United 93 - The Movie

[Aggie87]

It may be a very well done movie, as tasteful as they could have made it, but I don't see the point yet. Why now?

Why not now? Seriously - and as i said i can certainly understand someone not wanting to see this - but how long should one wait? What is the appropriate amount of time?

I don't know.

I would think 20 years...maybe more. It's exploitation to me too...what other reason could there be to make this at this time?

[RDK]

I'm fascinated by the reasoning of those who feel it's "too soon." (And i know there's no correct answer, but nevertheless...) A general question (and not to get on anyone's case specifically about this), but why, when it comes to tragic events such as these, is it okay to have books and countless magazine articles written, tv shows and documentaries made, art projects produced, public discourse even... but movies - one of our greatest and most popular forms of artistic and cultural expression - are considered off-limits when it comes to tackling such difficult subject matter? -_-

[RDK]

It may be a very well done movie, as tasteful as they could have made it, but I don't see the point yet. Why now?

Why not now? Seriously - and as i said i can certainly understand someone not wanting to see this - but how long should one wait? What is the appropriate amount of time?

I don't know.

I would think 20 years...maybe more. It's exploitation to me too...what other reason could there be to make this at this time?

I find it interesting, too, that so many people who haven't seen the movie consider it to be exploitative; but just about everyone who has seen it - including the families of the victims - don't.

[GregK]

I find it interesting, too, that so many people who haven't seen the movie consider it to be exploitative; but just about everyone who has seen it - including the families of the victims - don't.

All of the families?

[relyles]

I find it interesting, too, that so many people who haven't seen the movie consider it to be exploitative; but just about everyone who has seen it - including the families of the victims - don't.

All of the families?

Not anyone in mine that I know about, but it is possible.

[Aggie87]

It may be a very well done movie, as tasteful as they could have made it, but I don't see the point yet. Why now?

Why not now? Seriously - and as i said i can certainly understand someone not wanting to see this - but how long should one wait? What is the appropriate amount of time?

I don't know.

I would think 20 years...maybe more. It's exploitation to me too...what other reason could there be to make this at this time?

I find it interesting, too, that so many people who haven't seen the movie consider it to be exploitative; but just about everyone who has seen it - including the families of the victims - don't.

Out of curiousity Ray, what was the motivation behind making this film at this time?

[RDK]

Out of curiousity Ray, what was the motivation behind making this film at this time?

While i work for Universal, i had no involvement with this film (for that you'll have to wait for Fast & Furious 3: Tokyo Drift, coming soon to a theater near you - yee haw! ). So I basically know only what i've read in the papers about it. It was produced and shot in England, by a British director and a British crew, with the intent to keep it as low-profile as possible. One of my colleagues did a lot of research on the actual incident - trascripts, interviews, etc. - and i know that the filmmakers tried to stick closely to the facts. I also know that Marketting has tried to be ultra-sensitive about it and that the studio is on record as saying that they essentially don't care if it makes any money or not. It was a very cheap production for a studio film - about $15M I'm told - and depending how cynical you are and who you want to believe the studio let Greengrass make it because we wanted him to direct another Bourne sequel for us. And while I know the stereotype of the money-grubbing motion picture studio exec is pretty well entrenched, I can tell you that not everyone at the studio was on board with making this as well - mostly concerned about the very things others are concerned with, like "why" and "why now?"

I'm not sure if i've answered your question, Erik, but if i had to guess i'd say that this is simply Paul Greengrass' "artistic statement" about the incident. It's no different from a journalist writing about it or a documentarian examining the event or a painter or sculpter doing what they do to tell a story, make a political statement, or seek some closure. It's just that Greengrass' "canvas" is a movie screen. That seems a bit pretentious, i know, but every once in a while someone in this business tries. I can tell you with great certainty, though, that this wasn't made to exploit the tragedy and simply make money; there are far easier and less controversial ways for Hollywood to do that.

[7/4]

That's nice, but I still don't want to see it.

[Jazzmoose]

I'm fascinated by the reasoning of those who feel it's "too soon." (And i know there's no correct answer, but nevertheless...) A general question (and not to get on anyone's case specifically about this), but why, when it comes to tragic events such as these, is it okay to have books and countless magazine articles written, tv shows and documentaries made, art projects produced, public discourse even... but movies - one of our greatest and most popular forms of artistic and cultural expression - are considered off-limits when it comes to tackling such difficult subject matter? -_-

Magazine articles, public discourse, etc. are fine. We all want to know "why", and usually turn to the media for answers.

As for tv shows, documentaries, books, etc., if you really want to lump this movie in with that stuff, well, then it must be shameless, disgusting exploitation pure and simple. That's certainly what those "first on the shelf" books that come flying out after any tragedy are. Personally, I don't put this movie in that category. But the event is so recent (the bigger the event, the longer it remains "recent".) that it still feels like exploitation. Toss in the fact that movies, by their very nature come across as fiction parading as fact, and it just doesn't seem right.

