For those who missed it, the filmmakers have authorized CBS to show the film a second time. 50 bucks says it will be repeated on 9/11/2002.
Hi, Elvis’s better half here. We watched together as a family. I had read descriptions of the site as a war zone, and nothing that has appeared on tv about Ground Zero ever conveyed that impression until last night. Apparently they have even more gruesome footage that wasn’t shown. I watched the towers collapse on a tv at work. It shocked me then because I had been to this place and now it wasn’t there anymore. It shocked me last night to come face to face with the death and destruction. I think it wasn’t shown soon enough. The film is an important piece of our history.
Martha
I had expected (and hoped for) a cinema verite, but in retrospect now, I see that that would have seemed weird. I liked it, and thought that nearly everything about it was in good taste and well done.
The bodies crashing — yes, that was poignant. I have to say that my favorite scene was when the brothers hugged, kissed, and cried together.
No. It was the World Trade Center. Capitalism is not evil.
No. Just you. That you would watch this and come away with “I’m angry at CBS for pointing out who paid for this” says more about you than it does about Nextel or CBS.
I did watch part of it, but had to stop because I was too upset. I didn’t think I could bear to hear the sound of the bodies hitting. The part I watched was interesting, well-done, and well-edited. I’m grateful that it was aired, even though it was too hard to watch.
What impressed me most was how calm, rational and professional most of the firemen remained. There was confusion and stunned disbelief on most of their faces, but I never saw any panic (which is, I’m ashamed to say, the reaction you’d have seen in ME, if I’d been there).
In this case, real courage meant keeping your head and doing the job you were trained to do. From the footage I saw, most firemen did just that, under the most horrifying imaginable circumstances.
For a change, the men being hailed as heroes lived up to the hype… even though they themselves seem to scoff at that tag, knowing how little real good they were able to do.
I’m with you, MSmith. In fact, the more I think about that sort of attitude, the more pissed off I get.
Nextel didn’t do any Pepsi type commercials or anything. In fact, the total air time for their sponsorship recognition for the whole two hours was, what, a minute or two? And the few intermissions were quiet, subdued, and respectful recognitions of public service officials and volunteers from all over America. It is astonishing that whiny brat neo-socialists cannot set aside their freedom bashing even in the face of such a somber occasion.
I don’t think they fully realized the magnitude of what was happening. If they knew what we knew (and in hindsight) it would have been a mad panic to get out of there.
I’d like to point out that temper tantrums and name calling belongs in the BBQ Pit, or maybe Great Debates, but not here.
I didn’t watch the show, because it was harrowing enough just to read the descriptions of what was included. But most of the reviews I’ve read have been complementary.
I think your verb should be plural, but I agree with you. No more references to “blatant corporate sponsorship” and other such tantrums, please.
i thought that it was very well done. the things that surprized/impressed me:
the probie on the ladder the night of sept 10th. seeing the towers lit up against the night sky… knowing what was coming… chilling.
the towers reflecting the morning light while the firemen were checking for the gas leak. then the one fireman looking up. wanting so badly to yell “get out now” and knowing you can’t.
the sound of people jumping. i had read about the triangle shirtwaist fire and how they jumped. when i heard on the news that people were jumping from wtc, i thought of tsf. hearing it was very chilling, i flinched right along with the fire fighters.
the pacing of father judge, the probie at the station, all of them in the lobby, wanting to act. being frustrated they can’t.
the calm and quiet inside and outside of the wtc. people weren’t screaming. how on earth are two women on fire not screaming??? when tower two collasped no yelling, screaming, just moving out.
the people who just walked out of the elevator with NO idea of what was going on.
seven wtc collasping. this was the first time i saw footage of that. unbelievable.
all through the film i kept thinking this is what vix saw when she went into work that day. zev was right there… and manhattan…
Of interest to some, perhaps - the recent Vanity Fair articles about
two very different 9/11 experiences. One is about “Lucky 7”, the firehouse covered by the brothers’ video shoot. The other article is about a station not as lucky, I believe that they lost close to 20
of their men that day.
I thought that the program was done with sensitivity and that whoever edited it should be proud of the job they did. It was a difficult story (obviously) to tell, and I think that overall the result will be something that changes all of us.
I thought it was so amazing… sad. Seeing pictures of the firemen in action rather than seeing the all to familiar pictures of the two towers from a distance was a new face to that terrible day. Now I can see how it effected them, how it was really hurting the firemen, before all I thought was that it was something that was disturbing for them to see… but the looks on their faces when they saw the terrible disaster showed me how it hurt them, truly hurt them, emotionally. It was just so sad.
