9112-441: The demise of British influence in the world, he also had an acutely critical view of British society. So Lean's work contains an interesting paradox: the strong visual and literary legacy of British culture, which he loved and understood so well, combined with biting insights into the ludicrous aspects of a nation being forced to accept a less important role in the world. A perfect example of this ability to illustrate Britain's dilemma

9248-445: The destroyer Maillé Brézé which blew up at the Tail of the Bank . After the fall of France, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill feared that, in German or Italian hands, the ships of the French Navy would pose a grave threat to the Allies. He therefore insisted that French warships either join the Allies or else adopt neutrality in a British, French, or neutral port. Churchill was determined that French warships would not be in

9384-471: The end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that

9520-401: The fight against the Nazis : Some members of the British Cabinet had reservations about de Gaulle 's speech, fearing that such a broadcast could provoke the Pétain government into handing the French fleet over to the Nazis, but British Prime Minister Winston Churchill , despite his own concerns, agreed to the broadcast. In France, de Gaulle 's "Appeal of 18 June" ( Appel du 18 juin )

9656-407: The film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), as well as the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945). Originally a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with 1942's In Which We Serve , which was the first of four collaborations with Noël Coward . Lean began to make internationally co-produced films financed by

9792-482: The film series skyrocketed at this time, creating an 'Apemania' craze. In June 1974, Marvel Comics also released a magazine based on the novel and film called Planet of the Apes . By September 1974, Planet of the Apes had become a television series. In 1975, an animated Return to the Planet of the Apes series was shown on television. The French film Le Point de mire , based on Boulle's novel Le Photographe ,

9928-471: The film to bits", said Lean in a later television interview. "It really had such an awful effect on me for several years ... you begin to think that maybe they're right. Why on earth am I making films if I don't have to? It shakes one's confidence terribly." From 1977 until 1980, Lean and Robert Bolt worked on a film adaptation of Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian , a dramatized account by Richard Hough of

10064-647: The film was a box office success, earning $ 31 million and making it the 8th highest-grossing film of that year. It won two Academy Awards the following year, another for cinematographer Freddie Young and for supporting actor John Mills in his role as a village halfwit. The poor critical reception of the film prompted Lean to meet with the National Society of Film Critics , gathered at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, including The New Yorker 's Pauline Kael , and ask them why they objected to

10200-563: The film." Similarly, Lean biographer Gene D. Phillips writes that the director "saw in his style an attraction to characters who refuse to accept defeat, even when their most cherished hopes go unfulfilled. His protagonists seek to transform their lives, but often fail to do so. Pip in Great Expectations , Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai , and T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia , among others, struggle against

10336-573: The former Helena Tangye (niece of Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye ). His parents were Quakers and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded Leighton Park School in Reading . His younger brother, Edward Tangye Lean (1911–1974), founded the original Inklings literary club when a student at Oxford University . Lean was a half-hearted schoolboy with a dreamy nature who was labelled a "dud" of a student; he left school in

10472-646: The general headquarters in London. According to the tally of Henri Écochard, an ex-Free French Forces serviceman, there were at least 54,500 soldiers. In 2009, in his work on the Free French Forces, Jean-François Muracciole, a French historian specializing in Free France, reevaluated his count with that of Henri Écochard, while considering that Écochard's list had greatly underestimated the number of colonial combatants. According to Muracciole, between

10608-481: The great masterpieces of cinema". As of 2020 , it is the 9th highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. Producer Carlo Ponti used Maurice Jarre's lush romantic score to create a pop tune called " Lara's Theme ", which became an international hit song with lyrics under the title "Somewhere My Love", one of cinema's most successful theme songs. The British director of photography, Freddie Young , won an Academy Award for his colour cinematography. Around

10744-587: The highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States. It won seven Academy Awards , including Best Picture , Best Director , and Best Actor for Alec Guinness , who had battled with Lean to give more depth to his role as an obsessively correct British commander who is determined to build the best possible bridge for his Japanese captors in Burma. After extensive location work in the Middle East, North Africa , Spain , and elsewhere, Lean's Lawrence of Arabia

