World Trade Center

[gob]

 

'The greatest thing a film can do is leave itself room for choices to be available.'
'The choices of perception for dramatic purpose.'
What in the name of goat testes do you mean?
If you mean not spelling everything out for the audience then I don't think United 93 does at all, the audience is given glimpses of characters and their interactions, leaving us to fill in the gaps and imagine the rest. This is particularly affecting during the passengers' phone conversations to home.

'The edits don't completely dislodge the viewer from story like in Bourne Ultimatum, but they still aren't very good.' I think you mean Supremacy chief and the editing in that didn't bother me at all.

'Most films that are released nationally are more mature in realizing the larger canvas that a film can have for putting more into it.' You can't criticise United 93 for a lack of scope, it's a brave film to be made and rather more useful and thought-provoking than 90% of nationally released films.

'Its obvious audiences will fall for the story, but its more obvious there will be nothing meaningful to that story.' Nothing meaningful? I can't believe you really think that.

'It doesn't even challenge their perception of September 11th.' Around the time of September 11th the media created such a barrage about New York that, for me at least, Flight United 93 was just a plane that crashed in a field. The film rightfully brings home the importance of those on board that flight. It's not called September 11th, it's called United 93 - it does what it says on the tin.

I agree that United 93 has its flaws, for example, the cross-cutting between different air control rooms gets a bit much, but World Trade Centre despite being occasionally well crafted it trips up on more than a few occasions - visions of Jesus anyone?!

'World Trade Center also isn't very good. It at least tries to be a good film though.' How's that? Surely that suggests its self-conscious then?

I applaud you for trying to debunk any myth about United 93 as a perfect film but I'm not jumping on any bandwagon and I do think that some of the things you're saying are kind of like manure.

[Chest Rockwell]

You can say "shit" here,... but not when speaking to the Gold Trumpet. 

[Gold Trumpet]

gob,

most of what you said is just anger matched with a counter argument that barely goes above just restating your original thoughts.

'Its obvious audiences will fall for the story, but its more obvious there will be nothing meaningful to that story.' Nothing meaningful? I can't believe you really think that.

See, I'll explain myself here. Because the story is about a real life tragedy most people think just telling the story makes it meaningful. It does not. How would someone in the Middle East potentially view this film? I think they would argue with the point of view. While they could be compassionate for the passengers, I think they would be upset there wasn't a greater context to the terrorists or what happened on 9/11 or the responsibility of the United States.

The film tries to be solely based on the realism of what happened on United 93, but that story isn't interesting. Watching people anticipate their own death can be tense and emotional but its not interesting. For it to be meaningful there would have to be larger commentary. There would need to be a greater context. Meaning challenges your intelligence. When was it wrong to ask for a film to utilicize creative license? Whats left with United 93 is just hyper melodrama or propaganda.

[matt35mm]

How would someone in the Middle East potentially view this film? I think they would argue with the point of view. While they could be compassionate for the passengers, I think they would be upset there wasn't a greater context to the terrorists or what happened on 9/11 or the responsibility of the United States.

Hold on.  Now, I'm not saying that I know what people in the Middle East are thinking (there are likely widely varying points of view), but if you're going to say something like that, you should probably back it up with something.

Additionally, the "meaning" of the film comes when you as a viewer add context, not when the film presents it to you.  The non-terrorist passengers did not get a "wider context" than the terrorists did.  You never get to know any of them, what their lives were, or what their plans after the flight were.  You never know what anybody is thinking, or what their motivations are, except in the clearest of cases (such as when the passengers are fearing for their lives, and when they decide to take back the plane).

The film tries to be solely based on the realism of what happened on United 93, but that story isn't interesting. Watching people anticipate their own death can be tense and emotional but its not interesting. For it to be meaningful there would have to be larger commentary. There would need to be a greater context. Meaning challenges your intelligence. When was it wrong to ask for a film to utilicize creative license? Whats left with United 93 is just hyper melodrama or propaganda.

