The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004 film)
Encyclopedia
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 2004 drama film directed by Mary McGuckian
and featuring an ensemble cast
of American
and international actors. It is based on Thornton Wilder
's novel of the same name
. The film was released in 2004 in Spain
and 2005 in the U.S. and abroad. Despite praise for its costume design
, the film was poorly received by critics.
, Peru
, at noon of Friday, 20 July 1714, a bridge
woven by the Incas a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it: Doña María, the Marquess of Montemayor; Pepita, her lady in attendance; Esteban, a scribe; Uncle Pío and a young child. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan
monk
, who was on his way to cross it. Curious about why God would allow such a tragedy, he decides to take a scientific approach to the question. He set out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he has managed to compile a huge book, coming to the question whether we live our lives according to a plan or if there is no such thing as a bigger scheme.
, trying to assess whether the people who died were worthy or unworthy of suffering such a tragedy. He analyses the lives of four of the characters and the film flashes back and forth between the hearing and the events that lead to the tragedy.
Doña María, the Marquess of Montemayor (Kathy Bates
), a rather eccentric but wealthy woman, is vexed by the fact that her only daughter, Clara, whom she loves dearly, is indifferent to her. The latter married a Spanish nobleman and moved across the ocean. 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 Pepita as her companion, a girl raised at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas, after a recommendation by the Inquisition that her strange behavior might be lessened if she was not alone all the time.
Esteban and Manuel are twins who were left at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas as infants. The Abbess of the convent, Madre María del Pilar (Chaplin), developed a fondness for them as they grew up. They are so close that they have developed a secret language that only they understand. After they are dismissed from the Archbishop’s household, they become scribes and they write notes for actress Micaela Villegas, La Perricholi
, who writes to her lover, Manuel de Amat y Juniet
, Viceroy of Peru and to a bullfighter. Manuel falls in love with La Perricholi, which strains his relationship with his twin. After they are dismissed by La Perricholi, both brothers look for a job as stevedores, Captian Alvarado selects only Manuel. During work Manuel suffers an accident which ends in a grave injury which will ultimately cause his death.
Uncle Pío (Keitel) found La Perricholi as a girl and nourished her into a full-fledged actress, he acts as her singing-master, coiffeur, masseur, reader, errand-boy, banker and, rumor added: her father. Although he is in love with her, he has never expressed his feelings, which might or might not be reciprocated by her. He has 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 is witness to La Perricholi’s affair with the Viceroy and the bullfighter and her bearing a child to the Viceroy much to his dismay but despite of this and that due to La Perricholi’s absence from the theatre
, his company is forced to close, he remains faithful to her.
The Marquess of Montemayor learns that her daughter in Spain is pregnant and decides to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa María de Cluxambuqua. Pepita goes along as company and to supervise the staff. Captain Alvarado, who has saved Esteban from suicide, hires him to sail with him. A small-pox epidemic sweeps through Lima and La Perricholi goes missing, Uncle Pío goes after her when learning from the Viceroy that she will receive no one at her home and he suspects that the sickness has struck her. She has taken her son, Jaime, the fifth victim of the tragedy, with her. After Uncle Pío finally succeeds in seeing her, he convinces her to let him take the boy to a better education, which she agrees. When Doña María is out at the shrine, Pepita stays at the inn and writes a letter to the Abbess complaining about her misery and loneliness. Doña María reads the letter and compliments Pepita about its beauty but she rebuts that it was not brave to write it. Doña María has new insight into the ways in which her own life have lacked bravery and proceeds to write her most famous letter “Letter LVI
”, which by all accounts has become immortal and has been even compared to St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, due to its bravery and definitions of love.
When all five characters are heading back to Lima, the bridge breaks and all fall to their deaths.
The story shifts back to the hearing. The Abbess and La Perricholi, now a nun, appear at the hearing with the intent of taking the stand, but they are refused after the Viceroy denies knowing or recognizing the former actress, after seeing her face destroyed by smallpox. The Archbishop pronounces Juniper’s work as heresy, the book and its author are burned in the town square.
At the Convent, the Abbess receives Doña Clara who is visiting and comes to see the work at the Abbey. The film 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."
(1748—1819), a famous Peruvian entertainer known as La Perricholi, whose life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée
, an opéra bouffe
, La Périchole
by Jacques Offenbach
, Jean Renoir
’s 1953 film Le Carrosse d'or
(The Golden Coach), and two earlier film versions: a 1929 silent version, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
(1929) starring Lili Damita
, and a 1944 version, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
starring Lynn Bari
, Francis Lederer
, Akim Tamiroff
, and Alla Nazimova
.
The 2004 film was shot on location in Málaga, Andalucía
, and Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
. It is the only one of the three versions made on location, and the only one to use the novel's original, shocking ending.