10880-606: The last film that Lean directed. Lean is described by film critic Michael Sragow as "a director's director, whose total mastery of filmcraft commands nothing less than awe among his peers". He has been lauded by directors such as Steven Spielberg , Stanley Kubrick , Martin Scorsese , and Ridley Scott . He was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute Sight & Sound "Directors' Top Directors" poll in 2002. He

11016-495: The lead, was based on the play by Harold Brighouse . Summertime (1955) marked a new departure for Lean. It was partly American financed, although again made for Korda's London Films. The film features Katharine Hepburn in the lead role as a middle-aged American woman who has a romance while on holiday in Venice . It was shot entirely on location there. Although best known for his epics, Lean's personal favourite of all his films

11152-513: The leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France , the town of Vichy being the seat of government. De Gaulle was tried in absentia in Vichy France and sentenced to death for treason. He, on the other hand, regarded himself as the last remaining member of the legitimate Reynaud government and considered Pétain's assumption of power to be an unconstitutional coup d'état. Despite de Gaulle 's call to continue

11288-463: The limitations of their own personalities to achieve a level of existence that they deem higher or nobler." According to Silver, "Lean's signature characters are ordinary dreamers and epic visionaries, people who want to transform the world according to their expectations... The tragic flaw in Lean's characters is a self-centeredness which can lead to misimpression, which can prevent them from seeing what

11424-418: The most ruthless documentation with the most elaborate myth-making." He further highlights Lean's use of "highly charged staging and editing and a lucid, fluid realism to depict the contrast between ongoing life and life at its extremes." On the occasion of Lean's centenary in 2008, writer and broadcaster Andrew Collins praised him as "more than just cinema's great choreographer of scale": Certainly, he set

11560-418: The movie. "I sensed trouble from the moment I sat down", Lean says of the now famous luncheon. Time critic Richard Schickel asked Lean point blank how he, the director of Brief Encounter , could have made "a piece of bullshit" like Ryan's Daughter . These critics so lacerated the film for two hours to David Lean's face that the devastated Lean was put off from making films for a long time. "They just took

11696-537: The only British director to win more than one Oscar for directing. Lean had his greatest box-office success with Doctor Zhivago (1965), a romance set during the Russian Revolution . The film, based on the Soviet suppressed novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet Boris Pasternak , tells the story of a brilliant and warm-hearted physician and poet ( Omar Sharif ) who, while seemingly happily married into

11832-452: The only directors working at the time who were prepared to wait "forever" for the perfect sunset, but whereas Chabrol measured "forever" in terms of days, Lean did so in terms of months. Similarly, Hugh Hudson , writing shortly after Lean's death in 1991, called him "[a] man driven to achieve the perfect realisation of his ideas and ruthless in that pursuit." He goes on to describe the filmmaker's method of working with actors: Lean always had

11968-498: The opinion of many of those who decided not to join the Free French forces, when in June 1940, he explained to the exasperated British why he would not order his ships in Alexandria harbour to join de Gaulle : Equally, few Frenchmen believed that Britain could stand alone. In June 1940, Pétain and his generals told Churchill that "in three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken". Of France's far-flung empire, only

12104-433: The original film turned it down. The second film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes , which came out in 1970, was also very successful. It was followed by Escape from the Planet of the Apes in 1971, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in 1972, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes in 1973. In September 1973, the original film was first aired on network television. The marketing of toys and other products relating to

12240-451: The original title by Tim Burton , and a 2011 reboot , Rise of the Planet of the Apes , directed by Rupert Wyatt . The five films of the original series (1968–1973) have become cult classics. Boulle, who had thought his novel to be unfilmable, was taken by surprise at the worldwide success and impact of the film. He wrote a script for a sequel titled Planet of the Men , but the producers of

12376-484: The other Dickens films, only Cukor's David Copperfield approaches the excellence of this pair, partly because his casting, too, was near perfect". These two films were the first directed by Lean to star Alec Guinness , whom Lean considered his "good luck charm". The actor's portrayal of Fagin was controversial at the time. The first screening in Berlin during February 1949 offended the surviving Jewish community and led to

