Word: heroism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Right Stuff finds heroism in the astronauts'story...
...Yeager, whom he portrays as remaining a lonely flight-test purist at Edwards for the entire period covered by the film. This is historically inaccurate-he left the base in 1954-but it is emotionally correct. Kaufman wanted to do a movie about "a particular form of American heroism" and to ask the question "How does that elusive quality survive in the midst of the American circus, the chaos, public commotion, the panic, that all threaten to stamp it out?" The answer, of course, is that it can do so only in total isolation and self-sufficiency. So Yeager...
...both Dido and her anointed suitor: "Duty-bound,/ Aeneas, though he struggled with desire/ To calm and comfort her in all her pain." And he, "shaken still/ With love of her, yet took the course heaven gave him/ And went back to the fleet." However paraphrased, this brand of heroism is easier to admire than love...
...there's a definite movement away from the focus on the individual per se-you have a national responsibility to the group." Said Tom Ahern, who teaches Latin in Mashpee, Mass.: "The emphasis is on the individual bowing to the needs of the state, rather than the individual heroism in Homer...
...most riveting parts of The Battle for the Falklands are the tales of pluck and heroism by British forces: a platoon sergeant who died attempting to silence an enemy machine-gun nest with hand grenades, a helicopter pilot who flew a solitary mission over Port Stanley, a wounded commando who stayed behind to cover a comrade's escape. By contrast, Argentine forces are generally, and perhaps unfairly, depicted as inept and their leaders as divided and squabbling. Yet if Hastings and Jenkins are partial to the home team, they can also be critical: of the Royal Navy...