Here you are talking about story.  I don't think Paul Greengrass himself would say that the story of United 93 is chock full of interesting arcs, twists, and turns.  The film concentrates on the events of a few hours.  Again, the context is meant to be added by the viewer--YOU bring to it the idea of what it all means.  Greengrass, yes, just shows you how it all probably looked, and with a very small scope.  This is intentional.

However, it shows us that from two points of view that had not been seen until this movie--from the passengers' and from the air traffic control centers'.  Now, we don't know exactly what happened in the plane, but we do know exactly what happened in the air traffic control centers, and we even had the people who were there recreate it!  This is a point of view that is valuable and, I think, interesting.

And no, watching people anticipate their own death is not a large point of interest, but the switch from just going about their daily lives to anticipating their deaths is.  This, just on a human scale, has a massive context in our daily lives, our anticipations, our lack of knowing what's going to happen just around the corner that could change everything, and so forth.

So as for "there needs to be a greater context," there IS a greater context!  Of course there is a greater context.  I would think it extremely obvious that, yes, you were meant to connect what you just saw in this film with the rest of the events of 9/11 and the subsequent changes in the world.  We already have that information, for that was OUR experience of 9/11!  We saw the plane crashes on CNN, we saw Bush talk about it, we saw the "war on terror" begin, and we've seen it kind of flop around on its belly since.  Did we need to see this in the film?  Did it need "Young Americans" playing over the end credits with some photos flashing by for us?

This is partially why this film needed to be released within 5 years of 9/11/2001.  We, as an audience, had to be able to insert our experiences and knowledge of the historical, political, religious, and any other context into this film.  And, as such, this was a different film than perhaps any other, in that we could be shown a little and understand the rest, thereby seeing the massive, massive scope of this pretty short and quick event.  After all, it had all been done before I even woke up here in California.

As far as the criticizing of the filmmaking itself goes, I'm surprised you went for the editing instead of the shaky camera to point out that this film tries to keep you on edge.  The shaky camera can pretty much be stylistically explained as just the documentary approach, to make it feel like it's happening in front of you.  Additionally, it makes you uncomfortable and perhaps even queasy.  But that's all part of the style to, yes, make you feel on edge.  I don't think it has (or has to have) a reason beyond that.  With the editing (and I'd have to see the film again to really discuss this much further), I also think that the filmmakers have the right to utilize the cutting to keep the viewer on edge as well.  I could see the "unmotivated cut" as a stylistic choice as well.  I can't say much more because I haven't seen the film since it came out 5 or 6 months ago.

You chastise the film as melodrama, and yet, with...

The greatest thing a film can do is leave itself room for choices to be available. The choices of rhythm in editing. The choices of score and music. The choices of sound effects to co-inside with action. The choices of perception for dramatic purpose. Then the choice to switch up all those things during the film to evolve the story. So many more could be named.

... you're essentially asking for the film to be more dramatized.  But these elements are standard elements that are utilized even in soap operas or your average Sandra Bullock movie.  They're so standard that they might even be boring, really.  The filmmakers of United 93 did make choices, and carefully made ones, so your phrasing of the criticism is a bit silly.  Of course they made choices.  They didn't edit the film on a Dance Dance Revolution pad (although I guess that might give the film rhythm...).

It also seems to me like you have a formula-based approach to judging films, in that a film would have to hit this point, this point, this point, and this point in order to be fully successful.  But right there, you're asking the film to line up with what you have intended to view, and its failure to do so results in an unhappy GT.  I do appreciate your dissenting opinions, and it serves to make you a very valuable member of this forum, but I do often find your reviews to read like film student papers in that they're always reaching, or at least they give this impression.  For some reason, film professors seem to actually like this, but we're not film professors or even film scholars for the most part.  We're filmmakers and film fans.  Though this is not a plea for you to stop writing the way you do, and certainly you do stir up debate, which is almost always good.

