MovieChat Forums > The Guys (2003) Discussion > More heroic?

More heroic?

posted 21 years ago by PapaMouse
4 replies | jump to latest

I have to admit that I haven't seen the movie, but I am involved in a local theatre production of the play on which it is based. Unless the movie is radically different, anangke's comment:

If I were director, I would have changed several things: 1) had someone write a better script about more heroic men

misses the point.
(In the play) Nick says "I keep hearing all these speeches from the politicians on TV...Hero this, hero that. I don't even recognize them."
"All this hero stuff, like they were some guys in a movie...Bill...wasn't like that...If Bill walked into a room, nobody would even notice. You can't say that in a eulogy."

Joan responds that this is about "people who are ordinary in an extraordinary situation."

If the firefighters had been made more heroic, they wouldn't have seemed real. It would have been a disservice to the REAL PEOPLE --the firefighters -- who "gave their lives in order to save others."

[–] nzkat 21 years ago

"If the firefighters had been made more heroic, they wouldn't have seemed real. It would have been a disservice to the REAL PEOPLE --the firefighters -- who 'gave their lives in order to save others.'"

I agree wholeheartedly. I just saw a performance of the play last night, and it made a few of the men who died so tragically more three-dimensional in my mind. I don't know anyone who died in the Towers, nor do I know any firefighters, so I value the portraits of them as 'ordinary,' as people I can relate to. Seeing them as individuals whom I would have liked had I had the opportunity to know them makes the tragedy even more poignant, but seeing heroes as real people gives me hope that perhaps I could be capable of something good in a terrible situation, in my own way.

May all those touched by the disaster know a measure of peace on this second anniversary of a terrible day.

--N.

[–] littlewozo 20 years ago

I am currntly involved in a production of the stage version and have viewed the film numerous times. While the film illustrates the difficulties of translating a play to film, the film lost none of the poignancy. And yes there was no way that the heroism aspect should have been exaggurated(sp?..oh well), these were based of real men, as the play/film is based on a true story. There was a captain who needed a writer and Anne Nelson, the writer, along with another helped him with the monumental task. These were real men and need to be portrayed as such.

For the patient shall achieve victory-Sun Tzu

[–] fergusg 17 years ago

i haven't seen the play but I've just watched the film and the quote you mentioned is very strongly emphasised.

admittedly I missed this film first time around because I thought it was going to be a "heroic" flag waving cringefest.

how wrong was I?

I caught the trailer on irish telivision and it featured the opening song "the dawning of the day" which is a very famous old irish song along with a few brief moments from the film and I ended up setting the timer and was stunned by it.

It's a truly remarkable film and it was, to me, very non-heroic in the context I think anangke was referring to. That's not to say they weren't hero's, I mean the film didn't portray them in the hollywood hero way.

more people should see this.

[–] 17 years ago

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