[Aggie87]

I appreciate the honest and straightforward response, Ray. For me it is too soon to watch a dramatization of what happened.

And I tend to agree with some of the other comments I've read here (and on the SH forum thread). A journalist who wrote about the events right after it happened wrote to inform the public - there was an immediate need to let people know what had happened. And books that are written after the fact as anaylsis or theory tend to be more serious, and for a much different audience than movies. IMO, movies are in the realm of entertainment for the general public, whether the director and producers wish to think their work is higher-minded or not. It's too soon for this topic to enter the realm of entertainment.

Edited April 29, 2006 by Aggie87

[Christiern]

Ray, I didn't have to see the movie to reach my conclusion that it is exploitative, because I think the very concept of making and releasing a semi-fictionalized film on this subject so soon conveys exploitation. Yes, I know that some of the families approved, but I have to tell you that seeing them on the red carpet, all dressed up and smiling for the cameras did not sit right with me.

I am sure that Paul Greengrass worked hard to make a film that wasn't tasteless (not easy, all things considered), but the very notion of making it seems tasteless to me. The moose brings up a good point when he mentions "first on the shelf" books that are rushed out and the author sent out to do the PR circuit. This isn't quite that bad (no real rush, here), but the PR has been heavy. If I ever see this picture, I may well conclude that it is well made and absorbing, but I don't think I can divorce my opinion from the circumstances that now make me take a dim view of the project.

I would find a straight-out documentary less offensive, but here we apparently have a scenario much of which can only be based upon conjecture. Also, I alluded to the patriotic aspect of this film; I don't know if Greengrass incorporates the "heroes who saved D.C." aspect that has so conveniently floated around since 9/11, but I think that is wishful thinking (spin, if you will) more than reality. The passengers were, understandably, trying to save themselves--had they taken action to avert another jet-as-missile attack, they could simply have worked to destroy (crash) the aircraft. I think that would have been too much to ask, so, again, I don't mean that as a criticism of the victims.

[ejp626]

This probably is a better movie than the one than Oliver Stone is working on, but I will pass on any and all fictional films about 9/11 or United 93 precisely because they are in the realm of entertainment. I was in Manhattan during 9/11 with clients that worked in the WTC, and I have no interest in watching fictional re-enactments, period.

[BruceH]

My initial reaction was that there was no way I was going to see this film. But I might see it.

[Alexander]

Despite the claims that Hollywood "exploits" tragedy, it's difficult to find real examples of movies that "exploited" national traumas. I mean, do people think that "From Here to Eternity" was made "too soon" after the events of Pearl Harbor? Was Oliver Stone's "JFK" meant to "exploit" the Kennedy Assassination? Was "Apocalypse Now" just an attempt to "cash in" on Vietnam? Did "Schindler's List" "exploit" the Holocaust? How about "Munich"? Or "Judgement at Nuremberg"?

If anything, Hollywood has been quite sensitive (or cowardly, depending on how you look at it) about approaching these kinds of tragedies, often waiting years if not DECADES before dealing with them on screen. Human beings have ALWAYS dealt with disaster through art. How many magazines plastered the image of the burning towers on their cover the week after 9/11? THAT was exploitation. They were hoping to sell magazines because at the time people would buy ANYTHING even remotely connected to the events of that day. Making a movie that deals honestly with the events of that day isn't exploitation. It's art. And art is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It SHOULD make you feel uncomfortable. It's MEANT to. It's supposed to make you confront your feelings about that day. To rip open the wound, but at the same time help it heal all the better for it. It's not exploitive to remember that the passengers on that plane were ordinary men and women, just like you and me, which is what the film is meant to convey (according both to the filmmakers and to the critics who reviewed it). So go see it. Squirm in your seat as you remember watching the towers fall on TV. But remember that you live to remember precisely BECAUSE you watched it all on TV. The people on that plane weren't so lucky.

[7/4]

My initial reaction was that there was no way I was going to see this film. But I might see it.

I might watch it on a broadcast channel between 1 and 5 am in 20 years.

[RDK]

Good post, Alexander; I agree very much with it. I really think you'll appreciate the film.

I didn't start this thread so much to pimp the film as to guage the reaction to it - both to the film itself and, i suppose, to the very existence of the film. Frankly, two weeks ago i was just as skeptical about it as most of you are now. As i said, i don't want to urge anyone to see it who doesn't want to see it or simply isn't ready yet to see it - it's a very personal decision in that regard - but for those on the fence i think it's a worthwhile experience.