I want my final point to be that I believe that there is nothing that cinema should be, or has to be in order to be a successful film.  I believe that film is SO young, such a baby art form, that holding current films to past films and the techniques that have been developed within them is perhaps an error.  I know that's scandalous for any film students to hear, because this is their bread and butter for thinking about film, but I think this limits the direction that film has to go in.  Now, it'll get to new and very, VERY different places just fine, I'm sure of that.  But holding current films to past films might slow things down.  My point of reference here is the history of other art forms--there is no art form that remains as it started (I actually still think of it as just getting started), and there's a good reason for that.  Usually its due to a person or two, or a movement, that completely changes everything.  Cinema has been blessed with a couple of these people and movements, but there are more to come, and I look forward to it.  Of course, this goes beyond United 93, which I am not arguing is one of these films to change everything.  But United 93 is a little different, in both its approach and its boldness to be the first to explicitly deal with the 9/11 deaths, but that alone doesn't mean it's good.  I think its daring to be different should be applauded AND debated, but comparing it with a sense of how films should be seems to be an erroneous way of going about that.  There is no way films should be made and there is no way that films should be.  They are what we make them, and what we make them out to be when we see them.  United 93 did manage to deeply affect many people, after all.

[Ravi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5306324.stm

Hollywood films 'worshipping war'

Director Oliver Stone has accused the Hollywood film industry of promoting the idea of the US at war.

He singled out Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down as films that "worshipped the machinery of war".

Stone was speaking at the Venice Film Festival, where his latest film World Trade Center will be screened.

Starring Nicolas Cage, it tells the story of two policemen who were pulled from the rubble of the Twin Towers after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The two officers, Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, joined Stone in Venice along with their two wives.

Vietnam films

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the screening, Stone said violence is a "cultural problem" for the US.

He said the late 1990s onwards saw a return of cinema which celebrated the idea of war - unlike his Vietnam films, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July.

"We watched movies that promoted the concept of war, that promoted shock and awe," Stone said.

"Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down - these movies worshipped the machinery of war and I think America went back to the concept of war too easily.

"I have reasons to be depressed as a Vietnam veteran, and I can say many Vietnam veterans are depressed about why we are in Iraq."

Stone said his World Trade Center film carried a message of hope.

"In the past I made very intense films, very powerful films about dark subjects," he said.

"I did Vietnam at a time when America was very prosperous and there was no war.

"Now is a time to go the other way - that's my nature - and I want to be positive.

He added: "Things have gotten very dark and frankly there is more terror, there is more death, there is more war. The consequences of 9/11 are far worse than the day itself.

"Somebody asked if it was too soon for this movie - I think in many ways it's too late. We have got to wake up."

[Chest Rockwell]

This guy's sense of grandeur is mind-boggling.

Plus, I don't think Black Hawk Down glorified war in any way.

[MacGuffin]

Oliver Stone wants to kill bin Laden with 'own hands'

Award-winning US filmmaker Oliver Stone, whose latest movie "World Trade Center" is based on the 9/11 attacks, has said he would like to kill Osama bin Laden "with my own hands" in an interview published in Portugal.

"I'm not a pacifist. If I could I would kill bin Laden and his group myself, with my own hands," he told weekly newspaper Expresso at the Venice Film Festival where his new movie had its premiere outside of North America.

"We have to develop a spirit of tolerance amongst ourselves, but not towards those who kill people indiscriminately," he added.

"World Trade Center", starring Nicolas Cage in the main role, tells the true story of two police officers trapped in the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York after they were hit by two hijacked passenger planes on Sepember 11, 2001.

Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden has claimed responsibility for 9/11 suicide airplane attacks against the US which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Stone, 59, has won three Oscars including best director for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July".

[Derek237]

I guess all that time on the set of U-Turn with Sean Penn had an effect on him.

