Only The Brave: Hero’s Journey Never Die

“Only the Brave” （2017）is a drama/disaster film based on a true event, telling of the tragic loss of 19 top-tier firefighters in Arizona's Yarnell Hill blaze in June 2013, the greatest firefighter lose in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks. “Doughnut” McDonough played by Miles Teller who was a drug addict before joining the force of Granite Mountain Hotshots, there were twenty elites firefighters of Granite Mountain Hotshots, nineteen of them sacrificed their lives to protect livelihoods, only McDonough survived in the incident. The story is told based on his perspective, who also served as creative consultant for this film. “It is no longer the guilt of surviving I carried with me, but the honor of knowing my brothers as I know them, as heroes”, McDonough said in the end of the film on the credits. He suffered from the great loss because he thought he should be on the list as he considered himself as the least experienced firefighter in the group, and eventually he decided to carry on and tell the story of the heroes he knew as a dedication for the brotherhood and the great sacrifice they made. This story involved with many characters, and the team supervisor Eric Marsh played by Josh Brolin was a major role in the story.

Although the story is a drama based on a real event, it also followed the path of the hero’s journey. There are many characters in the film with different character arcs as the story develops, the main character Eric Marsh played by Josh Brolin is an mentor archetype who helped the protagonist “Doughnut” McDonough to get out of drug addiction and start a career and find the meaning of life. Marsh is a wise old man who is target-oriented with a can-do attitude, as a team leader, he is almost a perfect character with only the flaw of choosing between family and his career, and there is a constant struggle between him and his love Amanda Marsh played by Jennifer Connelly, but whenever an argument happened between this couple, it was always revolved with peace, until the last moment. During the final climax, Marsh ordered McDonough to retreat to the safety zone, that final order saved McDonough’s life.

The main conflict in this story is man vs nature, and the protagonist “Doughnut” McDonough who was a drug addict lost his motivation in life, he accidentally got his ex-girlfriend Natalie pregnant, in order to win her heart back and spend more time with his daughter, he decided to join the Eric’s team, on one hand he is fighting against himself to be motivated, and undergoing a transformation towards an responsible person, on the other hand, he is fighting against the danger of nature.

“Only the Brave” （2017）is based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a group of elite firefighters who risk everything to protect a town from a historic wildfire. Instead of focusing on the disaster, the film put a lot of emphasis on the family value and personal lives of the brotherhood of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.

I have broke down the film into 54 scenes in the timeline to show a general narrative structure of this film. Some of the scenes are major scenes which covers many action sequences, there are some scenes are transition scenes, and some are major plots.

Events list:

1. Eric Marsh, supervisor of Fire and Rescue Crew 7 in Prescott, Arizona, receives a call over a wildfire, he made a prediction that the fire will threaten a nearby neighborhood which is ignored. The fire behaves as Eric anticipated.
2. Eric's wife Amanda suggests he talk to Duane Steinbrink, the city fire chief, to complete Crew 7's certification as wildfire hotshots. 
3. Due to more efforts by Eric to pull into the certification, Amanda gets more disappointed how the time commitment already keeps Eric from wanting to start a family.
4. Brendan McDonough is addicting to drugs. His ex-girlfriend Natalie is pregnant with his baby, but his irresponsibility disappointed her and they broke up. 
5. McDonough gets arrested for theft, his mother kicks him out of the house. When his daughter is born he wants to provide for her, so he interviews with Eric, who hires him despite the reservations of some of the crew.
6. The crew trains hard and become the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Natalie begins to accept Brendan and lets him spend time with their daughter.
7. The crew fights several fires, including saving a historic juniper tree, it is the best moment in the film when the whole crew was on the front page of the newspaper. 
8. Eric and Amanda argue back and forward about start a family. Eric has a heartfelt talk with Duane, then returns home and tells Amanda he's ready to start a family.
9. The Granite Mountain Hotshots are called to the Yarnell Hill Fire.
10. An air tanker mistakes it for a secondary fire and extinguishes it. The crew is forced to relocate, so Eric sends Brendan to higher ground as a lookout.
11. When the wind suddenly intensifies and shifts, Brendan is rescued by another hotshot crew, and they evacuate to the mobile fire headquarters.
12. The rest of the Granite Mountain Hotshots head to a designated safe zone after realizing that the fast-moving fire is too intense to go up against.
13. The fire picks up speed and cuts off their escape route. The crew clears a small site, and Eric calls in an air tanker to douse them. The tanker misses the crew, and they deploy their compact personal fire shelters. 
14. As the fire sweeps over the crew, multiple radio calls go unanswered. 
15. Brendan hears the radio call from the first helicopter to reach the site: all 19 firefighters are dead.
16. The worried families of the hotshots gather at Prescott Middle School, where they hear reports of a lone survivor of the twenty firefighters. 
17. Brendan is driven to the school and enters the gymnasium. Upon seeing Brendan, knowing that he was one of the hotshots, they realize that he is the only one who made it out alive, and that their loved ones had all perished. 
18. As they grieve, Brendan storms out of the gym and collapses outside, where Amanda comforts him, all the while Brendan saying that he should’ve died alongside them.
19. Three years later, Brendan takes his daughter to the juniper tree that was saved by the crew.

