Movies - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

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	Movies - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 1927 novel by American author Thornton Wilder. It tells the story of several unrelated people who happen to be on a bridge in Peru when it collapses, killing them.

Philosophically, the book explores the problem of evil, or the question of why unfortunate events occur to people who seem "innocent" or "undeserving".

It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and in 1998 it was selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the of the 20th century. The book was quoted by Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. Since then its popularity has grown enormously.

This book is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks to events before the disaster. Along these lines, It was cited by John Hersey as a direct inspiration for his nonfiction work Hiroshima.

Film versions

Three films have been based on this work:

A 1929 version, directed by Charles Brabin, starring Lili Damita
A 1944 version, directed by Rowland Lee, starring Lynn Bari
A 2004 version, directed by Irish director Mary McGuckian and starring Robert De Niro
, Harvey Keitel
, Kathy Bates
, John Lynch and Gabriel Byrne
.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Bridge of San Luis Rey ]

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