Mary McGuckian
Mary McGuckian is a film director, producer and screenwriter from Northern Ireland.-Early life:Born and brought up in Northern Ireland during the 'troubles', Mary McGuckian completed her formal education in the Republic of Ireland at Trinity College Dublin, where she took a degree in engineering...
and featuring an ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and international actors. It is based on Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
's novel of the same name
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...
. The film was released in 2004 in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and 2005 in the U.S. and abroad. Despite praise for its costume design
Costume design
Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
, the film was poorly received by critics.
Premise
The film centers on a basic premise: near LimaLima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, at noon of Friday, 20 July 1714, a bridge
Simple suspension bridge
A simple suspension bridge is an early type of bridge that is supported entirely from anchors at either end, and has no towers or piers. However, it may have saddles...
woven by the Incas a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it: Doña María, the Marquess of Montemayor; Pepita, her lady in attendance; Esteban, a scribe; Uncle Pío and a young child. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
, who was on his way to cross it. Curious about why God would allow such a tragedy, he decides to take a scientific approach to the question. He set out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he has managed to compile a huge book, coming to the question whether we live our lives according to a plan or if there is no such thing as a bigger scheme.
Plot
The film starts at a public hearing of a council lead by Diego de Parada, the Archbishop of Lima (De Niro). Bother Juniper (Byrne) defends his work and his conclusions to the InquisitionInquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
, trying to assess whether the people who died were worthy or unworthy of suffering such a tragedy. He analyses the lives of four of the characters and the film flashes back and forth between the hearing and the events that lead to the tragedy.
Doña María, the Marquess of Montemayor (Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
), a rather eccentric but wealthy woman, is vexed by the fact that her only daughter, Clara, whom she loves dearly, is indifferent to her. The latter married a Spanish nobleman and moved across the ocean. 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 Pepita as her companion, a girl raised at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas, after a recommendation by the Inquisition that her strange behavior might be lessened if she was not alone all the time.
Esteban and Manuel are twins who were left at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas as infants. The Abbess of the convent, Madre María del Pilar (Chaplin), developed a fondness for them as they grew up. They are so close that they have developed a secret language that only they understand. After they are dismissed from the Archbishop’s household, they become scribes and they write notes for actress Micaela Villegas, La Perricholi
Micaela Villegas
Maria Micaela Villegas Hurtado , known as La Perricholi, was arguably the most famous Peruvian woman of the eighteenth century. She was a celebrated entertainer and the famous mistress of Manuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776...
, who writes to her lover, Manuel de Amat y Juniet
Manuel de Amat y Juniet
Felipe Manuel Cayetano de Amat y de Juniet was a Spanish military officer and colonial administrator. He was the Royal Governor of the Captaincy General of Chile from December 28, 1755 to September 9, 1761, and Viceroy of Peru from October 12, 1761 to July 17, 1776.-Origins and military...
, Viceroy of Peru and to a bullfighter. Manuel falls in love with La Perricholi, which strains his relationship with his twin. After they are dismissed by La Perricholi, both brothers look for a job as stevedores, Captian Alvarado selects only Manuel. During work Manuel suffers an accident which ends in a grave injury which will ultimately cause his death.
Uncle Pío (Keitel) found La Perricholi as a girl and nourished her into a full-fledged actress, he acts as her singing-master, coiffeur, masseur, reader, errand-boy, banker and, rumor added: her father. Although he is in love with her, he has never expressed his feelings, which might or might not be reciprocated by her. He has 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 is witness to La Perricholi’s affair with the Viceroy and the bullfighter and her bearing a child to the Viceroy much to his dismay but despite of this and that due to La Perricholi’s absence from the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, his company is forced to close, he remains faithful to her.
The Marquess of Montemayor learns that her daughter in Spain is pregnant and decides to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa María de Cluxambuqua. Pepita goes along as company and to supervise the staff. Captain Alvarado, who has saved Esteban from suicide, hires him to sail with him. A small-pox epidemic sweeps through Lima and La Perricholi goes missing, Uncle Pío goes after her when learning from the Viceroy that she will receive no one at her home and he suspects that the sickness has struck her. She has taken her son, Jaime, the fifth victim of the tragedy, with her. After Uncle Pío finally succeeds in seeing her, he convinces her to let him take the boy to a better education, which she agrees. When Doña María is out at the shrine, Pepita stays at the inn and writes a letter to the Abbess complaining about her misery and loneliness. Doña María reads the letter and compliments Pepita about its beauty but she rebuts that it was not brave to write it. Doña María has new insight into the ways in which her own life have lacked bravery and proceeds to write her most famous letter “Letter LVI
Roman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
”, which by all accounts has become immortal and has been even compared to St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, due to its bravery and definitions of love.
When all five characters are heading back to Lima, the bridge breaks and all fall to their deaths.
