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.
I thought your review was very well done. It was good that you expressed the dynamic relationship between Halloran and Sellenger as you stated that both were types of heroim, even with Sellenger being the antognast.
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