On September 10, 2001 a test audience viewed an early cut of “The Quiet American,” which stars Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser in an adaptation of Graham Greene’s classic novel about America’s unfortunate foray into Vietnam. The audience loved the film but a day later the world changed and Miramax suspended its release because a movie that questioned the wisdom of empire building, or empire defending, was unlikely to fare well at the box office. As the novel’s world-weary journalist says, memorably, of the quiet American who tried to do good in Vietnam, “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.” The film is coming out next week in New York and Los Angeles, and if the standing ovation it received at the recent Toronto Film Festival is any indication, it is quite good. The Washington Post has an opinion piece about the controversy that surrounds it; for a trailer, click here and scroll down to “The Quiet American.”
