Telling it straight: United 93 Guardian Review

[lostexpectation]

The US media have reacted to the release of United 93 in the stupidest of terms. They don't understand the British tradition of documentary says John Patterson

Friday April 21, 2006 The Guardian

United 93 Runs against the 'fear of looking at unpalatable moments in history head-on.'

In the weeks before the release of United 93 in the US, there has been a steady drumbeat of partly justified, partly manufactured controversy about director Paul Greengrass's re-enactment of the events leading to the crash, in a Pennsylvania field, of United Airlines flight 93 on the morning of 9/11.

Inevitably, given America's story-hungry media, the impending release of the movie was covered in the stupidest of terms. Is it too early? (It's been five years.) What do the families think? (Greengrass secured the cooperation of them all.) Should the trailer be prefaced by warnings in case relatives of the 9/11 attacks might be in the audience? (One New York cinema has pulled the trailer.) Add to this the fact that Oliver Stone is also preparing his own - avowedly nonpolitical - 9/11 project, and you'd think that Greengrass was dancing merrily on the graves of Flight 93's dead.

I'm inclined to think a lot of the problem with United 93 comes from the American media's lack of familiarity with the essentially British quasi-documentary tradition that informs the film. Few in the US are familiar with Greengrass's works about Stephen Lawrence, Omagh or Bloody Sunday. Nor is the media much aware of Britain's rich tradition of film-making on the borderline between fiction and documentary.

Most of DU's reader have really leaped before the looked on this too, as I have had to constantly point out.

[TomPainesBones]

1. "Is it too early? (It's been five years.)"

No it hasn't.

[meegbear]

2. Link?

[CBHagman]

3. Here's one.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1757354,00.html

[CBHagman]

4. People are reacting to the film without seeing it...

...including, sad to say, here at DU. It's the same old story: Condemn a song (or appropriate it for political purposes) without knowing the lyrics. Make aspersions about the political views and/or motives of a filmmaker without seeing his/her work.

Here's a passage in the article I found especially noteworthy:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1757354,00.html

"I'm inclined to think a lot of the problem with United 93 comes from the American media's lack of familiarity with the essentially British quasi-documentary tradition that informs the film. Few in the US are familiar with Greengrass's works about Stephen Lawrence, Omagh or Bloody Sunday. Nor is the media much aware of Britain's rich tradition of film-making on the borderline between fiction and documentary. Remember that many of the great British docs of the first half of the past century - including Harry Watt's Night Mail, John Grierson's Drifters and Humphrey Jennings' Fires Were Started - were at least partly made on reconstructed studio sets. America has no equivalent to the work of Peter Watkins, which is almost Brechtian in its desire to expose the tricky mechanics of media presence at real or reconstructed events - or of Ken Loach, who sought to import documentary realism to maximise the impact of his political message in early TV works such as Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home.

"An American reconstruction of real events, usually in the form of a made-for-TV movie, will seek out 'characters' and ensure they are played by stars. British film-makers, such as Alan Clarke in Contact, will often strive to downplay dubious redeeming features or personal crises that might permit us to find points of identification within the drama. And certainly, as is the case in United 93, there will be no stars for us to root for: it's a thoroughly honourable way to equalise the characters and to let the drama breathe."

I happen to have seen Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday, a docudrama about the events of Derry on January 30th, 1972. The film was shot more or less in Dogma 95 style (no soundtrack, except for the closing credits; as near to natural light as possible, etc.) and simply gives one a fly-on-the-wall experience of observing the civil rights marchers, the police, political leaders, and others as they go about their business. It is harrowing at some moments.

I have the impression that some DUers expect Flight 93 to be a flag-waving, warmongering, Bush-supporting propaganda piece. I suspect they do not realize that Greengrass is British, and it's likely that they do not know his work.

[Tracer]

5. Why should there be any controversy at all ...

... over this film?

After all, there have already been two television documentaries on the same subject and I do not recall reading about or hearing any criticism of those two films.

[lostexpectation]

7. criticism because it ISN'T extreme rightwing propaganda

If we take 911 on without it destroying our world view then this film isn't blatent rightwing propaganda and that'll be the main purpose of it getting slated...

[lostexpectation]

6. Link

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1757354,00.html