I'm also finding rather fascinating - not just from comments here but elsewhere as well - the idea that the film is coming "too soon." How much time should one wait in making a movie, drawing a picture, writing a book/poem/etc. about a tragic event before it stops being "exploitative?" I'll disagree with Alex in that i don't consider the photos on the cover of magazines published a week after 9/11 to be "exploitative" - I think they were valid and newsworthy - but his remark does point out just how fine a line there can be on the issue. Sure, the pics no doubt helped the magazines sell more copies, but i don't believe that that's why they featured them.

[BruceH]

Personally, I don't consider a movie made 4 1/2 years after the event to be overly quick off the starting line, so to speak.

[medjuck]

I try not to read film reviews but it's been difficult to avoid reviews of this. (Besides it's not like they could give the plot away.) Virtually everything I've read or heard says this is a great film. Never-the-less I'll probably not see it right away just because I'm too chicken to put myself through the emotions I expect it will evoke if it is as good as they say.

BTW it was the 3rd highest grossing film last night with the highest per-screen average.

[GregK]

Personally, I don't consider a movie made 4 1/2 years after the event to be overly quick off the starting line, so to speak.

But isn't it the first big-studio-movie made about it? Besides the A&E and History channel movies, that is.

[David Ayers]

Exploitative and in bad taste. What does it mean to make a commercial aesthetic object out of a massacre? An attempt to legitimate the movie genre as such by finding a content that seems to ground the two modes movie makers peddle most assiduously: pathos and destruction. Selling people the pathos of their own destruction? Is this the movie they are showing at the end of Gravity's Rainbow? Follow the bouncing ball...

[Alexander]

Exploitative and in bad taste. What does it mean to make a commercial aesthetic object out of a massacre?

So I take it that you didn't see "The Killing Fields" or "Schindler's List"? How is this film any different?

Less than a year after 9/11, cartoonist Art Speigleman ran a full page monthy comic strip about his recollection of the event called "In the Shadow of No Towers." Was that "exploitative and in bad taste" too? I mean, my God, a COMIC STRIP? On 9/11? And yet it works.

I would also make the argument that nobody OWNS an event such as this, and that nobody really has the right to decide how best to honor the dead...

[gdogus]

I'm gonna pass, though not from any sense of righteous indignation. I just have no desire to see the film.

[Big Wheel]

Exploitative and in bad taste. What does it mean to make a commercial aesthetic object out of a massacre?

So I take it that you didn't see "The Killing Fields" or "Schindler's List"? How is this film any different?

Less than a year after 9/11, cartoonist Art Speigleman ran a full page monthy comic strip about his recollection of the event called "In the Shadow of No Towers." Was that "exploitative and in bad taste" too? I mean, my God, a COMIC STRIP? On 9/11? And yet it works.

Not very good comparisons, IMO. I admit to not having seen "The Killing Fields,", but it's not like it was made by and for Cambodians. "The Killing Fields" from what I understand of it is a wake-up call to the West, a reminder that these kinds of atrocities happen in the world even as our media ignores them and we sleep soundly at night. I think it's pretty clear that "Flight 93" can't claim that about itself. "Schindler's List" to me isn't a movie about a massacre so much as it's a portrait of a man who did something exceptional in the midst of one. I suppose you can argue that "Flight 93" is no different in this regard, but to me it's the difference between people with nothing to lose and a person who had everything to lose. Not saying that both weren't heroic, just that depictions of the first have a lot higher artistic bar to clear in my mind than depictions of the second.

And there's a pretty significant difference between films and comic books. You read a graphic novel (or just a regular novel, for that matter) and it's obvious that it's an artistic rendering of reality, like a painting. Films by their nature are so much more vivid that the line between artist and event gets much more blurred. The more realistic the art form, the closer things like this can seem to disaster porn.

Edited April 29, 2006 by Big Wheel

[Christiern]

It just so happens that A&E is running a fictionalized Flight 93 film. It is probably very different in approach from the one in question here, but the story is the same. Suddenly, the screams and tense atmosphere created by the film gives way to a commercial: Why would you want an ED tablet that lasts 4 hours when life is full of interruptions?"

Nice, huh? Exploitation? You bet!

[patricia]

It just so happens that A&E is running a fictionalized Flight 93 film. It is probably very different in approach from the one in question here, but the story is the same. Suddenly, the screams and tense atmosphere created by the film gives way to a commercial: Why would you want an ED tablet that lasts 4 hours when life is full of interruptions?"

Nice, huh? Exploitation? You bet!

I'm watching the same film on A&E that you are Chris and the same thing occurred to me.

I'm torn between two emotions about films made about this incident. On the one hand, it's usual that catastrophic events like this are made into films.

On the other hand, I can't help thinking that 9/11 has been mentioned daily for the last five years, re-enforcing the fear of terrorism, just in case we have forgotten. These films may very well revitalize the impression that the Bush Administration is the only thing that stands between us and terrorists like these.

So, I don't know how I should feel. It's not about how soon. It's more about why?

Edited April 30, 2006 by patricia