World Trade Center

[maggiethecat]

Good Lord. I stay offline for the better part of the afternoon, and miss some fascinating discussions. Too much to ponder all at once, but a few responses off the top of my head:

Something Bebe said early on, about wondering how veterans of WWII and Korea felt about the movies made of those events? Most of the good movies were made fifty years after the fact. The response from veterans is invariably positive, if, like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, the material is handled with truth and intelligence and dignity (and we're back to Spielberg). Lousy movies like Pearl Harbor come and go with minor impact and are soon forgotten. Let that be the fate of World Trade Center.

Which just underscores the sentiment so eloquently expressed this afternoon that Oliver Stone's movie has been made too soon. Wounds are still raw. We come across a documentary on TV by accident and still have to stop and watch those towers fall and we still can't quite believe it happened. That said, the families of the recently made movie about the flight that went down over Pennsylvania embraced it, so I'm sure Stone's movie will find supporters among those directly affected.

As for Fahrenheit 9/11, I think anyone who walks into a Michael Moore movie should know by now what they're in for. Politics aside, I would like to thank him for talking about the well-documented and longstanding relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. And I am ashamed, as an American, that our Commander in Chief heard the news on that terrible day and sat for seven minutes with a dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks expression on his face . . . and then fanned himself around the country for FOUR days until he managed to get to Ground Zero. Say what you will about the man, Clinton would have told his advisors to go to Hell and been there by sundown, sorting through rubble, hugging cops and firemen and "feeling their pain." My Commander in Chief that week was not Shrub -- it was Rudy Giuliani.

And five years later I still despise the way the Bush Administration oh-so-cleverly turned it around so that anyone who wasn't a paranoid Arab-bashing Conservative was somehow not a patriot. As a friend -- a New York Jewish left-wing Democrat psychiatrist -- said when he put a large American flag in front of his house a week after 9/11: "This flag belongs to Liberals, too."

If Oliver Stone opens this baby on September 11th -- and if Bushie-Pooh endorses it -- I will get out my bellbottoms and love beads, grab a picket sign, and hit the streets.

Mouse is right: the timing sucks. No to mention highly suspect. Oliver Stone hasn't had a hit in a decade. He's pandering . . . and I do not believe for one minute that he didn't know the PR firm he hired spearheaded the anti-Kerry "Swift Boat" campaign.

He'll probably make a fortune.

[bjobsessed]

bluedelft said:

I also can remember crying for days on end and wanting to turn off the TV but leaving it on and watching the scenes over and over again.

When we go to NY both my sister and I have mixed feelings about going to the memorial.

I was the same. I hated watching the scenes over and over again but I did anyway. I'm not sure why. I also remember hoping and praying that people would be found. Maybe that's one reason I kept watching. I didn't know anyone from the WTC but a family in my town lost a relative who worked there.

I think the reason I want to go to the memorial is to take a moment and pause to say thank you to all those who gave their lives in an effort to save others and to remember all those who were lost. I know you can do that anywhere and I have every year but there's something about being there that just makes it different.

Like most of you--and I'm not as closely affected as some--I'm just not ready to see a movie about this. I don't want to see anything sensationalized--and I don't know if it is but Hollywood is great at that--I just want to remember everyone with the respect and dignity they deserve.

[bluedelft]

bjobsessed said:

I was the same. I hated watching the scenes over and over again but I did anyway. I'm not sure why. I also remember hoping and praying that people would be found. Maybe that's one reason I kept watching. I didn't know anyone from the WTC but a family in my town lost a relative who worked there.

That's the same reason why we left the TV on too. Hoping and praying that someone would be found alive. I can remember going to do laundry a couple of days after 9/11 and watching the TV there.

Thought seriously about cancelling vacation plans to Williamsburg, VA in October. My sister and I went ahead with the plans and it was nice to forgot, but not totally, what had happened. For anyone who has been to Colonial Williamsburg and seen the fife and drum corps marching down the Duke of Gloucester Street you know that they do not carry a flag. That October they were marching down the street with a flag and when we saw it I can remember crying and someone coming up and asking why and explaining that seeing the flag, that is usually not seen, meant so much.

There was just a commercial for the movie. First time I've seen it but I have the feeling that we're all probably going to be seeing it quite a bit now.

[Eyphur]

There is no way I'm going to see this movie. I know if I saw it I would be sleeping with the lights on till I'm really old. I don't like movies involving dead people. Also, I think that it is still too soon. I don't think we should be making movies about September 11th for another 50 or so years maybe more.

So thats my 2 cents.

Totally off topic: This is my 300 post.

[bjobsessed]

bluedelft said:

There was just a commercial for the movie. First time I've seen it but I have the feeling that we're all probably going to be seeing it quite a bit now.

If you've only seen it once you're lucky. I've had the misfortune of seeing it about twenty times so far and I know this is just the beginning.

[maggiethecat]

eyphur said:

I don't like movies involving dead people.

