The Quiet American (2002 film)

Infobox_Film
name = The Quiet American


caption = Poster for "The Quiet American".
director = Phillip Noyce
producer = Staffan Ahrenberg
William Horberg
writer = Graham Greene (novel)
Christopher Hampton
Robert Schenkkan (screenplay)
starring = Michael Caine
Brendan Fraser
Do Thi Hai Yen
music = Craig Armstrong
cinematography = Christopher Doyle
editing = John Scott
distributor = Miramax Films | released = 2002
runtime = 101 min.
country = AUS
GER
USA
language = English
French
Vietnamese
budget = $30 million
gross = $12,988,801
website = http://www.miramax.com/quietamerican/
amg_id = 1:272707
imdb_id = 0258068

"The Quiet American" is a 2002 film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling novel. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and starred Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen.

The 2002 version of "The Quiet American", in contrast to the 1958 version, depicted Greene's original ending and treatment of the principal American character, Pyle. Like the novel, the film illustrates Pyle's moral culpability in fostering intrigue within the South Vietnamese government. Going beyond Greene's original work, the film used a montage ending with superimposed images of American soldiers from the intervening decades of the Vietnam War.

The film was a commercial success in the United States. Miramax had paid $5.5 million for the rights to distribute the film in North America and some other territories [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E6D7173DF934A25753C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1] , and this film went on grossing US $12.9 million in limited theatrical release in the United States. The film was even nominated for one Academy Award: Best Actor for Michael Caine.

Plot summary

Set in the early 1950s in Saigon, Vietnam, during the end of the First Indochina War, on one level "The Quiet American" is a love story about the triangle that develops between a British journalist in his fifties, a young American idealist and a Vietnamese girl, but on another level it is also about the political turmoil and growing American involvement that led to the Vietnam War. Fowler, who narrates the story, is involved in the war only as an observer, apart from one crucial instant. Pyle, who represents America and its policies in Vietnam, is a CIA operative sent to steer the war according to America’s interests, and is passionately devoted to the ideas of York Harding, an American foreign policy theorist who said that what Vietnam needed was a “third player” to take the place of both the colonialists and the Vietnamese rebels and restore order. This third player was plainly meant to be America, and so Pyle sets about creating a “Third Force” against the Viet Minh by using a Vietnamese splinter group headed by corrupt militia leader General Thé (based on the actual Trinh Minh The). His arming of The's militia with American weaponry leads to a series of terrorist bombings in Saigon. These bombings, dishonestly blamed on the Communists in order to further American outrage, kill a number of innocent people, including women and children. Meanwhile, Pyle has stolen Fowler’s Vietnamese mistress Phuong, promising her marriage and security, and when Fowler finds out about his involvement in the bombings, he makes one definitive action to seal all of their fates

Cast

* Michael Caine - Thomas Fowler
* Brendan Fraser - Alden Pyle
* Do Thi Hai Yen - Phuong
* Rade Šerbedžija - Inspector Vigot
* Tzi Ma - Ninh
* Robert Stanton - Joe Tunney
* Holmes Osborne - Bill Granger
* Quang Hai - General Thé

Academy Awards

See also

The Quiet American, the novel upon which the movie is based
The Quiet American (film), the 1958 film adaptation

External links

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* [http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1808405549&intl=us Yahoo! Movies page of Quiet American]
* [http://www.miramax.com/quietamerican/ Official website of Quiet American movie]
* [http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/QUIETAM.htm "By the Bombs' Early Light"] - essay by H. Bruce Franklin on the historical context of the novel and the 2002 film
* [http://www.moviehole.net/news/20021119_622.html Michael Caine interview for The Quiet American]