VIETNAM: FILMING OF GRAHAM GREENE NOVEL "THE QUIET AMERICAN" STARRING MICHAEL CAINE IN HO CHI MINH CITY

Record ID: 391074

  • Title: VIETNAM: FILMING OF GRAHAM GREENE NOVEL "THE QUIET AMERICAN" STARRING MICHAEL CAINE IN HO CHI MINH CITY
  • Date: 23rd February 2001
  • Summary: SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) SCREENWRITER CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON SAYING: "I think Graham Greene's hostility towards the American characters in the book tends to make them a little two-dimensional. So I wanted to flesh out particularly the character of Pyle, the quiet American. For my view the more Fowler, the central character, likes him, the more difficult he finds it to do wha
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
  • Country: Vietnam
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA392W9F8JQ9VIPK52PMXNFQR2A
  • Story Text: After more than 25 years of peace, Vietnam is being hit by explosions, intrigue and murder. But this time the shooting is being done by Australian director Philip Noyce, who has adapted Graham Greene's brooding novel 'The Quiet American' into a movie starring Sir Michael Caine.
    The Quiet American has returned to Vietnam with a bang.
    A deafening explosion rips through the heart of colonial Saigon. But what was real nearly 50 years ago is now being staged as one of the key scenes in a new film adaptation of Graham Greene's prophetic 1955 novel.
    Here in bustling Ho Chi Minh City, the official name of Saigon now, shooting of "The Quiet American" started in February. Starring Sir Michael Caine, the Mirage/IMF co-production is spending six weeks in various locations across Vietnam before wrapping up in Australia. It is due to be released in America at the end of the year.
    The plot pivots around Saigon in 1952 as the French grip weakens and American involvement is still shadowy.
    But Philip Noyce, director of Hollywood blockbusters such as 'The Bone Collector· and 'Patriot Games', says the movie still carries a poignant message.
    "So when I read the book in Vietnam and having met a lot of Vietnamese who had fought in both wars · the war against the French and then the war against the Americans · I realized it was important at that time, but also this time.
    Because the question that the film asks is a question that comes up all the time for politicians which is whether the means justify the end·..Do you save more people by action than by inaction? That's a question that we're faced with constantly." Noyce says.
    Pyle, an idealistic CIA agent masquerading as an aid worker, embodies U.S. foreign policy, while Fowler the cynical English journalist tries to stay neutral despite a spate of guerrilla bombings.
    Caine plays Fowler opposite Brendan Fraser, whose roles range from "George of the Jungle" to "Gods and Monsters". Both actors say the tale of political intrigue captured the imagination of all involved in the project.
    "If it brings about a sense of change is anyone's guess. But it will certainly have an impact because you cannot do a piece set in Vietnam without expecting to touch many, many people. And for that we have a responsibility as film-makers to portray the story with accuracy and honesty", Fraser says.
    For one week, streets close to the old Continental Hotel returned to their colonial glory. People in Opera Square wore outfits and drove cars from five decades ago, while the city relived an explosion that still evokes the sorrows of war.
    Scenes like this were sights Greene observed in Vietnam as a reporter which inspired Caine to look to the author for his role of the jaded Fowler.
    "I know all the Graham Greene stuff and I know this book in particular. I've met Graham Greene a few times and I'm basing myself on him. Just over here is the Continental Hotel, which is where he wrote this book, so we're in the right place. I'm a bit like him except he was six feet five and I'm only six feet two!", Caine says.
    Central to both the book and the movie is Fowler's opium smoking.
    "Fowler in the picture is an opium addict, and of course we can't use real opium, so we've got to use something.
    I think I'll probably wind up smoking tobacco. But I was informed by an ex-opium addict that tobacco smoke doesn't look the same at all. So they're actually working in Sydney trying to find something that burns and looks like opium, in a laboratory, for the movie because obviously we can't use real opium it's illegal, and I wouldn't smoke it anyway!" Caine says.
    Screenwriter Christopher Hampton of "Dangerous Liaisons" fame had the daunting task of adapting Greene's exacting and subtle prose for the big screen. His first time round was with Greene's "The Honorary Consul", which also starred Caine, but now he has added new dimensions to the novelist's characters.
    "I think Graham Greene's hostility towards the American characters in the book tends to make them a little two-dimensional. So I wanted to flesh out particularly the character of Pyle, the quiet American. For my view the more Fowler, the central character, likes him, the more difficult he finds it to do what he has to do at the end of the story, the more dramatically it plays·", Hampton says.
    "Pyle believes he is honourable, he believes he is doing the right thing. He has firm convictions about stopping communism. He's an idealist. He believes history will prove him right. I'm not sure I believe his politics, but his convictions are firm.", Fraser says.
    Despite the ravages of war, The Quiet American is essentially a love story.
    Both Fowler and Pyle compete to win the affections of a Vietnamese beauty called Phoung -- played by newcomer Hai Yen. The consequences are deadly. William Horberg says: "We saw thousands of girls in Hong Kong, L.A., Paris, London in the Vietnamese communities. And then we found Hai Yen. We all fell in love with her and thought she was perfect. As soon as Caine saw a photo of her he said ·there's my Phoung."
    Noyce and his team say "The Quiet American", is not a remake of the 1950s version by Joseph L Mankiewicz, which made Pyle an anti-Communist hero and angered Greene for betraying his work.
    "Our story is not pro-Communist, it's not anti-Communist, because that's not the issue. Responsibility for the bombs falls historically with the one found responsible. Our story is a love triangle about three people caught up in an escalating situation and romantic, which culminates in explosions and deaths. We don't take sides. We leave it to the audience." he says.
    Treachery, honour, love and a tragic outcome set against the exotic backdrop of old Saigon "The Quiet American"
    has it all.
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