OC Weekly: You may not want to see United 93, but you should

[question everything]

OC Weekly
Film
Fear of Flying

You may not want to see United 93, but you should
By ROBERT WILONSKY
Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 1:00 am


United 93—which uses the hijacking of one plane on Sept. 11, 2001, to tell the story of what happened to all four aircraft seized that morning—may be the most wrenching, profound, and perfectly made movie nobody wants to see. There is no reason to think that multiplex hordes anxiously await the arrival of this bummer blockbuster. Too many have said so much insisting otherwise, to the point of forcing New York City theaters to pull an early trailer containing scenes of the World Trade Center towers with their gaping, smoke-spewing wounds. But they are unavoidable in the film: Images of the smoldering towers broadcast by CNN loom over the shoulders of military men and air-traffic controllers throughout, hovering like ghosts. United 93 wants you to do more than remember—it wants you to remember how you felt.

Universal, which is releasing the movie, and writer-director Paul Greengrass have said and done all the right things to placate those who accuse them of ripping at fresh wounds. They’ve emphasized the okay given by the families of those killed on that flight; Greengrass interviewed most of them at length, and talked to members of the 9/11 Commission and flight controllers who worked that day. They’ve promised to donate 10 percent of opening-week receipts to the Flight 93 National Memorial Fund. They’ve even cast in central roles real United pilots and flight attendants and some of the air-traffic controllers who were working that morning, bringing to this work of fiction a harrowing degree of verisimilitude that only ups the ante. Imagine reliving that morning over and over, take after torturous take, all for the sake of getting a bad thing just right.

Never mind that this moment has already been docudramatized for television, for the A&E Network’s overwrought Flight 93, the highest-rated show in its history. Those who will forever view United 93 as a case of too much way too soon cannot and will not be placated by sincere gestures. They are right to say that none of us needs to be told once more what happened that day; we’re reminded of it each time George W. Bush invokes the date to explain or excuse his actions since then. But that is precisely why United 93 needs to be seen: Even as a work of fiction, it wrests from politicians’ sweaty hands the cynical battle cry that date has become and shrinks Sept. 11 down to a human-sized tragedy. Those killed in the planes and in the towers and in the Pentagon are eulogized here—mourned over, cried for, at last considered.

(snip)


http://www.ocweekly.com/film/film/fear-of-flying/25028/

[godhatesrepublicans]

1. Yeah, sorry, I know the story, and they have nothing new to say.

It's the same reason I never paid to see THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, because I already knew the ending. This is just the Machine's latest attempt to whip the Sheeple into a panic. *yawn* When will they get a new tactic?

[question everything]

11. Perhaps I should have highlighted this paragraph

They are right to say that none of us needs to be told once more what happened that day; we’re reminded of it each time George W. Bush invokes the date to explain or excuse his actions since then. But that is precisely why United 93 needs to be seen: Even as a work of fiction, it wrests from politicians’ sweaty hands the cynical battle cry that date has become and shrinks Sept. 11 down to a human-sized tragedy.

(Having said this, I am still ambivalent about watching it..)

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. Perhaps 10% of that movie is truth...

90% is guesswork, supposition, fiction.

No Thanks.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. That is exactly why I won't see it. There is no possible way they can

know exactly what happened, and there is no way I want to be a part of reliving that tragedy.

[mrcheerful]

7. Saw an ad today about flight 93 the movie

The american heros that saved the white house. Funny how only the terrorists were the only ones who knew where they were headed and what their target was. We can only guees where they were headed and PA is not in the white house's back yard.

[treestar]

10. Exactly, and stupid people will be arguing about it as if it

did happen whatever way the movie says. So many who can't tell fiction from reality and live by their emotions alone.

[DanCa]

4. They've been exploited enough

Whats next the last days of Terri Shiavo (May she rest in peace). Shh I dont want to give Mel Gibson ideas.

[DesertRat]

5. I have no desire to see it

I go to the movies to escape and to be entertained. No thanks on this one.

[tyedyeto]

6. See this thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1036592

Was * on Flight 93?

[Zhade]

8. Why, so they can push lies on me?

Thanks, but no thanks.

And FUCK those who made the movie. Vultures.

