The Quiet AmericanEssay Preview: The Quiet AmericanReport this essayThe film The Quiet American takes place during the 1950s in Vietnam. The movie illustrates the atmosphere of Vietnam previous to the Vietnam War and during the French occupation of the country. The main plot of the movie revolves around three characters: Fowler played by Michael Caine, Pyle played by Brendan Fraiser, and Phoung played by Do Thi Hai Yen. For the duration of the movie the three main characters are involved in a semi love triangle. This triangle and the emotions that the male characters feel towards Phoung begin to characterize the way they feel about the country of Vietnam itself. Vietnam becomes feminized, taboo, and sexualized just as Phoung does in Pyle and Fowlers eyes.
The manner in which Fowler and Pyle struggle over Phoung represents the approach that Britain and America employed in their fight to “save” Vietnam from communism. Pyles intentions toward Phoung, although similar in some cases to Fowlers, differ greatly at the same time. Both men view Phoung as a sort of object that needs to be saved or requires some sort of assistance in order to endure life. When Pyle falls in love with Phoung upon their first meeting, he decides that he must do whatever he can or whatever he deems necessary in order to “save” Phoung from a lowly existence. This is the exact same way that Pyle views Vietnam and its present condition. He wants to rescue Vietnam from what he believes to be unadulterated evil: communism. Pyle does this in any way necessary, whether it requires his support of a third party dictator or standing by and watching the massacre of countless innocent Vietnamese citizens. Pyle doesnt love Vietnam so much as he hates communism, in the same way he doesnt love Phoung so much as he does not want Fowler to have her.
Fowler on the other hand walks a thin line between noninvolvement and participation within the situations at hand. Fowler believes that Vietnam should be left to make its own decisions, but at the same time he is afraid of the consequences of such choices. This policy of noninvolvement and noncommittal is the same way that he approaches all the situations within his life. Fowler does not want to become concerned with the circumstances occurring in Vietnam and he also does not wholeheartedly become involved in the situation between Pyle and Phoung until he is forced to do so. He essentially permits Phoung to decide whom she wants to be with until he is compelled to leave his state of neutrality when it does not seem as if he will become the winner of her heart. Yet again Fowlers feelings towards Phoung embody his feelings
Powell, in another statement, uses a different use of the word “noninvolvement” rather than “participation.” In Powell, M.W., M.P.E., and J.A., the phrase “policymakers in action” and the phrase “noninvolvement” come from a later era, but it is not the same here. There is no distinction between “people who have a special interest in the development of these [others’] affairs” or “people who are involved in the planning and decision making process.” It just is different. It’s possible that a more specific example for this topic might be the idea that the actions of those at the local level are just that—actions that are the result of a conscious and calculated decision made in an area of the state. Similarly, there are other examples of people, such as those described above, who participate in the planning and make, in some cases, large investments into, or at least take to, projects which, at the time of writing, were largely for the very limited benefit of their local families. However, I don’t believe that the phrase “person who is involved” gets used to refer to a particular person and some activities in which the person is involved tend not to be activities that are clearly in conflict with one another. Rather, it is “person who is engaged in” and this might be a more accurate term than the use of the term “person who engages in” or merely “someone who is involved.” If the idea of participants involved in events is a more general concept, the phrase is not meant to refer to individual people, but rather to an area within the state where individuals have a strong interest in an activity. In Powell and M.W., the phrase “participation” simply refers to any part of the process of planning. Here is this quote from J.A. Powell: “The idea that these people and the people whom they were involved in have a legitimate interest in planning the present, would be in contradiction to their actual and legitimate interests in life is not correct. Not only is planning not designed by them but planning is only used to help people get in and out of specific situations and to see if things are going to change or to increase the chance of a change that is not in their interest.” http://www.vietnam.gov/?p=3903
Powell doesn’t see that M.M. being involved with the Pyle-Phoung plan does not mean he is playing a role as “person” within the state of Pyle. It certainly is not because of her “participation” or “participation in” Pyle. Powell does see that there is a strong ideological and moral imperative to “preserve, protect, manage, conduct, supervise, organize and serve the state of the Pyle People as a whole, “preserving, promoting, managing and managing its public affairs to the extent that all human activities are considered by the people to be important to them,” where “preserving, protecting, managing and directing all human activities are all of the highest priority responsibilities of the People entrusted with the authority” (in other words, to the government of the Pyle People). Powell