[Gold Trumpet]

How would someone in the Middle East potentially view this film? I think they would argue with the point of view. While they could be compassionate for the passengers, I think they would be upset there wasn't a greater context to the terrorists or what happened on 9/11 or the responsibility of the United States.

Hold on.  Now, I'm not saying that I know what people in the Middle East are thinking (there are likely widely varying points of view), but if you're going to say something like that, you should probably back it up with something.

You honestly believe the portraits of the terrorists as are is a sufficent portrait for Middle Eastern people? True, the range of idealogy runs deep in the Middle East. Some most definitely disagree with the terrorists. Thing is, I believe, most people at least understand the angst in terrorism. The United States has shown hostility toward the Middle East for many years. People grew up to understanding the United States in a troubling context. United 93 does remain true to the available facts of that day. I just believe for the Middle East the meaning of 9/11 has a lot more context than it does for us. We remember the people who died. United 93 offers us a America-only vortex in showing the terrorists as malicious killers and the passengers as the great sufferers.

Of course to tell that story of the flight only would give that perception. So I think it was a mistake to tell it.

Additionally, the "meaning" of the film comes when you as a viewer add context, not when the film presents it to you.

That rationalization allows for any film to achieve higher meaning. The phone book can merit a dignified essay. Doesn't mean it should.

 

The non-terrorist passengers did not get a "wider context" than the terrorists did.  You never get to know any of them, what their lives were, or what their plans after the flight were.  You never know what anybody is thinking, or what their motivations are, except in the clearest of cases (such as when the passengers are fearing for their lives, and when they decide to take back the plane).

Thanks for critical help. I was limiting myself in my review.

Here you are talking about story.  I don't think Paul Greengrass himself would say that the story of United 93 is chock full of interesting arcs, twists, and turns.  The film concentrates on the events of a few hours.  Again, the context is meant to be added by the viewer--YOU bring to it the idea of what it all means.  Greengrass, yes, just shows you how it all probably looked, and with a very small scope.  This is intentional.

Of course, but lets look at the merit of this. He recreates the events of that flight for a visceral experience. He offers us a story that only gets more painful to watch as it goes along. The story is based on actual events. Does the recreation rise above our pain from that day? Or does the film directly benefit by clinging to a real tragedy? Take this film, put in a fictional scenario with fictional happenings and I think the film comes off as a mere ride in filmic realism only. Its because the film is only interested in the visceral experience of that flight and day is what truly limits it.

However, it shows us that from two points of view that had not been seen until this movie--from the passengers' and from the air traffic control centers'.  Now, we don't know exactly what happened in the plane, but we do know exactly what happened in the air traffic control centers, and we even had the people who were there recreate it!  This is a point of view that is valuable and, I think, interesting.

That seems like a fact finder curiosity only. I'm sure a writer will come along to put it all into context for those who thrive on books of non-fiction detail.

So as for "there needs to be a greater context," there IS a greater context!  Of course there is a greater context.  I would think it extremely obvious that, yes, you were meant to connect what you just saw in this film with the rest of the events of 9/11 and the subsequent changes in the world.  We already have that information, for that was OUR experience of 9/11!  We saw the plane crashes on CNN, we saw Bush talk about it, we saw the "war on terror" begin, and we've seen it kind of flop around on its belly since.  Did we need to see this in the film?  Did it need "Young Americans" playing over the end credits with some photos flashing by for us?

This is partially why this film needed to be released within 5 years of 9/11/2001.  We, as an audience, had to be able to insert our experiences and knowledge of the historical, political, religious, and any other context into this film.  And, as such, this was a different film than perhaps any other, in that we could be shown a little and understand the rest, thereby seeing the massive, massive scope of this pretty short and quick event.  After all, it had all been done before I even woke up here in California.

You're speaking outside the art of this film now. Personally, I have no clue how much this film will impact audiences. I'm sure many people will be hit because the intensity of the film is so high. How the masses react and how much I am asked to think about this film is two different matters. I think it is telling that the largest comment about this film and World Trade Center came from political pundits and commentators who were trying to gage the public reaction. I'm not really interested in that. This film stands with Passion of the Christ for largest reaction of the decade so far. The subjects of those films have more to do with why than the actual merits.