12512-628: The other hand, if Vichy was the legal French government as some such as Julian T. Jackson have argued, de Gaulle and his followers were revolutionaries, unlike the Dutch , Belgian , and other governments in exile in London. A third option might be that neither considered that a fully free, legitimate, sovereign, and independent successor state to the Third Republic existed following the Armistice, as both Free France and Vichy France refrained from making that implicit claim by studiously avoiding using

12648-697: The position of third assistant director . By 1930 he was working as an editor on newsreels , including those of Gaumont Pictures and Movietone , while his move to feature films began with Freedom of the Seas (1934) and Escape Me Never (1935). He edited Gabriel Pascal 's film productions of two George Bernard Shaw plays, Pygmalion (1938) and Major Barbara (1941). He edited Powell & Pressburger 's 49th Parallel (1941) and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942). After this last film, Lean began his directing career, after editing more than two dozen features by 1942. As Tony Sloman wrote in 1999, "As

12784-530: The post of chief of the naval and air forces of the Free French, created the naval jack displaying the French colours with a red cross of Lorraine , and a cockade , which also featured the cross of Lorraine. Modern ships that share the same name as ships of the FNFL—such as Rubis and Triomphant —are entitled to fly the Free French naval jack as a mark of honour. A monument on Lyle Hill in Greenock , in

12920-506: The production designer for Dr. Zhivago . Reversing the critical response to Ryan's Daughter , the film opened to universally enthusiastic reviews; the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and Lean himself nominated for three Academy Awards in directing , editing , and writing . His female star, in the complex role of a confused young British woman who falsely accuses an Indian man of attempted rape, gained Australian actress Judy Davis her first Academy nomination. Peggy Ashcroft , as

13056-405: The project; he decided to combine it into one and looked at a seven-part TV series before getting backing from Italian mogul Dino De Laurentiis . The project then suffered a further setback when Bolt suffered a serious stroke and was unable to continue writing; the director felt that Bolt's involvement would be crucial to the film's success. Melvyn Bragg ended up writing a considerable portion of

13192-557: The proposed union between France and Britain . When this plan collapsed, he resigned on 16 June and Pétain became President of the Council. De Gaulle flew to Bordeaux on the 17th but returned to London the same day when he realised Pétain had already agreed to an armistice with the Axis Powers . On 18 June 1940, General de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio , urging French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in

13328-564: The reconquest of North Africa, when the Free French government relocated from London to Algiers . From there, the French Committee of National Liberation ( Comité français de Libération nationale , CFLN) was formed as the provisional government of all French, uniting the disparate forces that opposed the Axis and their collaborators. On 1 August 1943, Free French Forces united with the Army of Africa ( L'Armée d'Afrique ) to form

13464-421: The romantic sensibility attempting to reach beyond the constraints and restrictions of everyday life", and that they tend to feature "intimate stories of a closely-knit group of characters [whose] fates are indirectly but powerfully shaped by history-shaking events going on around them." He further observes that, in his work, "setting [is used] as a presence with as much dramatic and thematic form as any character in

13600-522: The same time, Lean also directed some scenes of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) while George Stevens was committed to location work in Nevada. Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970) was released after an extended period on location in Ireland. A doomed romance set against the backdrop of 1916 Ireland's struggles against the British, it is loosely based on Gustave Flaubert 's Madame Bovary . Starring

13736-428: The scale of Zhivago forms the measure of its appeal, and its gorgeousness seems intrinsic to one of cinema's virtues. With Charlie Chaplin , Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell, Lean is one of the greatest film directors this country has produced. Like all of them, he is a romantic, and romanticism was his subject matter: the flourishing and the breaking of inordinate desires, the dangerous lure of beauty, of adventure and

13872-710: The screenplay and, by his own admission, not even speaking English. Boulle had been credited with the screenplay because the film's actual screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson , had been blacklisted as communist sympathizers. Boulle was neither a socialist nor a communist. The Motion Picture Academy added Foreman's and Wilson's names to the award in 1984. Kim Novak accepted the Oscar on behalf of Pierre Boulle. In 1963, following several other reasonably successful novels, Boulle published his other famous novel, La planète des singes , translated in 1964 as Monkey Planet by Xan Fielding , and later re-issued as Planet of

