Word: heroism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...crewmen of the Mayaguez did not seem destined for heroism. They were the sort of obscure seadogs found aboard any patched and battered merchant ship. In Rowan's nimble sketch, even the 62-year-old captain, Charles Miller, is not a born leader. Instead, he seems a canny, experienced old salt-the sort whose grace emerges only under pressure. Indeed, when the sailors considered an attempt to overpower their captors, it was Miller who counseled prudence and avoided bloodshed...
...Afternoon should have been, and almost was, a film about the pathos and mediocrity of American heroism. The portrait of Sonny, flat and droolingly sentimentalized, is still that of a man surprised by his desire for fame. Why else does he end up besieged in the bank for hours, screaming at the cops and clowning for the crowds? It's the only time in his life he's ever been worthy of public attention. "I want a military funeral," he insists solemnly near the end of the film...
PRISON PROVED TO UNION MEN that Hoffa really was an independent rebel. He never pretended'to respectability, talking in his book about "homos" and "shits" and "assholes"--the way Nixon talked in private but without the viciousness. The government's pursuit of Hoffa only confirmed his heroism. If his obsession with Robert Kennedy, the "spoiled brat" was not so real, Hoffa would have needed it for style alone. His explanation of the feud with Kennedy is typical: he says Kennedy began to hate him after losing an arm-wrestling match to Hoffa. Hoffa's "war" is not capital vs. labor...
...ouster of the old regime, they were able to call out 100,000 workers in wildcat strikes and send thousands of students into the streets-thus setting the stage for the climactic military coup that ended half a century of right-wing dictatorship. Nonetheless, for all their heroism and staying power, the Communists were able to garner only 12.5% of the vote in last April's election-leaving them still very much a minority party...
Most of these stories catch authors with their wigs off or their guards down. But not all anecdotes diminish their subjects. For every example of crankiness or distemper, there is a peek at private heroism and unsuspected virtues: Sir Walter Scott dictating three novels while he writhed in agony from attacks of gallstones; Samuel Johnson quietly doing public penance for a childhood act of disobedience committed 50 years earlier; Oscar Wilde, in prison and disgrace, discussing books with his respectful jailer; Poet John Stubbs, condemned to have his right hand cut off for offending Queen Elizabeth I, lifting...