As far as the criticizing of the filmmaking itself goes, I'm surprised you went for the editing instead of the shaky camera to point out that this film tries to keep you on edge.  The shaky camera can pretty much be stylistically explained as just the documentary approach, to make it feel like it's happening in front of you.  Additionally, it makes you uncomfortable and perhaps even queasy.  But that's all part of the style to, yes, make you feel on edge.  I don't think it has (or has to have) a reason beyond that.  With the editing (and I'd have to see the film again to really discuss this much further), I also think that the filmmakers have the right to utilize the cutting to keep the viewer on edge as well.  I could see the "unmotivated cut" as a stylistic choice as well.  I can't say much more because I haven't seen the film since it came out 5 or 6 months ago.

Stylistic choice by an unmotivated cut? By that description the editing was fast, frequent and a free-for-all only. Dancer in the Dark had a similar chaos in its musical sequence that had little rythm or thought in its editing.

... you're essentially asking for the film to be more dramatized.  But these elements are standard elements that are utilized even in soap operas or your average Sandra Bullock movie.  They're so standard that they might even be boring, really.  The filmmakers of United 93 did make choices, and carefully made ones, so your phrasing of the criticism is a bit silly.  Of course they made choices.  They didn't edit the film on a Dance Dance Revolution pad (although I guess that might give the film rhythm...)

You misplace my comment. Asking for dramatic purpose does not mean I insist the film just demote itself. The visual energy of the film is a good start. It just shouldn't be the only thing the film has going for it. Plus, many visual and highly unique works are asked for justification in many more ways than you'd expect. Look at Underground Cinema. The movement does not exist to be a barrage of visuals only for the purpose to enthrall the viewer. Good criticism asks for many of those films to identify their intent, purpose and context. It all leads to finding higher meaning. That criticism also isn't looking for films that just replicate Hollywood either. They have their own identity of visual poetry.

If the films actually succeed is another matter.

It also seems to me like you have a formula-based approach to judging films, in that a film would have to hit this point, this point, this point, and this point in order to be fully successful.  But right there, you're asking the film to line up with what you have intended to view, and its failure to do so results in an unhappy GT.

A maligned way of trying to explain what is just my perception. Yes, I have a greater context to how I analyze films. It is determined by viewpoint but also by experience.

I'll give you a scenario to explain it. Look at the career of Alfred Hitchcock. He was a filmmaker of great importance from the 30s to the 60s. More importantly, he was a great filmmaker of importance during the height of the Hollywood era. He was seemingly an artist (as the auteur theory defined one early on) but he was also a very popular filmmaker. Looking back at the film industry when he went to Hollywood it is indeed rare that he was able to continually have a style permiate through out all of his films. Directors were truly men who were behind the scenes then. Yet all around the world there were directors of notable status. Those directors just didn't have their films showcased in every country the way an Alfred Hitchock film could. They also didn't make films of the same glamour Hitchcock was able to. Every film buff outside the United States had a fascination with Hollywood. Hollywood films were everywhere! Hitchcock became the first director to step outside the veil curtain of the Hollywood industry and become a star himself. He appeared in his own films and began to narrate his own trailers as well as host a TV show. After all of this, were his films really that good? No. Even during his most daring days he was taking on subjects Luis Bunuel had already shreaded and explored while Hitchcock could only offer as much of a wink to.

The problem was that many would be filmmakers saw themselves in the Hitchcock mold (or another Hollywood filmmaker) and wanted to make films that combined his technical flare to their own personality. The 1960s was dominated by a split of those who saw Hitchcock as top billing and then those who were interested in forwarding greater ideas in art cinema. Some tried to believe in both. In the end I think Hitchcock won out and genre became a respected form of study material for all the film schools that would pop up in the 70s and later on. Ambitious art films would only pop up here and there. They never were able to regain a sense of normal happening like they had in the 60s.

