Lam: Hanover Street Blog

What is a Hero?

                Sellenger saw Halloran as the embodiment of the values that made up a "hero." He used an example regarding the boy who went ice skating but fell into the water. Then, Sellenger pointed out that Halloran would be the boy who dives straight into the water to save the boy. Meanwhile, Sellenger would be the boy who offers his coat to the boy. He then surmises that Halloran would be on the front page of the newspaper acting modestly while Sellenger would receive no recognition. In his example, Sellenger brought up several inherent traits or qualities of a hero without actually stating them. These traits or qualities included bravery, courage, modesty, strength, compassion, valor, and timeliness. I would like to point out the lack of the trait of honesty in the above list that qualifies a hero. I excluded this quality because in my opinion, honesty is not a necessary trait in order to be considered a hero. As seen in the film, Halloran served as the film's hero and was dishonest about his love affair with Margaret. At any time upon discovering Sellenger's wife's identity, Halloran could have been honest and revealed the affair, but instead, he chose a passive approach and chose not to speak about it unless Sellenger would inquire about it, which at this point in the film Sellenger would have had no reason to question Halloran's integrity. I believe Halloran fits Sellinger's idea of a hero because throughout the film, Halloran exhibits all of the aforementioned traits or qualities.

                Halloran was not the only hero of the film, however. Sellinger may have been the antagonist of the film, one who causes a conflict against the protagonist, but his transformation over the second half of the film may have been even more dynamic than Halloran's. I would argue that Halloran was always the hero throughout the film from the very beginning but did not reveal his heroic qualities until deemed necessary, which was the scene of my image above. Instead, Halloran helped Sellenger transform into a hero. There were several instances in which this happened, but one of the most important scenes in the film was during the image above. When the German Nazi was about to discover Halloran's true identity, Halloran took the initiative to reveal his heroic qualities. At this point, as noted by Pfeiffer, it became evident that Ford did not want to take on this role as Halloran, but if he was going to, he wanted to portray the character in his own way. The brief punch from Ford almost foreshadowed the type of actor he was to become in the future. However, this single punch forced Sellenger's hand to transform into a hero or else the mission would be compromised. Sellenger attempted to perform the mission using his strength -- intelligence. However, intelligence in the film was passed off as a non-heroic quality. Therefore, the synergy between the two pushed Sellenger into the direction of becoming a hero himself. At the same token, it is also worthy to note that if Sellenger had never asked Halloran for his help on the mission in the first place, then Halloran would not have been able to reveal his heroic qualities past their plane crash escape.

                In the final action sequence of the film involving Sellenger and Halloran escaping across the mine from the Nazi squad, heroism as a theme becomes very embraced. It displayed the zenith of the heroic qualities of both characters. When Sellenger is shot across the bridge, he first urged Halloran to escape to safety on his own. This act showed off all of the aforementioned qualities of a hero in Sellenger, but when Halloran returned to save him, he displayed all of his heroic qualities as well. In the final action sequences, the quality of compassion was dominant. Sellenger was being compassionate by telling Halloran to escape on his own, while Halloran was also being compassionate by returning for Sellenger.

                Overall, this was  fairly decent film, even though I can see where many critiques could come from. It was a good balance of the romantic story and spy story, but it was clearly divided into two halves. The film would have been better served if the two stories were better interwoven.