The story shifts back to the hearing. The Abbess and La Perricholi, now a nun, appear at the hearing with the intent of taking the stand, but they are refused after the Viceroy denies knowing or recognizing the former actress, after seeing her face destroyed by smallpox. The Archbishop pronounces Juniper’s work as heresy, the book and its author are burned in the town square.
At the Convent, the Abbess receives Doña Clara who is visiting and comes to see the work at the Abbey. The film 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."
Background and production
The film and novel are very loosely based on the life of Micaela VillegasMicaela Villegas
Maria Micaela Villegas Hurtado , known as La Perricholi, was arguably the most famous Peruvian woman of the eighteenth century. She was a celebrated entertainer and the famous mistress of Manuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776...
(1748—1819), a famous Peruvian entertainer known as La Perricholi, whose life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...
, an opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form....
, La Périchole
La Périchole
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French-language libretto based on the 1829 one act play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived on 13 March 1850 at the Théâtre-Français...
by Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
’s 1953 film Le Carrosse d'or
The Golden Coach
The Golden Coach is a 1952 film directed by Jean Renoir that tells the story of a commedia dell'arte troupe in 18th century Peru. The screenplay was written by Renoir, Jack Kirkland, Renzo Avanzo and Giulio Macchi and is based on the play, Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée...
(The Golden Coach), and two earlier film versions: a 1929 silent version, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929 film)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in both silent and part-talkie versions. The was film directed by Charles Brabin and starred Lili Damita and Don Alvarado...
(1929) starring Lili Damita
Lili Damita
Lili Damita was a French actress who appeared in 33 movies between 1922 and 1937.-Early life and education:...
, and a 1944 version, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944 film)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 1944 drama film made by Benedict Bogeaus Productions and released by United Artists. It was produced and directed by Rowland V. Lee with Benedict Bogeaus as co-producer. The screenplay by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman was adapted from the novel The Bridge of...
starring Lynn Bari
Lynn Bari
Lynn Bari , born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, was a movie actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in over one hundred 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s.-Career:Bari was born in Roanoke, Virginia...
, Francis Lederer
Francis Lederer
Francis Lederer was a film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States.-Europe:...
, Akim Tamiroff
Akim Tamiroff
Akim Mikhailovich Tamiroff was an Armenian actor. He won the first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.Tamiroff was born in Tiflis, Russian Empire , of Armenian ethnicity. He trained at the Moscow Art Theatre drama school. He arrived in the U.S. in 1923 on a tour with a troupe of actors...
, and Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...
.
The 2004 film was shot on location in Málaga, Andalucía
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
, and Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
. It is the only one of the three versions made on location, and the only one to use the novel's original, shocking ending.
Cast
- F. Murray AbrahamF. Murray AbrahamFahrid Murray Abraham is an American actor. He became known during the 1980s after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. He has appeared in many roles, both leading and supporting, in films such as All the President's Men and Scarface...
as Viceroy of PeruManuel de Amat y JunietFelipe Manuel Cayetano de Amat y de Juniet was a Spanish military officer and colonial administrator. He was the Royal Governor of the Captaincy General of Chile from December 28, 1755 to September 9, 1761, and Viceroy of Peru from October 12, 1761 to July 17, 1776.-Origins and military... - Kathy BatesKathy BatesKathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
as The Marquesa - Gabriel ByrneGabriel ByrneGabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
as Brother Juniper - Geraldine ChaplinGeraldine ChaplinGeraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
as The Abbess - Robert De NiroRobert De NiroRobert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
as Archbishop of Lima - Émilie DequenneÉmilie DequenneÉmilie Dequenne is a French-speaking Belgian actress.-Biography:She won the Best Actress award at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival for her debut film performance in the Palme d'Or-winning film Rosetta...
as Doña Clara - Adriana Domínguez as Pepita
- Harvey KeitelHarvey KeitelHarvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
as Uncle Pio - Pilar López de AyalaPilar López de AyalaPilar López de Ayala Arroyo is a Spanish film actress. She received a Goya for her role as Queen Joanna of Castile in the 2001 film Juana la Loca, directed by Vicente Aranda ....
as Camila Villegas (La Pericholi)Micaela VillegasMaria Micaela Villegas Hurtado , known as La Perricholi, was arguably the most famous Peruvian woman of the eighteenth century. She was a celebrated entertainer and the famous mistress of Manuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776... - John LynchJohn Lynch (actor)John Lynch is an Irish actor from Northern Ireland.-Biography:John Lynch was born in the United Kingdom and moved to his father's native home in Corrinshego, County Armagh, near Newry, County Down in Northern Ireland as a child. He attended St Colman's College, Newry, a Catholic school...
as Captain de Alvarado - Mark Polish as Manuel
- Michael Polish as Esteban
- Jim SheridanJim SheridanJim Sheridan is an Irish film director. A six-time Academy Award nominee, Sheridan is perhaps best known for his films My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, Get Rich or Die Tryin and In America.-Life and career:...
as The King of SpainCharles III of SpainCharles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...