14008-416: The script himself. In addition, Lean also edited the film with the result that his three roles in the production (writer, editor, director) were given equal status in the credits. Lean recruited long-time collaborators for the cast and crew, including Maurice Jarre (who won another Academy Award for the score), Alec Guinness in his sixth and final role for Lean, as an eccentric Hindu Brahmin, and John Box ,

14144-427: The script, he left the project and was replaced by Serge Silberman , a respected producer at Greenwich Film Productions. The Nostromo project involved several writers, including Christopher Hampton and Robert Bolt , but their work was abandoned. In the end, Lean decided to write the film himself with the assistance of Maggie Unsworth (wife of renowned cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth ), with whom he had worked on

14280-429: The script. Lean was forced to abandon the project after overseeing casting and the construction of the $ 4 million Bounty replica; at the last possible moment, actor Mel Gibson brought in his friend Roger Donaldson to direct the film, as producer De Laurentiis did not want to lose the millions he had already put into the project over what he thought was as insignificant a person as the director dropping out. The film

14416-488: The scripts for Brief Encounter , Great Expectations , Oliver Twist , and The Passionate Friends . Originally Lean considered filming in Mexico but later decided to film in London and Madrid , partly to secure O'Toole, who had insisted he would take part only if the film was shot close to home. Nostromo had a total budget of $ 46 million and was six weeks away from filming at the time of Lean's death from throat cancer . It

14552-463: The sensitive Mrs. Moore, won the Oscar for best supporting actress, making her, at 77, the oldest actress to win that award. According to Roger Ebert, it is "one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen". He was signed on to direct a Warner Bros. -backed adaptation of J. G. Ballard 's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun after director Harold Becker left the project. Steven Spielberg

14688-627: The shape of the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor, was raised by subscription as a memorial to the Free French naval vessels which sailed from the Firth of Clyde to take part in the Battle of the Atlantic . It has plaques commemorating the loss of the Flower-class corvettes Alyssa and Mimosa , and of the submarine Surcouf . Locally, it is also associated with the memory of the loss of

14824-482: The slow but steady innovators of the cinema … Though Lean is usually praised for his 'film sense', as though it were divorced from his other faculties, he's done as much as men of the theater like Visconti to merge the illusions and grand passions of the stage with the verisimilitude and immediacy of the screen. His ability to combine factual filigree and larger-than-life characters in a sometimes hallucinatory atmosphere has inspired generations of filmmakers to try to fuse

14960-465: The spirit of the times in the Free French Forces; a commander reproaches one of Clostermann's comrades for having yellow shoes and a yellow sweater under his uniform, to which the comrade responds: "My Commander, I am a civilian who voluntarily came to fight the war that the soldiers don't want to fight!" Capitaine de corvette Thierry d'Argenlieu suggested the adoption of the Cross of Lorraine as

15096-731: The spring of 1943 (10,000 according to Jean-Noël Vincent's calculations), a report by the major state general of the Free French Forces in London from October 30, 1942 records 61,670 combatants in the Army, of which 20,200 were from colonies and 20,000 were from the Levant's special troops (non-Free French forces). In May 1943, citing the Joint Planning Staff, Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac alludes to 79,600 men who constitute ground forces, including 21,500 men from special Syro-Lebanese troops, 2,000 men of color supervised by Free French Forces in northern Palestine, and 650 soldiers assigned to

15232-523: The state of Britain as she clung to meaningless tradition in a futile attempt to save her identity in the face of declining power. Several critics have found a close relationship between style and theme in Lean's work. John Orr, author of Romantics and Modernists in British Cinema , examines Lean in terms of "the stylised oscillation of romance and restraint that shapes so much of his work", as well as of "the intersection of culture and nature, where

15368-567: The struggle, few French forces initially pledged their support. By the end of July 1940, only about 7,000 soldiers had joined the Free French Army in England. Three-quarters of French servicemen in Britain requested repatriation. France was bitterly divided by the conflict. Frenchmen everywhere were forced to choose sides, and often deeply resented those who had made a different choice. One French admiral, René-Émile Godfroy , voiced

15504-412: The title character. Lean also wanted Alec Guinness to play Dr. Monygham, but the aged actor turned him down in a letter from 1989: "I believe I would be disastrous casting. The only thing in the part I might have done well is the crippled crab-like walk." As with Empire of the Sun , Steven Spielberg came on board as producer with the backing of Warner Bros., but after several rewrites and disagreements on

