The quiet American way of censorship

What Greene castigates is the naive manner of American intervention abroad. America is no longer naive

T he release last Friday, albeit only in New York and Los Angeles, of Philip Noyce's rendering of The Quiet American, Graham Greene's classic novel of 1955, was more significant than it might have seemed. Beyond the colour and intrigue of the film itself lies a story of studio intrigue and, indeed, cowardice. This is a work that nearly never saw the light of day, at least not in America.

The film, starring Michael Caine as a world-weary correspondent in Vietnam in 1952, when France's hold on Indo-China was coming undone, was completed more than a year ago. But its distributor, Miramax, was afraid to put it out. Not because it is any kind of dud; on the contrary, now that it has finally surfaced, there is talk of an Oscar nomination for Caine. No, it was much worse than that. Miramax was nervous that the American public would be offended by it.

It is true that the timing was uncanny. The first rough-cut of the film was screened for Miramax on 10 September last year. The plan then was to release it a few months later, around Christmas. If you know the book, you will know more or less what they saw: a story that casts a highly critical light on America's involvement in Vietnam in that brief period of internal convulsion that eventually became the Vietnam War. America's misdeeds are embodied in Pyle, the "Quiet American" himself, played by Brendan Fraser – an economic aid worker on the surface who turns out to be a CIA operative assisting a rebel force to counter the Communists.

The world changed for all America the following day when al-Qa'ida terrorists ripped a hole through the country's innocence. Miramax took fright and put its Noyce property on hold. It did not help that the film included a pivotal scene when the agitators sponsored by Pyle wreaked bloody havoc with a series of car bombs in a Saigon square.

Miramax was not alone among studios reconsidering release schedules in those nervous days following 9/11. Among other victims was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Collateral Damage, which was put back a couple of months. But the man in charge of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, waited far longer than that. A couple of screenings in front of test audiences in the weeks after 9/11 seemed to support his instincts. They gave it a clear thumbs-down.

More extraordinary is that the decision to ditch the film caused almost no fuss at all. Not initially, anyway. Later, even Noyce was to admit that he considered his work to be "dead and not quite buried". He told one paper: "I thought the battle was over."

Thank goodness, therefore, for the persuasive powers of Caine. The actor finally blew his top earlier this year when he received word that Weinstein had finally decided to release The Quiet American in January 2003. "January is when you dump all the garbage," he explained in one interview. So he got on the telephone to Weinstein and pleaded. "I said, give me a chance; maybe I could get an Oscar."

And Weinstein, reluctantly, responded. Only after insisting that Noyce massage a couple of sequences in the film – a reference to "American adventurism" had to go, for instance – Weinstein agreed to a screening at the Toronto Film Festival in September. It received a standing ovation and the critics wrote adoringly of it. It was then that Weinstein agreed that while general release would remain set for January, at least folk here in New York and in Los Angeles would be given the chance to see the film this month (it opens in the UK today).

For those of us infuriated by the pusillanimity of Miramax, this is only half-satisfying. We have not been given the privilege of seeing Noyce's work because of any strengthening of the intellectual backbone inside Miramax. Nobody has said "We were wrong. Of course Americans have a right to watch this movie" or "Because of where we are in history now, because of the Taliban and because of Iraq, this film has total relevance". No, it's a ploy for glory. For Caine to have a shot at an Oscar, the film has to be released now.

It is simplistic to see Greene as "anti-American". The book is an indictment rather of those Americans who dragged the country into the Vietnam War. What Greene castigates is the naive manner of American intervention abroad. America is no longer naive. But where the story remains entirely apposite is in identifying the instinct of Americans to believe that what they are doing is for the "greater good" of the world. Pyle, with his youthful idealism, is just that kind of American. But his eager convictions lead to bloodshed and war. For that reason alone, of course, it is important that Americans watch this film. It should almost be compulsory viewing, in fact.

It would be easy to rail at Weinstein for not seeing this. But the truth is he was probably right in withholding the movie, because Americans may indeed be unable to stomach – especially now – anything that undermines its patriotic fervour. That is a depressing, if rather obvious, statement about this country. It points to the unsettling paradox that is at the heart of its behaviour astride the globe today. Underlying its arrogance as the world's last superpower remains a layer of deep insecurity. An immature society that cannot tolerate art invites difficult questions.