An Evaluation of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Movie Review Example

An Evaluation of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (The Movie) “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a short movie based on a short story of the same title by Ambrose Bierce. The story may have been filmed to explain more clearly what may be experienced by one immediately preceding the moment of death. This is shown in subtle language by the author but is revealed in a more concrete manner on film. There occurs to the doomed person a flashback of all the important events in his life. These events flash before his eyes in stark reality and in swift succession to make him know the real reason for this wonderful gift of life. The setting of the story is far removed from the present since it takes place during the Civil War in America. The war was fought to settle the question of Slavery. The North was against slavery while the South was pro-Slavery. This is understandable for the slave owners who were southerners wanted to retain their slaves. The actual setting of the story is a railroad bridge, the Owl Creek Bridge in Southern Alabama. One evening, our protagonist Peyton Farquhar and his wife wre sitting on a bench near the entrance to his grounds when a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. The couple was only too happy to serve him. Farquhar asked him for news from the front and was informed that the Confederate Army (Northern) were repairing the railroad and were getting ready for another advance. They had reached Owl Creek Bridge to put it in order and had built storkade on the North Bank. The Commandant ad issued an order posted everywhere that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains would be summarily hanged. The soldier was a Federal scout. Farquhar checked the information given him and in so doing crossed the bridge and fell straight downward, lost consciousness and from this state, he awakened and found himself captured by the enemy. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is a tragedy. A way of looking at tragedy found in Richard B. Dewell’s “A Vision of Tragedy” (Colwell, 1968) discusses the relationship between evil, suffering and values. The basic questions Sewell uses to test a work of literature for tragic stature are: 1. Is there a protagonist confronted with evil? 2. Does he choose to act and persevere in opposing the implications of the initial situation? 3. Does he suffer and thereby in some sense learn? 4. Does the work as a whole maintain the co-existence of evil and good, affirming the value of good without denying the existence of evil? To the extent that these questions may be answered “yes”, a work is tragic. Yes, there is a protagonist confronted with evil. The name of this protagonist is Peyton Farquhar and he is confronted with the evils that are associated with war – the Civil War in America. Yes, he does act and persevere in opposing the implications of the initial situation as shown in the short story itself: “He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. ‘If I could see my hands,’ he thought, ‘I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving, I could evade the bullets and swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is yet outside their lives’”. Yes, the protagonist does suffer, and in some sense, learns. He suffers helplessness and despair, but he also forces himself to seek ways and means to get out of his life and death situation. And yes, the work as a whole maintains the co-existence of good and evil, affirming the value of good. The good consists of life itself, love for wife and family, Mother nature, kindness towards strangers, dignity for oneself and others; whereas the evils are the concomitants of war such as death, cruelty towards fellow human beings, the destruction of worthwhile things and the like. Going back to the story itself, our protagonist, “Peyton Farquhar was apparently thirty five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a well-to-do planter. His features were good – a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark and had a kindly expression which one would hardly hav expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently, this was no vulgar assassin.” (Bierce). The author injects irony into his story when he adds that the liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded. The filmmakers were careful to choose for their movie not only one who looked like the author’s facial and physical description but one who could swim well and who could negotiate the distance of some thirty miles by running in order to evade his captors. They also saw to it that he would be dressed in the style of the period in order for him to portray the picture of a moneyed planter. Even his clothes and those of his wife, especially, bespoke an era long gone in the history of the United States The muskets fired by the soldiers are also outdated as are the uniforms of the soldiers themselves. In short, the elements as described in the short story are faithfully reproduced in the movie. The actor chosen to play the lead role exhibited an “I-don’t-care” attitude as his initial reaction to his precarious predicament which is shown clearly on film. However, he knows he was going to die so he remembered to close his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts on his children. But suddenly he becam aware of a new disturbance, primarily that of sound – a metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil, for it had a ringing quality – whether far or nearby, it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knoll. The sound gave him a feeling of apprehension. What he heard was the ticking of his watch. The filmmakers capitalized on this by focusing the camera briefly on the victim’s watch to give the viewers an idea of the passage of time and of the sharpened senses of the one about to die. At the onset of the short story, Farquhar and his wife are sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds when a gray-clad soldier rides up to the gate and asks for a drink of water. This scene is omitted in the movie, perhaps to give emphasis to the last scene wherein Farquhar is racing against time to join his wife in a last embrace. This scene is present in the short story as a means, perhaps to enable Farquhar to obtain information on the position of the Yankee Army. The movie itself is in black and white. Perhaps the techno-colored movies were not yet on the scene; however, black-and white lends itself to the fact that the story is a tragedy. All through the movie are scattered scenes of nature – of trees and their branches etched against the sky, plants and flowers of the field, grass, insects such as bugs, flies, locusts and spiders (actually spinning a web) and fish swimming in gentle running water. Even the wind is featured wherein the leaves are seen moving gracefully as though in a dance. All this is shown on film as though to enhance what Ambrose Bierce described in prose. Fate has granted our victim one last chance to appreciate nature. Perhaps during his lifetime he never had the time to “smell the roses”. But in the film towards the end, he did get to smell the fragrant wildflowers when he reached the safety of the back of the stream he had conquered. We cannot help but quote from the text the beautiful language of Ambrose Bierce when he describes this stage in his end-of-life struggle: “He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were indeed supernaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves, the viewing of each leaf- saw the very insects upon them – the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragonflies’ wings, the strokes of the water spider’s legs, like oars which had lifted their boat – all these make audible music together with the intermittent hooting of an owl. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.” The intricate dance of flora and fauna is recorded on film by the craftsmen of the movie industry such that it does not detract from the beauty of Bierce’s description, but heighten it instead. Because of the expertise of the filmmakers, even the background music is like a lovesong and blends well with the scene. We are not here to evaluate Ambrose Bierce; our task is to look for ways by which the movie may have even a slight edge over the short story and it is this: in order for the reader to appreciate the short story fully, he has to have imagination; if not he’s in for it. The viewer may have just a lot of imagination especially if the shots were well taken for the action is in plain view for all to see. Peyton Farquhar was a rich planter of an old and respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner, he was also a politician. He was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. He was prevented from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaign ending with the fall of Corinth and he chafed under the inglorioius restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. The opportunity, he felt would come, as it comes to all in wartime. And he was right. In that brief moment preceding his actual death, he experienced much more danger and stress than a lot of soldiers did during the war. Definitely, Farquhar realized that love is the one thing that matters in the course of a lifetime. Love is worth living for. It is also worth dying for. As he neared his destination, he stretched his arms ready to clasp his wife in an embrace. The ache and longing is evident. Just as he was about to hold her, his head snapped back and he broke his neck as though in strangulation. At exactly the same moment, a body on the bridge fell strangled by a noose tied around his neck. The moviemakers are an ingenious lot. It is by this means that they make credible to the viewers that the protagonist underwent the ante-death experience. Ambrose Bierce was an American author and journalist. He was born in Ohio, served in the army as a line officer in the Civil War and in 1866 went to California. In 1872 he was in London, where he became a contributor in Fun. “His collected works were published in 13 volumes in 1909 -1912. As a matter of the short story, he may be said to rank with Edgar Allan Poe and Bret Harte. He was last heard of in Mexico where in 1914, he served on the staff of Francisco Villa. The movie of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was a first prize-winner at the Cannes Film Festival (Grolier Encyclopedia). Works Cited Bierce, A. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Colwell, C.C., A Student’s Guide to Literature. Simon and Schuster, Inc. 1968 Grolier Encyclopedia, Vol. III, 1961. Read More