15640-401: The untrammelled life. Both films demonstrate the impossibility of an illicit love finding a place in the world. In Brief Encounter , social convention and decency prevent it; romance flourishes only to be worn out by the talk of casual acquaintances. In Doctor Zhivago , it is history and the political realm that prove to be love's enemy. Hudson considers the director an important chronicler of

15776-872: The varied likes of David Lean, Robert Wise , Terence Fisher and Dorothy Arzner have proved, the cutting rooms are easily the finest grounding for film direction." David Lean was given honorary membership of the Guild of British Film Editors in 1968. His first work as a director was in collaboration with Noël Coward on In Which We Serve (1942), and he later adapted several of Coward's plays into successful films. These films are This Happy Breed (1944), Blithe Spirit (1945) and Brief Encounter (1945) with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as quietly understated clandestine lovers, torn between their unpredictable passion and their respective orderly middle-class marriages in suburban England. The film shared Grand Prix honors at

15912-438: The vast majority incurred when airfields were over-run, rather than air combat. On 1 June, Charles de Gaulle was promoted to brigadier general; on 5 June, Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed him Under Secretary of State for Defence, a junior post in the French cabinet . De Gaulle was known for his willingness to challenge accepted ideas; in 1912, he asked to be posted to Pétain 's regiment, whose maxim 'Firepower kills'

16048-405: The word "republic" when referring to themselves. In Vichy's case, underlying reasons were compounded by ideals of a Révolution nationale stamping out France's republican heritage. On 22 June 1940, Marshal Pétain signed an armistice with Germany , followed by a similar one with Italy on 24 June; both of these came into force on 25 June. After a parliamentary vote on 10 July, Pétain became

16184-542: Was The Passionate Friends (1949), an atypical Lean film, but one which marked his first occasion to work with Claude Rains , who played the husband of a woman ( Ann Todd ) torn between him and an old flame (Howard). The Passionate Friends was the first of three films to feature the actress Ann Todd, who became his third wife. Madeleine (1950), set in Victorian-era Glasgow is about an 1857 cause célèbre with Todd's lead character accused of murdering

16320-517: Was Summertime , and Hepburn his favourite actress. Lean's films now began to become infrequent but much larger in scale and more extensively released internationally. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) was based on a novel by Pierre Boulle recounting the story of British and American prisoners of war trying to survive in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War . The film stars William Holden and Alec Guinness and became

16456-402: Was 73 years old and like Pétain, an Anglophobe who viewed Dunkirk as another example of Britain's unreliability as an ally; de Gaulle later recounted he 'gave up hope' when the Germans renewed their attack on 8 June and demanded an immediate Armistice. De Gaulle was one of a small group of government ministers who favoured continued resistance and Reynaud sent him to London in order to negotiate

16592-449: Was a "huge womaniser," and that "to my knowledge, he had almost 1,000 women". He was married six times, had one son, and at least two grandchildren—from all of whom he was completely estranged —and was divorced five times. He was survived by his last wife Sandra Cooke, art dealer and co-author (with Barry Chattington) of David Lean: An Intimate Portrait (2001), and by Peter Lean, his son from his first marriage. His six wives were: Lean

16728-669: Was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1953, and was knighted for his contributions and services to the arts in 1984. Lean received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990. In 2012, Lean was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork— the Beatles ' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—celebrating

16864-591: Was brought on board as a producer for Lean, but later assumed the role of director when Lean dropped out of the project; Spielberg was drawn to the idea of making the film due to his long-time admiration for Lean and his films. Empire of the Sun was released in 1987. During the last years of his life, Lean was in pre-production of a film version of Joseph Conrad 's Nostromo . He assembled an all-star cast, including Marlon Brando , Paul Scofield , Anthony Quinn , Peter O'Toole , Christopher Lambert , Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Quaid , with Georges Corraface as

17000-478: Was credited with writing the screenplay, because its two actual screenwriters had been blacklisted . His science-fiction novel Planet of the Apes , in which intelligent apes gain mastery over humans, developed into a media franchise spanning over 55 years that includes ten films, two television series, comic books and popular themed merchandise. Born in Avignon , France, Pierre Boulle was baptised and raised as

