Hollywood Deals With 9/11 On Realistic And Human Terms

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2006)

It is unlikely that any film, documentary or otherwise, can depict the horrors of September 11, 2001 with the same kind of accuracy as those who were direct witness to the nightmare. But this year, Hollywood has shown a willingness to tackle 9/11 from a deeply human perspective, first through the TV film FLIGHT 93, then Paul Greengrass' excellent feature film UNITED 93, and now through director Oliver Stone's WORLD TRADE CENTER.
Stone, a native New Yorker, but also a polarizing figure of the cinema via his dark and controversial explorations of recent U.S. history and politics (PLATOON; JFK, etc.), has sought to focus on the true meaning of heroism by focusing in on Port Authority officers John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, who, along with their fellow Port Authority and NYC fire and police personnel, went into the World Trade Center towers to evacuate as many people as possible from there after the two jets were rammed into the buildings. The two men, however, nearly became a part of history right then and there when the towers crumbled. For twenty hours, both men were trapped under twenty thousand tons of steel and concrete, some twenty feet deep. They were the only Port Authority personnel who survived the destruction of the towers, and among only twenty people in all who got out in the end. Nearly 2,700 others weren't as lucky in the WTC puzzle of 9/11.
McLoughlin and Jimeno are portrayed superbly in WORLD TRADE CENTER by Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena, who accurately depict the professional blue-collar ethic of the Big Apple's finest and bravest. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello, respectively, portray Donna McLoughlin and Allison Jimeno, their wives who were on edge during the entire time of this apocalyptic crisis, wondering whether their husbands were going to make it out of there. Their stories, though individual, serve as a microcosm for the thousands of others there that day, both the dead and the survivors. This last point is something that Stone makes very clear: the kind of humanity in the face of so much inhumanity that day. It is something that has gotten lost in the intervening five years, in which opportunistic politicians have used 9/11 as a weapon to whip up false patriotism, scare tactics, and a bloody war in Iraq that had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks on America. Stone, however, stays away from the kind of political critique that was a hallmark of JFK and several of his other films, and shows us the kind of true heroism that the far-right has often accused Hollywood of deliberately avoiding, but which they themselves couldn't possibly manufacture even on their best day.
Along with FLIGHT 93 and UNITED 93, WORLD TRADE CENTER proves that Hollywood is ready to respond with a clear, realistic, and human look at one of this nation's darkest days. So too is the American public, and the world at large. The question now is: Are our politicians willing to do so without resorting to name-calling, pointless propaganda, and macho warmongering? That in and of itself will tell us a lot, and WORLD TRADE CENTER should add to the pressure to force that issue.