Oh, Eyephur. Bless you for a genuine laugh. Seriously, sweetie, you made me giggle. If you don't like movies "involving dead people?" O good Lord . . . that is such a long list! (And congrats on those 300 posts!)

[hoosier]

Living in the midwest I ,of course, have no first hand knowledge of what went on that day nor did I know anyone personally who was affected though there were people from here working in both the WTC and the Pentagon. I remember being at the vet's office, hearing the girls there talking about a plane that hit the WTC. No one knew what was happening. They seemed to think it was just a random accident. Then I heard more on the car radio heading home and ran into the house to turn on the tv. It was very quiet here since all air traffic was halted except for the National Guard. To say the least it was very disturbing.

That said, I don't know if I can agree with it being too soon. They posed that question earlier this year in one of the Indianapolis newspapers and one teen wrote that he thought it would be a good idea to make some films so people woulnd't forget what happened. In a way, some people do seem to be getting rather blase about the whole thing--the relaxation of some procedures at the airports and such. I am not saying that they should dramatize it just to make a fast buck. I saw the film Flight 93 a few weeks ago and it was excellent. It was told matter of factly, it did not galmorize or politicize it and when it was over, you felt somewhat stunned, because you knew that the plane went down and all on board were killed but hearing the locals and the FBI wondering if the plane had somehow gone under the ground since they couldn't find it, the enormity of it really hit you. Now, if I would see the Stone film, I don't know. I have never been a huge fan of his having only seen Platoon and Alexander. I guess it will be a 'wait and see' thing.

[Katryna]

I have read all of your posts on this subject and have found them all quite interesting. I really am not an Oliver Stone fan either. Reading these posts has given me cause to re-live the events of that day also. I obviously was not affected directly like Barbara and those people who live and work in New York. However, in the area I live in - Eastern PA only 75 miles from NYC - there are many people who either knew someone directly affected by 911 or were one degree removed from it.

I was involved as a trainer assisting with a computer training class that day in our hospital library. We took a break and on the way to the lounge passed a room full of med/nursing students watching a TV. Curious, we poked our heads in just as they were showing the first tower collapse. I will never forget it. We spent the rest of the training session with the Librarian running in to tell us about the Pentagon, Flight 93, that "the country is under attack", that a state of emergency had been called in PA, and that our hospital was preparing to receive casualities should that be necessary. We were all devastated by the anticipated loss of life and frightened about what may come next. My personal concern was that my son was in the RI Air National Guard at the time, and since "the country was under attack" according to the Librarian - I was certain that he would be called up before the day was out!

I do agree with Hoosier that it is important that people do not forget what happened. We have to be reminded of it, some people more than others. Whether making a movie that will potentially allow someone to capitalize on this horrible event is the right way or not, I do not know. But we must not become complacent. Nor can we live in fear.

I am interested in hearing what Barbara has to say as someone living and working in the location that is probably at the top of the list as far as terrorist targets are concerned. Thinking back to our visit to NYC on May 6 and 7, which was the only weekend we actually used the subways; I don't recall seeing much security on the subways or the platforms. I felt safe and was having a great time, so I really didn't pay much attention to whether or not there may have been surveillance cameras, etc. Barbara - can you enlighten us?

[bjobsessed]

I do agree that we should never forget and I never will. Even though I am farther away than a lot of you, there is something about a disaster like that happening in your day and to your neighbour that makes it so much more real than something that happened before you were born. I'm not saying for one minute that those who died in the war are any less important or that I am not grateful for the sacrifices they made, but this is just a little more real because it happened kind of close to home. I just don't think a movie is the right way to go about reminding people not to forget--not now anyway.

[doobrah]

I with y'all that I, too, have no interest in seeing this movie. In fact, I turn my head every time the trailer comes on. I have been to NYC twice since 9/11, and have no interest an aversion to visiting the site.

Beyond that, one of our local Navy newspapers contacted me last week because they are doing commemorative issue on 9/11. OK.....

But they are looking for people at my hospital who were working at the Pentagon or NYC at the time and are willing to be interviewed about their recollections. Reluctantly, I said I'd ask around, after all it's my job. But every single person has had the same reaction: distasteful, morbid, too soon, don't want to go there.

And I hope that sums it up for the rest of the country and the movie bombs (sorry) at the box office.

[Deleted]

kathy said:

I am interested in hearing what Barbara has to say as someone living and working in the location that is probably at the top of the list as far as terrorist targets are concerned. Thinking back to our visit to NYC on May 6 and 7, which was the only weekend we actually used the subways; I don't recall seeing much security on the subways or the platforms. I felt safe and was having a great time, so I really didn't pay much attention to whether or not there may have been surveillance cameras, etc. Barbara - can you enlighten us?

Sure.