I was just going to check the program out for a short while but watched the entire thing. Like many others here, I thought it was well done and very considerate. But that image of the fireman throwing up into what seemed to be a trash can really got to me. And now I wonder if it would have been possible to put something out to cushion the falls of the bodies that crashed down. I guess not due to the time and shock factors.
I didn’t watch most of it because I like being able to sleep at night. However, I did see the scene where they explained that they were preventing people from exiting via the main lobby because of the falling bodies (!)…and then you hear the loud BANG! that they were referring to, and, like everyone else, I was horrified.
It’s reminiscent of the Titanic. Because aside from being unbelievably tragic in and of itself because of the massive loss of life, it shares one horrific element: most of those poor people knew with certainty at some point that this would be the day that they going to die. And you can’t help thinking: what the hell would I have done? And then you wonder how the survivors are coping, knowing what we all know: that it was so hellish up there that people actually chose to jump from a quarter of a mile up in the air. Oh. my. God.
There was one shot of a man who may have been FDNY, or may have been a cop or building security, I’m not sure. Anyway, he was brusquely telling a bystander to “stop kicking that; it’s evidence,” meaning part of the first plane that had fallen on the sidewalk. For some reason, that grabbed me: the idea that for a brief pocket of time, emergency crews were still thinking in terms of walking away from a damaged building, and some citizens were gawking rather than panicking. Everyone was trying to deal with the situation at hand; no one could have predicted that it would become what it became. Made me remember sitting slack-jawed on my couch, thinking, “I wonder how long it will take to rebuild the upper floors?”
Someone posted here shortly after the fact, mourning his pregnant friend who died in the collapse. I thought of that when the one firefighter was talking slowly and evenly about retrieving the body of a pregnant woman, and not, after all, knowing if she got to be identified.
I’ve seen that photo of the gray-haired man being carried down the street numerous times. I didn’t know until last night, though, that he was already dead. I’d thought he was unconscious or in shock. I remember a report during the first week stating that there were relatively few wounded people treated that day. Most either got out with minor injuries, or they died.
I don’t even know why I’m saying all this…
Those rough, tough, and heroic firefighters laid the body of their chaplain on the altar of a nearby church, and ensured his death cert said 00001.
That’s what hit me, and it hit me hard.
Even more than the sound of the falling bodies.
Geez! I didn’t think I said anything that off the wall here. I am not “angry at CBS or Nextell”, I just think plugging the company was in poor taste. That is why I said, “it rubbed me the wrong way”. In other words, I am not sure what it was about it, but it just didn’t seem right to me.
How would you like it if some one video taped the death/ funeral of some one you loved and used it in a commercial?
You know all of those crashing sounds you heard were people dying? It just bothered me that someone would use those people’s deaths to help benefit themselves.
In my mind, it just took away from the whole “tribute” aspect of the video. I felt the same way shortly after 9/11. Billboards with American flags started popping up all over the place, but most of them had the logo of the corporation that decided to put the billboard up. To me it just seemed like “pseudo patriotism”. Nextell made this seem like a “pseudo tribute”. There was a hidden agenda behind it.
I think I would have even been fine with just seeing regular commercials. It was the whole “9/11” title screen with “brought to you by Nextell” written underneath. Like saying “We own this footage. Thanks to us you can hear people fall to their death.” It just seemed weird to me.
What struck me about the documentary, and pretty much nearly every popular cultural product to come out in the last sixth months (and even before then) is the incredibly heavy sense of irony permeating every word, gesture, and image. In “9/11,” as mentioned before, there was that stunning shot of the Towers behind the probie and the fireman, the filmmakers wanting some action they could put on video, the probie firefighter being a “white cloud” and his restlessness in the firehouse with nothing to do. I got a little choked up when one of the brothers related that a fireman told him something to the effect of “You came here with one brother; now you have 50.” I liked the focus on the firehouse; it displaced a lot of criticism that the documentary special was a prurient ratings grab and an exploitation of the 6 month anniversary and the deaths of all involved. I’m also glad that the filmmakers stayed away from the more gruesome and gory details; not simply out of respect but also, as one brother said in regard to the people burning in the lobby, he just couldn’t look at it.
Unfortunately, my imagination has already created images more horrifying than I might ever see on television or in the movies.
It wasn’t “Brought to you by Nextel.” It was “Presented with limited interruptions with Nextel.”
I think there’s a difference.