Act 1:

• The Ordinary World: At the beginning part of the journey, the audience learns what the hero's everyday life is like before the adventure. An experienced firefighter, a caring wife, a lost young man, and many hothead young recruits.
• Call to Action: This is the moment when McDonough's life will change from what it once was, after he was kicked out of the house by his mother, and his first glimpse with his daughter, he has made a decision to take care of his family.
• Refusal of the Call: There isn't a big refusal in the story, McDonough made a commitment with Eric, who hires him despite the reservations of some of the crew.

Act 2:

• Crossing the Threshold: This is the moment when McDonough leaves the ordinary world to enter the new arena, which has new rules and will test him in all kinds of trainings and getting into the hotshot certification.
• Meeting the Mentor: McDonough’s mentor is Eric, who is older and wiser than he, and understand his struggle and motivation. Eric never gives up on McDonough.
• Tests, Allies, Enemies: McDonough has many teammates, some of them dislike him at first, who consider him as drug-head and could potentially bring hazard to the team, but eventually McDonough proves himself to be reliable and trustworthy by successfully undergoing each test and hotshot qualification, and the team reached its glorious moment by saving an historical tree from the wildfire and becomes the front page of local newspaper.
• Approaching the Inmost Cave: This is when McDonough prepares for final test. When he gets a snake bite and almost die, he is put into hospital and his family ask him to look for a safer job, he asks Eric for his recommendation but gets refused first, this is also the point of their relationship fall into the lowest point.

Act 3:

• The Ordeal: This is where McDonough confronts death. The death of his brothers, when he is the only one who can hear them through radio, and it is the most emotionally intensive scene.
• The Resurrection: This is the moment when McDonough is in the school and surrounded by the families and he realized he is the lone survivor of the hotshots, and the rest had all perished. As they grieve, McDonough storms out of the gym and collapses outside, where Amanda comforts him, all the while McDonough saying that he should’ve died alongside them.
• The Road Back: This is the final scene of McDonough and his daughter to the juniper tree that was saved by the crew, as a tribute for the brothers.

Only the brave is directed by Joseph Kosinski, whose work includes Tron: Legacy (2010) and Oblivion (2013), and is known for special effects and stunning visuals, however, Only the brave is his first feature based on true events, the color motifs used in the film is very astonishing. The landscapes are either green or gold, and the color palette is slowly desaturate towards the climax of the story, until red become the dominating color of the screen. The teal and orange look of the film create a maximum contrast to show the decision moment of the characters and it helps to build up the mood of heroic tragedy at the end. I used Davinci Resolve to extract the colors to demonstrate a range of colors from shadow, mid-tone and highlights.