A few interesting items gleaned from the blog of local movie critic Sean P. Means:
First, it seems that Captain Jack Sparrow and the good ship Black Pearl made a brief stop out at the Bonneville Salt Flats last week. An article in the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin breathlessly reports that a film crew was shooting scenes for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and that Utah’s governor had lunch with star Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski (the article misspells his name, of course, but then Tooele is a small town; the local journalists probably can’t get that IMDB doohickey on their old Underwoods). The article also goes into exhaustive detail about how the Transcript-Bulletin staff learned about all of this (they overheard the governor’s transportation arrangements on a police scanner) and how their reporter got booted from the set. But what I really loved was how the article’s writer seems to think there’s a big mystery about what connection Utah’s most landlocked and desolate corner could have with a story about ocean-going pirates. Um, your first clue might be in the rumored subtitle of the third Pirates film, At World’s End. Anyone who’s ever stood on the Flats, or even just driven past them on the way to Wendover, can guess what role those vast white plains might play in a story about the ends of the earth.
Moving right along, Means also clued me in to the news that Cinemark, the theater chain I worked for back in my usher-and-projectionist days, is gearing up to buy another chain, Century Theaters. And this is interesting how? Well, for one thing, I always like to hear what my old employers are up to, but the other, more important note is that, after this deal goes through, it will essentially leave the Salt Lake area with only two competing theater groups, Cinemark and the home-grown Megaplex chain owned by local gazillionaire Larry H. Miller. (You outside-Utah readers may remember his name from the Brokeback Mountain fiasco I wrote about a few months ago.) There are a handful of independent and smaller-chain houses around town, but all the major complexes will be owned by these two organizations now. That worries me, for all sorts of reasons. Even though I usually go to one of the Megaplexes, I like at least the concept of variety, and I quite like the new Century theater complex in Sandy. I also wonder if Cinemark isn’t setting itself up for failure in this market through over-saturation, like its old rival Cineplex Odeon did back in the early ’90s. We’ll see what happens, I guess.
Finally, Means has a few words about the new Oliver Stone movie, World Trade Center, and they’ve helped me clear up something in my own head. You may recall that I wasn’t interested in seeing this summer’s first 9/11-themed movie, United 93, and I never could quite articulate why. I now understand that I essentially had two problems with that film, neither of which were related to the timing of its release as I initially believed . One problem was that I really didn’t want to explore that horrific scenario; the passengers of U93 may have gone out as heroes, but they still all died in a shitty, hopeless fashion, and I didn’t see how any kind of positive emotion could come from experiencing their story any more vividly than I already have in my imagination. But more than that, the thing that I couldn’t quite bring myself to say when I was talking about the film, was that I was uncomfortable with the political baggage that I thought would be attached to it. I find the belligerent, Toby-Keith, “wave-the-flag-and-kick-some-ass” stuff extremely distasteful, and more than a little frightening. The true-life story of U93 easily lends itself that sort of reactionary screaming, and I just assumed that the film United 93 would fall into that vein as well. Frankly, I wasn’t interested in being beaten over the head with an ideological perspective I don’t agree with, which is something I get quite enough of just by living in Republican Utah.
(To be fair, I have since heard that United 93 was not at all political, and that it was uplifting in the same way as Schindler’s List, i.e., a grueling experience that makes you feel like a better person for having endured. But I still don’t want to see it. Glorious deaths are still deaths, and I’m more interested in stories of survival than lost causes.)
However, according to Means, Oliver Stone has done something different with his movie. For one thing, the events it covers are more in line with the traditional Hollywood disaster film in which a few people make it out alive, and the viewer feels uplifted by their rescue. But the thing that really piqued my interest was this:
Oliver Stone’s greatest achievement with this movie isn’t just in re-creating what happened that day. It’s that he has transcended politics to reclaim 9/11 for everybody, no matter how they vote.
That’s surprising, given Stone’s reputation for politicizing everything, and even heartening. 9/11 was, in my view, an opportunity squandered. It could’ve brought our nation and our peoples together in a way my generation has never experienced, and for a very brief time, it did. But it all too quickly became one more political weapon to use against those who didn’t want to march along in lockstep. Maybe one day we will be able to put all the events of the last few years into some kind of objective framework that rises above the partisan finger-pointing and name-calling, and maybe World Trade Center represents the first step toward that halcyon day. Will I see it? Maybe, maybe not. I’m thinking about that. But from what I know of the plot as well as what Means says about it rising above the muck, my curiosity is definitely piqued in a way that it never was for United 93…
This is fascinating in a somewhat morbid way. If you’ll recall, I felt compelled to see United 93 as a proxy for historical documentation, and yet, I feel no overwhelming need to see World Trade Center.
I wouldn’t dare recommend United 93 to anyone – doing so would be ultimately presumptuous, given that no one could possibly enjoy that movie, so it’s much more a personal choice about whether you want to see it or not. I will tell you, objectively speaking, that it doesn’t fall into either trap you mentioned above: it’s not at all political, and it has absolutely no flag-waving. It doesn’t even over-portray the passengers as heroes – it shows you what they (probably?) did, and let’s you reach that conclusion on your own. I’m glad I saw it and I thought it was well done. And to coin a phrase, that’s all I have to say about that.
