BRIDGE TO THE SUN

US, 1960, 114 minutes, Black and White.
Carroll Baker, James Shigeta.
Directed by Etienne Perrier.

Bridge to the Sun is a moving story of a marriage between an American woman and a Japanese man in the mid-30's and their lives during the war in Japan itself. The film is based on fact and has a genuine air about it that makes it a human document about love and marriage, race and custom, questions and war, and should provide excellent and thought-provoking entertainment for all audiences.

1. What did the title mean in terms of Japan, the U.S. and the marriage and the child?

2. Was the symbol of the touching hands appropriate for the credits? What atmosphere did it give to the film? Was this just a conventional story with a touch of the fairy tale about it? Or did it seem to you a genuine story based on true events? Why?

3. Did the film build up the atmosphere of the 30's with the Washington diplomatic scene, the suspicions of the Japanese, the Americans' belief in themselves?

4. Why did Gwen fall in love with Terry? Did the film make it clear that they genuinely loved each other? How?

5. What did Gwen and Terry have in common? How convincing were their courting sequences? How important throughout the film was the race issue?

6. Why did a Japanese/American marriage seem repugnant to people because of difference in race, culture, manners? How important were the political tensions of the late 30's for arguing to stop the marriage?

7. Did Gwen and Terry face these issues realistically?

8. Did Gwen understand enough of Japanese manners and customs before she married? How did the film show, in small details, her lack of awareness, e.g. the place of men before women in Japan?

9. Why did she react against the way Japanese men put women in their place? Was she justified? or was she trying to impose her American ideas readily on others?

10. What did each of them have to surrender to make the marriage a success? Did they?

11. How did the war, ideologies. and politics affect each of them and their marriage? Was U.S. hostility to the Japanese officials justified? To the wives. including Gwen? Did she make the right choice in returning to Japan?

12. How did she suffer equally in Japan? Was Japanese suspicion of and hostility to her justified?

13. How did she use her daughter as a focus of hostility and as a focus of reconciliation; 'a bridge'?

14. Were the dangers and hardships of war realistically portrayed the raids, suspicion, hunger, flight, secret work, betrayals? Was the film anti-war or neutral in its attitudes?

15. Did Terry do the right thing during the war? Why?

16. Was Jiro's offer to Gwen to be another Tokyo Rose important to Gwen? Why?

17. What effect on the audience did the scenes of American Gwen being bombed by U.S. planes have? How strongly anti-bombing were these sequences?

18. How happy was the end of the war ? from Gwen and Terry's point of view? From the Japanese point of view, considering Hiroshima?

19. How sad was Terry's death? Was it well handled in the film. especially using Japanese customs. the visit to the burial place? What did the death and separation reveal about Terry and Gwen as persons?

20. Do you think this film would contribute to the breaking down of racial discrimination, of war, hatred and itself act as some kind of 'Bridge'? Why?