17136-770: Was established as a government-in-exile in London in June 1940 after the Fall of France to Nazi Germany . It joined the Allied nations in fighting Axis forces with the Free French Forces ( Forces françaises libres ), supported the resistance in Nazi-occupied France , known as the French Forces of the Interior , and gained strategic footholds in several French colonies in Africa . Following

17272-527: Was eventually released as The Bounty . Lean then embarked on a project he had pursued since 1960, a film adaptation of A Passage to India (1984), from E. M. Forster 's 1924 novel of colonial conflicts in British-occupied India. Entirely shot on location in the sub-continent, this became his last completed film. He rejected a draft by Santha Rama Rau , responsible for the stage adaptation and Forster's preferred screenwriter, and wrote

17408-445: Was his "great hobby". In 1923, his father deserted the family. Lean would later follow a similar path after his own first marriage and child. Bored by his work, Lean spent every evening in the cinema, and in 1927, after an aunt had advised him to find a job he enjoyed, he visited Gaumont Studios where his obvious enthusiasm earned him a month's trial without pay. He was taken on as a teaboy, promoted to clapperboy , and soon rose to

17544-623: Was nominated seven times for the Academy Award for Best Director , which he won twice for The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia , and he has seven films in the British Film Institute's Top 100 British Films (with three of them being in the top five) and was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990. David Lean was born on 25 March 1908 at 38 Blenheim Crescent, South Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London ), to Francis William le Blount Lean and

17680-456: Was not widely heard that day but, together with his BBC broadcasts in subsequent days and his later communications, came to be widely remembered throughout France and its colonial empire as the voice of national honour and freedom. On 19 June, de Gaulle again broadcast to the French nation saying that in France, "all forms of authority had disappeared" and since its government had "fallen under

17816-587: Was released in 1962. This was the first project of Lean's with a screenplay by playwright Robert Bolt , rewriting an original script by Michael Wilson (one of the two blacklisted writers of Bridge on the River Kwai ). It recounts the life of T. E. Lawrence , the British officer who is depicted in the film as uniting the squabbling Bedouin peoples of the Arab peninsula to fight in World War I and then push on for independence. After some hesitation, Alec Guinness once again appeared, in his fourth David Lean film, as

17952-465: Was released in 1977. There have also been TV films based on Boulle's novels William Conrad in 1958 (US) and 1973 (France), La Face in 1959 (US) and 1966 (West Germany), and Un Métier de Seigneur in 1986 (France), as well as the short story "Le Miracle" (from E=mc ) in 1985 (US). Another film adaptation is in production for Boulle's A Noble Profession ( Un Métier de Seigneur ), a spy thriller partly based on Boulle's real-life experience working as

18088-404: Was rumoured that fellow film director John Boorman would take over direction, but the production collapsed. Nostromo was finally adapted for the small screen with an unrelated BBC television mini-series in 1997. Lean was a long-term resident of Limehouse , East London . His home on Narrow Street is still owned by his family . His co-writer and producer, Norman Spencer , has said Lean

18224-474: Was soon to become the love of his life, to whom he would write tender love letters. She later chose to return to her husband, an official in French Indochina . During World War II she and her husband escaped into Malaya, but one of her children died in the process. Boulle would later meet her after the war, and they enjoyed a platonic friendship. At the outbreak of World War II, Boulle enlisted with

18360-755: Was subjected to severe hardship and forced labour. He was later made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance . He described his war experiences in the non-fiction My Own River Kwai . After the war he kept in touch with his war comrades for the rest of his life. After the war, Boulle returned to work for a while in the plantations of SOCFIN in Malaya, in 1949 he moved back to Paris and began to write, drawing from his memories of Malaya and Indochina. While in Paris, too poor to afford his own flat, he lived in

18496-475: Was then in stark contrast to the prevailing orthodoxy of Attaque à outrance . He was also a long-time advocate of the modern armoured warfare ideas applied by the Wehrmacht , and commanded the 4th Armoured Division at the Battle of Montcornet . However, he was not personally popular; significantly, none of his immediate military subordinates joined him in 1940. The new French commander Maxime Weygand

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