World Trade Center, from what I’ve seen/read about it, seems like a fictional drama set during 9/11 and, as such, doesn’t strike me as being about 9/11 at all. If anything, the idea of using that day/event as a backdrop for a fictional drama still touches a nerve in me – it feels a little cheap & commercial. That said, next time we get a babysitter, I woudn’t shy away from seeing it, but if something more interesting was around, I wouldn’t feel bad missing it.
As for the politics of 9/11 and the “missed opportunity,” I’ll just say this: I think decades from now (and it will take decades to develop the necessary perspective), historians will document why the national unity we felt in those first few months dissipated and eventually spoiled so very, very badly. I’m not sure I can even guess, although I think modern day politics is a huge suspect. If I’m right, then those halcyon days you’re talking about are gone forever, because once it’s politically “safe” to tear up the other side, someone’s gonna do it. And no movie is going to make that go away…
Brian, I was hoping you’d comment on this; I figured you’d have an interesting perspective, and, as usual, you do.
I think you and I must have different psychological needs when it comes to this whole subject. The very thing that attracted you to United 93 is what kept me away, and vice versa in the case of World Trade Center. I wasn’t comfortable with the “proxy for historical documentation” approach (good phrase, by the way) taken by the former, but have no problem with the somewhat fictionalized approach taken by the Stone movie. (Although from what I’ve heard, it’s not nearly as fictionalized as you might expect.) It’s dangerous, of course, to comment on films I haven’t seen, but based on what I’ve heard, I don’t see Stone’s approach as cheap or commercial; he’s merely doing what artists do, which is to interpret events through their personal visions. The director of U93 chose to use a pseudo-documentary approach, but it seems to me that this was no less an interpretation, especially considering no one knows what really happened on that plane.
It’d be interesting if we could determine why we’re drawn to the opposite approaches… if it has something to do with the fact that you live so close to the real events while I have a couple thousand miles of buffer zone, or if there’s something else. Maybe it ultimately just comes down to an indefinable matter of taste?
As to whether WTC is “about 9/11,” I guess that depends on how you define that concept. Is a story of survival any less about 9/11 than one in which everyone dies? Or a story that focuses on only a couple of characters instead of a large group? Can you have a small, personal story about 9/11 that doesn’t address the motives behind the attacks or the political/historical events that occurred after them? I don’t know, just some ideas to chew over…
In any event, this is largely an intellectual exercise for me as I doubt I’ll see either of them. At this point in my life, I don’t have the stomach for it.
Finally, I’m not naive enough to think that any one (or two) movies is going to lance the boil of our current political mess. But the fact that both of these films are about an event that has become very politically charged and yet seem to avoid making political statements gives me hope that someday our society will be able to examine the events of recent years without the partisan filters and agendas. It probably will take decades, as you say, but my point was that these two films are important first steps in the process.
Is a story of survival any less about 9/11 than one in which everyone dies? Or a story that focuses on only a couple of characters instead of a large group? Can you have a small, personal story about 9/11 that doesn’t address the motives behind the attacks or the political/historical events that occurred after them?
Here’s the analogy in my mind: Was Titanic about the ship sinking, or about the love affair between Leonardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet? I would argue it’s much more the latter. And I thoroughly enjoyed that movie, although I think if I were on the Titanic when it sank (or perhaps the better analogy would have me on the Carpathia, witnessing the carnage without being an actual victim), I think I’d have seen it as using the disaster to setup a good piece of dramatic fiction. Now, to be fair, Cameron had the benefit of 80+ years between the event and the movie, so most people who had first hand knowledge had already passed on. Not so in the case of World Trade Center.
A good analogy, but I’d argue that Titanic was about both the sinking and the romance. Cameron used the one to more fully explore the other; because Jack and Rose were from two different socioeconomic classes and had to discover each other’s worlds, Cameron was free as a storyteller to roam the ship and its “culture” in a way that would have been much more complicated if his protagonists and his “A” plot had been something different.
I can’t say if Oliver Stone is attempting anything similar in World Trade Center without seeing the film, but it seems to me that you can often say more with a fictional story set against a real-life event than with a straight-forward documentary approach.
However, I’m curious about why you think WTC is any more fictionalized than U93 was. I’ve been under the impression that it is fairly accurate to the experience of the two firefighters played by Nic Cage and Michael Pena. Have you heard otherwise?
However, I’m curious about why you think WTC is any more fictionalized than U93 was. I’ve been under the impression that it is fairly accurate to the experience of the two firefighters played by Nic Cage and Michael Pena. Have you heard otherwise?
That’s a fair point. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that the firefighters’ story wasn’t accurate. Perhaps the proper word I’m looking for is “dramatized,” rather than “fictionalized.”
U93 had no character development, no side plot, no expository. We didn’t see the passengers getting dressed that morning, kissing their spouses goodbye, offering to pick up the dry cleaning, etc. Not that these things didn’t happen, they just weren’t relevant to this particular story.
WTC, on the other hand (and, I hasten to mention, I haven’t seen the movie) sounds more to me like a Titanic-style drama, painting these guys as heroes through the movie plot, rather than letting what happened that day tell the story. Maybe I’m being unfair…
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OK, see what you did? Now I’ve gotta go see the movie. Make sure Stone sends you your cut of my $9.50.
Sorry… 🙂