The Quiet American

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>It's time to get out our copies of The Quiet American again. jks
>
>Yeah, and then let's talk about it. What struck me about the Quiet 
>American last time I reread was that Greene was not so much 
>concerned with the evils of colonialism/imperialism as he was 
>concerned to show the Americans would never possibly learn how to 
>play the game. After all, if deep subtle folks like the English had 
>failed, how could the Americans possibly succeed? That was the 
>sub-text.  And I don't think this attitude is due to his catholicism 
>either. The biggest American hater I ever met was an Englishman who 
>groused at me about the by-gone glory days of Britain and of how the 
>Americans were totally unworthy of taking up the imperialist mantle.
>
>Ugh.
>
>Joanna

Philip Noyce's film _The Quiet American_ is, politically, far to the 
left of Graham Greene's novel.  The film has nothing to do with 
nostalgia for the British Empire.  Rather, it asks us to choose sides 
and to choose _against_ the American Empire.

*****   "Sooner or later", says Viet Minh agent Heng to British 
journalist Thomas Fowler, "one has to take sides.  If one is to 
remain human."  The remark comes in a scene pivotal to both Graham 
Greene's 1955 novel and Philip Noyce's 2003 film, based on it.  In 
many respects, it is the theme of both.  The difference between 
Greene and Noyce is that the former was sceptical about such choices, 
whereas Noyce's film suggests that choosing _against_ the Americans 
was the right choice.

<http://www.austhink.org/monk/Noyce.doc>   *****

H. Bruce Franklin's review of _The Quiet American_ is a must read: 
"By the Bombs' Early Light; Or, The Quiet American's War on Terror," 
_The Nation_, February 3, 2003. 
<http://newark.rutgers.edu/~hbf/QUIETAM.htm>.
-- 
Yoshie

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