I don't believe in Hitchcock. I don't believe in his study for anything serious. Two of the most intelligent members on the board in Godardian and MacGuffin appreciate him. I just don't. That's my viewpoint. Nothing against them. I am just dissuaded more and more from going to grad school with how many new books on Hitchcock seem to pop up every year. Hans Jurgen Syberberg still remains an unkown in name and even scholarly print yet Hitchcock flourishes with films he made [small in joke] only once his wife approved of. I don't get it. My only interest to study Hitchcock and all other filmmakers who get too much press is to understand the objectives to the "why" better. That would be my biggest reason to go to grad film school. Until then (to answer the next quote), I am a throwaway opinion from the film school thought. I would be the Republican voice in a Liberal college if I ever became a professor. I do come from the avenue of criticism though that prides film as one art among many. I am trying to better learn all the arts so I can understand film in its greater context. I also want to understand it in its greater social context. That would include philosophy and politics and sociology. I also happen to be a Poli Sci major. Does this qualify my opinion any more than anyone else's? No. I'm just trying. That's all I can do. George Bernard Shaw once said the overnight successful critic starved away at failure for 20 years before he could get there. That's merely what I am doing.

So, to wrap up, I am exclusive to which films I take seriously. The general name is a highbrow attitude. I can look at a film and fault parts of it that are only rules of its genre. Literature was highly successful in tossing genre aside. Film just opened a bunch of schools and devoted study to it. I think the progression of film as an art is in the need to separate what makes money as (which is at best good entertainment) and what encourages higher thought. The evolution of film to create its own Ulysses is still many many hundreds of years away. I don't see United 93 as entertainment, but I don't like it either way. That's just a critical stance.

I do appreciate your dissenting opinions, and it serves to make you a very valuable member of this forum, but I do often find your reviews to read like film student papers in that they're always reaching, or at least they give this impression.  For some reason, film professors seem to actually like this, but we're not film professors or even film scholars for the most part.

Thank you, I guess? I dont know. I seem once again to be appreciated for the argument I may inspire (a thud these days) instead of the quality of anything I could say. Great. I've heard that before.

We're filmmakers and film fans.  Though this is not a plea for you to stop writing the way you do, and certainly you do stir up debate, which is almost always good.

You just underappreciated filmmakers. Once upon a time artists who created were original works were first critics and sometimes continued to be critics after they achieved their original goal. My original goal is the same as theirs. I want to be a filmmaker. I want to do everything everyone here wants to do. I'm nothing terribly unique. I just have scores of friends who were technical wizzes in filmmaking by the age of 19. I was not. Those friends also are obligious to serious reading or serious interest in critiquing. I am again not . See, I could be wrong, but I imagine picking up the reigns of handling the techie stuff is easier than handling the reigns of critiquing. I have done short films and have done a lot of writing that could be only for original film work. I actually think I am much better with that writing than I am with critiquing. I stay away from making films all the time. I know too many people who worship the latest and greatest camera. I could fall into that boat. I'm trying to learn other things. All in due time for techie genius, I guess.

I want my final point to be that I believe that there is nothing that cinema should be, or has to be in order to be a successful film.  I believe that film is SO young, such a baby art form, that holding current films to past films and the techniques that have been developed within them is perhaps an error.  I know that's scandalous for any film students to hear, because this is their bread and butter for thinking about film, but I think this limits the direction that film has to go in.  Now, it'll get to new and very, VERY different places just fine, I'm sure of that.  But holding current films to past films might slow things down.  My point of reference here is the history of other art forms--there is no art form that remains as it started (I actually still think of it as just getting started), and there's a good reason for that.  Usually its due to a person or two, or a movement, that completely changes everything.  Cinema has been blessed with a couple of these people and movements, but there are more to come, and I look forward to it.  Of course, this goes beyond United 93, which I am not arguing is one of these films to change everything.  But United 93 is a little different, in both its approach and its boldness to be the first to explicitly deal with the 9/11 deaths, but that alone doesn't mean it's good.  I think its daring to be different should be applauded AND debated, but comparing it with a sense of how films should be seems to be an erroneous way of going about that.  There is no way films should be made and there is no way that films should be.  They are what we make them, and what we make them out to be when we see them.  United 93 did manage to deeply affect many people, after all.