[Greyhound]

9. But not one word about what a great film it is, sounds like plain old

exploitation. I'd like to see a great film made with this subject.

[question everything]

13. Actually, there is

but I posted it to highlight the view that this is not a Bush propaganda, about how he cynically have been manipulating this tragedy.

Here is more

Greengrass, who specializes in close-quarters thrills (The Bourne Supremacy) and real-life terror (Bloody Sunday), is a visceral filmmaker; you feel his stuff in your guts. But he does not stay aboard Flight 93 for the entirety of the movie: He cuts back and forth between various air-traffic control centers and military command posts, playing fly-on-the-wall doc-maker as he captures snippets of benign chitchats that turn into frantic, helpless wails as planes begin falling from the sky. United 93 makes irrelevant the in-the-works adaptation of the 9/11 Commission Report; Greengrass is as indignant toward panicked and absent government officials as he is respectful of the passengers aboard Flight 93. That, ultimately, is what makes thisthe perfect movie: You will feel something during every single second of it—dread, fear, anger, hate, hope, and most of all grief, which is all anyone can ask of an endeavor such as this.

[MadHound]

12. Sorry, but I get too much progaganda in my life already

I'm not about to go pay good money for more.

This is just fictionalized pabulum for the masses. It doesn't deal in the truth, in fact it is impossible for it to deal in the truth since we have no real clue as to what happened on board. This is simply another piece of propaganda, strangely timed to come out during an election year. Look for the DVD to go on sale in mid Oct., right before the mid-term elections.

[question everything]

14. Spellbinding 'United 93' Recounts Doomed Flight With Soul-Searing Intensit

Spellbinding 'United 93' Recounts Doomed Flight With Soul-Searing Intensity

In First Major Film on 9/11, Director Skillfully Sets the Right Tone; Star Turn for an FAA Official
By JOE MORGENSTERN
The Wall Street Journal
April 28, 2006; Page W1

Never has an audience brought to a motion picture what we bring to "United 93" -- a sense of dread caused by an open national wound. We are vulnerable to the formidable force of Paul Greengrass's documentary-style drama from its first quiet moments, in the dawn of September 11, 2001, and its first hushed words, spoken in Arabic by one of the hijackers: "It's time." Each of us will decide for ourselves whether it's time to see such a film, time to risk more pain against the possibility of some catharsis, or at least some useful vision of the events of that day. If the answer is yes, then this film is well worth the risk. It's an anguishing, literally spellbinding vision of what happened on the ground as the twin towers of the World Trade Center were struck, and in the cockpit and cabin of the airliner that was diverted, by a passenger revolt, from its flight path to the U.S. Capitol.

Actually "United 93" is two visions fused into one with so much skill that you're liable to forget how they differ. The first is firmly grounded in verified facts. Its intricate narrative starts slowly and simply, with a wrenching evocation of the sweet dailiness and affability of American life at the tag end of summer. Then the pace accelerates inexorably as air controllers, airline pilots and military personnel find themselves confronted by seemingly discrete anomalies that will soon coalesce into catastrophe.

The second, based on tantalizingly few facts -- cockpit voice recordings, frantic phone calls from passengers -- is speculative dramatization, staged and performed with soul-searing intensity. That's not to say that the speculations are illegitimate, but only to stress the importance of knowing what is up there before our eyes, since we may internalize it as our own vision of one part of that terrible day. Such is the power of great filmmaking to represent great events -- to say, with all but irresistible authority, This is the way it happened. (The film comes after two passes at the same subject on TV. I couldn't bring myself to watch either of them when they were broadcast. To be perfectly honest, I might have passed on seeing this movie were it not for the need to review it.)

(snip)

Yet "United 93" is more than a movie. For those who haven't perused the 9/11 commission report, and that includes most of us, Mr. Greengrass's film will serve as a teaching tool, just as "Saving Private Ryan" brought young Americans to a new awareness of World War II. The picture it paints is one of terrifying disorganization. Civilian controllers can't communicate with the military. The Air Force is unprepared, with no more than four interceptors ready to protect the Eastern seaboard, no authority to scramble them, no rules of engagement and no one at the highest reaches of government available to provide them with sufficient swiftness.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114617627110538025.html?mod=weekend_leisure_banner_right (subscription)