In some of the subway stations there are cops posted checking bags randomly - like duffle bags, shopping bags, etc. It hasn't happened to me, I only carry a handbag. When we're on "high alert" cops are everywhere. Some of the "target" buildings have cops posted around the clock - the Empire State Building, the old Pan Am Building, Grand Central, Penn Station, the Chrysler Building, the Paramount Building to name a few. Airport security? Hit or miss. Sometimes they check you, sometimes they don't. When Michael and I just recently went to Florida, we had to remove our shoes.

I think, living here all my life, I'm so used to expecting the unexpected that I'm numb to it. You just deal with it, there's really not much else that can be done. I took me about a week to get back to wanting to go into Manhattan for whatever reason - I did fear going in for a bit after that, but I knew I had to - I had to go to work, so I just did it. Then I finally took the attitude of "I won't let them win" and went back to what I normally do - jumping in and out of the city whenever I felt like.

[housemouse]

hoosier said:

That said, I don't know if I can agree with it being too soon.

I was thinking about why I think it might be too soon, and I came to a conclusion. I think it is because so many Americans are still living day to day with the affects of the attacks, even though five years have passed (can it really be five years? ). We still have soldiers in Afghanistan trying to find Bin Laden. We have detainees in Guantanamo Bay with no trial or release in sight. We have soldiers fighting and dying every single day in a war that we should never have started, but did start because Bush paraded out his "little black dress":* the 9/11 attacks. We still live with the results every single day.

I was thinking about this in the context of movies about Viet Nam. Saigon fell in 1975 (correct?), both The Deerhunter and Coming Home came out in 1978, three years later. But by then the soldiers were home, we didn't have anymore troops in harm's way. I think that is why we were ready for fictionalized stories about the war and ready to start processing what happened.

With this we still don't know how it is going to end, that is terrifying.

* Al Franken uses the expression "little black dress" to describe how Bush uses 9/11.

[Duchess of Lashes]

OOPS! Just realized that I managed to make the same mistake I did with my Doubt post! I put this in the wrong thread too - I wanted it in World Trade Center, not in the War thread so I moved it.

I held a piece of the cold metal from the structure of the World Trade Center in the palm of my hand and it moved me to tears. It was presented to a co-worker whose younger brother, Arthur Barry, was a New York City Fire Fighter with Ladder Company 15. Off duty on September 11th (actually on vacation), he caught an early ferry from Staten Island into the City and, as many did on hearing the news, traveled to his Fire House to be with his brothers - he died with them too, somewhere in the rubble of the first tower. (It is reported that because the fire truck had already left the station, Barry ran from the Station House to the World Trade Center.)

On that same day, the man who would become my co-worker stood at a window of our office building and watched the plane that would eventually slam into the Pentagon, come in fast and low over Northern Virginia, heading for its ultimate destination just a few miles away. At the time, he had no absolutely no idea just how drastically his life would change - none of us did.

I remember feeling horror, like I had never felt before - Oklahoma City scared me - September 11 horrified me. And in the five years since that day, nothing has calmed those fears. What is happening in the middle east is terrifying. We are caught in a war without resolution, we have played right into the hands of the Iranian government, we are still fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, we will undoubtedly be drawn into the battle lines that separate Israel and Lebanon. What price do we pay and why?

What used to be a feeling of safety, that those things happened half a world away, and we could watch it all from a distance, is suddenly of no security at all - it is all too close for comfort, brought far too close to home.

I did visit the World Trade Center site while in the City in January, and I walked in subdued silence, reading the tributes, moved by the memorials left there. It was a foggy, damp day, certainly befitting the mood invoked by that site. It wasn't morbid curiousity that brought me there, rather that two plus decades ago, I had stood on that same sidewalk as a high school sltudent and gazed upward in awe at those twin towers - they were vibrant and beautiful. (Anyone who is a native New Yorker could tell that we were tourists - we spent much of that visit looking skyward.)

When I first heard that Oliver Stone would direct a movie about September 11th, I was also certain it would be nothing more than another political statement, waving the righteousness of the red, white and blue. And, perhaps if this film had been made four years ago, rather than now, it might have been.

But, having read this article today, found at the link below, I was surprised to note that this is not at all what I thought it would be. And the director was not at all what I thought he would be. As noted by the authors, "This is not the 9/11 story most people would expect from Oliver Stone. There are no conspiracies lurking in the background. No axes to grind."

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14095532/site/newsweek/

And while I agree that this may not be the right time for a piece memoralizing the events of that day - there may never be a right time - I might just break down and see it, eventually. If what is written in this article is true, it would appear that what Oliver Stone has created is much more a tribute to the perseverance and determination of the human spirit.

[Deleted]

What you've said is so true, all of it. And how sorry I am about your co-worker's brother.

But I still can't support that film. That's just me. At least, for right now.

[maggiethecat]

Maybe we can't put World Trade Center in the same category as movies about Vietnam. Only those who served knew what it was like over there and so their stories needed to be told, even in a fictionalized context.

But nobody needs to be told -- or shown -- what happened on 9/11. We all saw it on CNN, repeatedly.