Wow, it feels like I got a great wrap up to a review I never read. You make me feel like I didn't take enough time in searching out the film. See, I could be wrong in my analyses, but they are at least analyses. You say that by referencing of other films I am slowing down the evolution of film? That's too simplistic! The thread for United 93 went by the wayside with "great" this and "best film" that. My original analysis focused on the evolution of the camera in making the film practical for wide release and I get this responce? C'mon!



Small point, nothing personal was meant. I'm glad I got this responce. It just charged me up so much that my responces came out this way. Enjoy.

[NEON MERCURY]

Oliver Stone wants to kill bin Laden with 'own hands'

Award-winning US filmmaker Oliver Stone, whose latest movie "World Trade Center" is based on the 9/11 attacks, has said he would like to kill Osama bin Laden "with my own hands" in an interview published in Portugal.

this  would make a great documentary...i'm thinking fear and loathing mixed w/apocalypse now....you would reunite stone w/a crew of his vietnam war budies and supply them w/acid....they would dig out their old uniforms, still stained w/vietnamese blood from the days of yore....they woulde all look like out of shape incredible hulks...they would meet at a bar and discuss on their attack plan...maybe catch up on lost times..and head out on their adventure...i do see some sort of ritualistic killing of bin laden..like chopping his head off and scraping out all bone and brain matter..and removal of the eyes....i think stone should cut off the balls of one of his war budies and replace the testicles w/ bin ladens eyes...then stone would wear bin ladens head as a mask on creep head first out of the water like douglas did...

[SiliasRuby]

this  would make a great documentary...i'm thinking fear and loathing mixed w/apocalypse now....you would reunite stone w/a crew of his vietnam war budies and supply them w/acid....they would dig out their old uniforms, still stained w/vietnamese blood from the days of yore....they woulde all look like out of shape incredible hulks...they would meet at a bar and discuss on their attack plan...maybe catch up on lost times..and head out on their adventure...i do see some sort of ritualistic killing of bin laden..like chopping his head off and scraping out all bone and brain matter..and removal of the eyes....i think stone should cut off the balls of one of his war budies and replace the testicles w/ bin ladens eyes...then stone would wear bin ladens head as a mask on creep head first out of the water like douglas did...

Sounds like a great dream. But don't you mean Martin Sheen?

[polkablues]

GT, I actually agree with a whole lot of what you wrote in your responses to matt35mm.  Especially in regard to context, which is a crucial discussion when reviewing both "United 93" and "WTC".  While both films are clearly made with good intentions at heart, neither has the ambition to actually tackle the problem of what their subject means.  It reminds me of the line from "State and Main" after Alec Baldwin flips his car; he crawls out, looks around, and says, "So that happened."  By limiting their scopes so intently, both of these films do little more than reassert the obvious -- "So that happened."

The two movies go about it in vey different ways: "United" goes for the "you are there" docu-drama approach, while "WTC" tackles the daunting cinematic task of pointing out that people can do heroic things, by gosh.  Both approaches are dodges, though.  If you focus on an aspect, you get to avoid examining the whole.  It won't be until someone is willing to take a crack at a larger view that we might actually have a great film come out of it.

