A 1957 war epic by David Lean about British POWs in Burma forced to build a railway bridge for their Japanese captors, centering on the conflict between duty, pride, and self-destruction.
Lean's film established the WWII epic as a vehicle for examining British institutional psychology — the compulsion to build even when building serves the enemy — a thematic obsession Nolan would revisit in Dunkirk.
No recorded historical influences.
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