Heroes, Whether Armed With Integrity or With Guns

Bravo to Deborah Hornblow of the Hartford Courant for her thoughtful piece on the dichotomy between movie heroes’ peaceful intentions and their violent actions (“These Heroes Have Taken a Hypocritical Oath,” July 25). Without yet having seen “Gladiator” or “The Patriot,” I can nevertheless appreciate her insights, because that conflict has always existed in literature and in life itself, let alone the movies, and it raises questions for which there are no easy answers.

In seeking exemplary scenes of heroic pacifism from past films, she surprises me by citing Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” Far better would have been the Coop of “Friendly Persuasion.” Here it is the hero, not just his wife, who is the Quaker, and he manages to survive the Civil War without firing a shot, though he is sorely tempted when his best friend is killed. (According to author Jessamyn West’s memoirs, Cooper had to be dissuaded from including a scene in which he would have briefly joined the fighting.)

Another striking western in which the hero never shoots a gun is “The Big Country,” wherein Gregory Peck stands as a bulwark against the madness and feudal violence around him. Significantly, both “Persuasion” and “Country” were directed by the great William Wyler, a filmmaker who had personally experienced the realities of warfare.

PRESTON NEAL JONES

Hollywood

Hornblow berates the films, their protagonists and their presentation for going “to extreme pains” to justify violence.

I (and my 13-year-old) felt that both films made it clear that the protagonists only responded in kind when brutality, inhumanity and injustice were pushed to a point no human could bear, hardly Hornblow’s shallow characterization of “terminators who wave the flag.” Far from glorifying war or battle, the films make it perfectly clear that brutality and vengeance are deplorable actions, even in war.

GEORGE ROGERS

Long Beach

Can life really be that bucolic in Hartford?

Since reading Hornblow’s piece, in which she plies the eternal pacifist saw, I have been plagued by a nagging vision on the vast silver screen of my imagination: that the only man standing between her and the attacker about to launch a blow that will be her last vision on Earth be cut from the cloth of Dirty Harry, not Mr. Peepers.

STUART WIESS

Beverly Hills