The film the Quiet American tells the story of a British journalist, a Vietnamese woman, and an undercover CIA agent in midst of the war between the communist Vietnamese and the imperial French Phillip Noyce, the director of the film, thrust into the spotlight, due to directing several films with high budgets, including Rabbit Proof Fence, which was released at nearly the same time as The Quiet American. Noyce was deemed as “an artist on top of his game” by the Seattle Times movie critic Moira Macdonald. The director has been nominated and has accepted several awards for his directing in Australia. The lead actor in the film Michael Cain, well-known, because he had previously been nominated and won awards for several roles. More specifically and significantly, he had been nominated for six Oscar awards and he had won two of them for best supporting actor. From the sheer amount of award nominations, one can conclude that the lead actor had a substantial amount of filmography when the film was shot. There is no clear political agenda …show more content…
One use of symbolism that occurs early in the movie is when Pyle falls in love with Phuong at first sight. This is symbolic of the United States obsession with Vietnam, that occurred right at the beginning of their involvement. The love affair between Phuong and Pyle is also symbolic of the end of colonialism, which is represented by Fowler. Another example of symbolism that is shown in the film is a representation of Pyle. The character is displayed to be arrogant and his character, once revealed as an CIA agent, shows that he is there to clean up the mess Europe had made by getting more funds from the United States . The filmmakers, rather than perpetuating myths about the war, presented the truth about the war through the plot of the film. The Quiet American, attempts to illustrate a plot that shows the true roles of each involved nation, breaking away from what past films attempted to