[©brad]

GT, I actually agree with a whole lot of what you wrote in your responses to matt35mm.  Especially in regard to context, which is a crucial discussion when reviewing both "United 93" and "WTC".  While both films are clearly made with good intentions at heart, neither has the ambition to actually tackle the problem of what their subject means.  It reminds me of the line from "State and Main" after Alec Baldwin flips his car; he crawls out, looks around, and says, "So that happened."  By limiting their scopes so intently, both of these films do little more than reassert the obvious -- "So that happened."

The two movies go about it in vey different ways: "United" goes for the "you are there" docu-drama approach, while "WTC" tackles the daunting cinematic task of pointing out that people can do heroic things, by gosh.  Both approaches are dodges, though.  If you focus on an aspect, you get to avoid examining the whole.  It won't be until someone is willing to take a crack at a larger view that we might actually have a great film come out of it.

whoa, dodges? did we all see the same films here? i think both are powerful and brilliant because of their limited scopes. sometimes when you don't see something, it's more scary. it's more scary to think of what bush was doing (or not doing) during the attacks, or what the terrorists powers at be were really up to on that morning. and just because neither film examines the larger socio/political context via cutaways to the big players, bush and bin laden were without a doubt the stars of both movies. their "presence" was almost suffocating.

[polkablues]

Honestly, I just feel like both of these movies were the equivalent of a portrait of the deceased resting on the coffin at a funeral.  It's there for the purpose of flooding our hearts with the memories of that person, and to remind us of how sad it is that they're gone, but it doesn't let us in on who this person was, or what their life meant.

Both films were well-made, and both fulfilled what they set out to do.  Were I to look at the films with no preconceptions of what a film about 9/11 should be, I would have no qualms with either (well, maybe with WTC's penchant for cheese).  My problem is, I had those preconceptions.  But I'm realistic, I know it's only five years after the fact, and there's no way a major American film is going to be made in the next decade that truly makes the effort to understand the event, from a broader point-of-view than those who were in it at the moment that it happened.

[MacGuffin]

Stone weighing up second 9/11 movie
Source: Guardian Unlimited
 
Fresh from the success of his controversial World Trade Center, Oliver Stone plans to make a second film about the 9/11 attacks. The director revealed in a British Academy of Film and Television Arts lecture last night that the subject matter was too "huge" to cover in one film and that he uncovered countless other tales about the terrorist assault that he now wants to bring to the big screen.

"It [9/11] was huge. I think it's the basis of another film for me," Stone told the Bafta audience.

World Trade Center has been acclaimed in America for its rousing portrayal of two Port Authority police officers - Will Jimeno and John McClaughlin - who risked their lives to save others in the rubble of New York's Twin Towers in 2001. Others, however, have taken issue with the movie. Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw suggested that it was the worst film of the year, and that it plays fast and loose with the facts in suggesting a link between 9/11 and Iraq. Elsewhere, the film has been criticised for coming too soon after the tragedy.

However, the Oscar-winning director defended his decision to make the film, insisting it was important the tale was told while survivors were able to speak out. "There is no right time to do it," he said. "It should be done when people are ready to do it. Most drama is based on contemporary events. These guys are alive. We should grab the moment and tell it quick. Five years is as fast as it gets. We are not the media. It took Will [Jimeno] and John [McLaughlin] a year to recover and then they had to tell their stories. I became involved in year four and this is year five."

Comparing this film's history to his other work, he added, "It took me 18 years to make JFK, 25 years for Platoon and 30 for Nixon."

Stone admitted that the issues of the film meant that it had to be handled carefully. "It's a complicated landmine," he said. "We met with survivors, New Yorkers, firefighters' groups. It's a sensitive subject because people died. It could have blown up in our faces." He added that he wants his film to help New Yorkers reclaim 9/11, claiming that the tragedy has now been turned into a political issue. "The media lock on 9/11 must diminish because it has been made a political event," he inisted. "The reaction was political and we forget there was a physical impact."

The producers of the film are donating $1.3m (£683,000) to the September 11 memorial, keeping their promise to give 5% of the film's opening weekend box office receipts to help in its construction. World Trade Center opens in the UK on September 29.