The Day the Earth Stood Still

 

You hardly need another reminder that last Saturday was the 20th anniversary of a the day the earth stood still. It's a day we all wish had never happened ... but it did, and here we are two decades later, in a world still suffering the aftermath of 9/11. In the run-up to the anniversary, every form of print, audio, and visual media reviewed the events and ramifications of that day, from the intensely personal to the international. It'll take a lot more than twenty years for those wounds to heal, and in some ways, they never will. As individuals and a country, we can get around this immense tragedy -- for the survivors, life does go on -- but we don't ever really get over it. The sense of loss and pain is always there, but 9/11 goes even deeper than that, bending and shaping our country and the international community in ways we might never fully grasp. It united us like no time since since Pearl Harbor, but twenty years later Americans are at other's throats, with some some grimly muttering about a second Civil War.  

How the fuck did it come to this?

Lots of reasons, I suspect, but I'm not one of those giant-brained Ivy League media analysts who earn a living telling us the why and how, so don't look for explanations to an ex-juicer who got paid to lift heavy objects for a living. Besides, my role here isn't to discuss domestic or global politics -- that's way over my pay grade -- but life below decks in the film and television industry, which is one of the few subjects I know something about. Still, the media made an effort to shine light on the events and ramifications of that day, and some of those are worth your time.

PBS ran an excellent two hour Frontline documentary dissecting the political, geopolitical, and cultural aftershocks of 9/11, a sobering film dissecting our collective reaction to 9/11, and how that  led to rivers of blood throughout the Middle East, and exacerbated a divide in our country that now feels like the Grand Canyon. It's not fun to watch, but you'll learn something. 

Another worthy film is 9/11, a documentary made by two French brothers who set out to document the life of a young NYFD recruit who was still in his probationary period. As they were filming that day, the first plane hit and the fire company responded -- and at that point their film took a very different direction. This is modern cinéma vérité at its best, recording the horror as it unfolded that day -- but be warned: watching it is a shattering experience.  It's very real and very rough, but nothing else I've seen will take you into the experience of that day quite like this film. For those of us who watched the events of 9/11 unfold on television from afar, it's useful to understand what it was really like for the first responders and their families, who paid -- and continue to pay -- such a brutal price.

I waited almost fifteen years to watch Flight 93, a docudrama by Paul Greenglass about the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, who were the first to fight back against the terrorists of 9/11, and in so doing, made the ultimate sacrifice to save our country from more death and destruction.** The stories of first responders that day represent the noble tragedy of professionals dying while trying to do an impossible job -- true heroes by any definition -- but I don't know a word to adequately describe the actions of the passengers on Flight 93, who took just ten minutes to make a decision that would send them and the terrorists on that plane into eternity in the woods near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I'd heard that Flight 93 was an excellent film, but just wasn't ready to watch until recently, when it finally rose to the top of my Netflix queue earlier this year.*  It's very well done, with no "Hollywood" bullshit, portraying real people going about an ordinary day that suddenly turns upside-down, at which point they must confront -- and make -- the most important decision of their lives.  We know what happens, but still the tension is palpable. It's a gritty story wonderfully told, but again, it delivers a powerful and  emotional gut-punch, so be ready.   

It hurts to revisit that day, but that's not a good excuse. From my perspective, we owe it to those who died twenty years ago -- and to their families -- to remember and honor their sacrifice. 

It's the least we can do.

* Yes, I still watch DVDs -- so sue me.  I stream too, but old habits (and old people) die hard...

** Not to be confused with another film called Flight 93, directed by Peter Markle, which I haven't seen and can't comment on.