I mean we have had movies about Titanic, Pearl harhour, World War I, World War II, would a movie about the world trade centers be on the distant horizon?
what do u think?
Only if we get OBL and all his terrorist cronies.
Interesting timing of this thread. I recently responded to an e-mail posing this very question. There was another question that asked if “Titanic” could be considered the model for such a movie.
Since I’m the author of this e-mail, I don’t see any problems with reproducing its contents here:
Although I did not “hate” Titanic, I don’t think that it was a cinematic masterpiece either. The actual question asked was: “Does ‘Titanic’ provide us the proper model for preserving a cultural record of a historic tragedy?” I would say no. The sinking of Titanic served as the backdrop for a love triangle. While the recreation of the Titanic’s sinking was impressive from a movie-making perspective, the movie’s characters were not terribly compelling nor believable.
But the question posed is still a valid one? Could the WTC tragedy ever be conceivably be considered as a Hollywood project? While I would not put it past any Hollywood exec to consider the idea, I do think that if it were to happen, it would be many years before such a project would be undertaken.
I’m sure the same question was once posed about the Holocaust, which I still regard as one of the most evil acts in all of human history, and certainly one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. Could a movie ever have been made about such a monstrous subject without glamorizing or sensationalizing the material? While there were a number of movies about World War Two, even some that were produced while the war was still ongoing, my current understanding is that relatively few movies prior to the 1970s even mentioned the Holocaust, and even fewer actually recreated the life and death within the concentration camps. Even with the release of “Schindler’s List”, I still don’t think there has ever been a dramatic movie made that encapsulated the Holocaust as a whole. Spielberg’s movie only enacted a relatively small portion of it, but it was a critical portion that contained a powerful message: the ability of one person’s efforts to save the lives of thousands. The Holocaust is simply too big, too vast, and I would say too painful a subject for any movie to contain. A documentary called “Shoah” perhaps comes the closest, but its prohibitive length (I understand it exceeds 8 or 9 hours in length) has likely affected its chances of being seen by a wide audience.
Several years ago there was a television movie that focused on the lives of the astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion. Never in that movie was the actual event of the explosion recreated or shown. The American Civil War, which was unquestionably the greatest calamity this country suffered during the 19th Century, has been fodder for countless television and cinematic productions. So has the the issue of slavery, prejudice, and racism. The release of “Pearl Harbor” earlier this year demonstrates Hollywood’s lack of reluctance to bring the most tragic events in recent history to the big screen, and like “Titanic”, uses the tragedy of the Pearl Harbor attack as the backdrop for a love triangle story.
But the problem with adapting historical events to the format of a movie is that compromises are often made. No other recent movie has stronger evidence for this than “Pearl Harbor”, which tried to virtually absolve Japan of any guilt or complicity in the attack which cost the lives of more than 2400 American soldiers. The movie portrayed the Japanese as reluctant warriors; in reality, they were anything but reluctant. Its portrayal of particular historical figures was laughable in the extreme. The real FDR never would have behaved the way he did in particular scenes; nor is it proven that the Japanese general ever actually uttered the famous line about awaking the sleeping giant. And the portrayal of Doolittle was so cornball and overblown that if the actual man was still alive to see it today, he would not have survived the experience. The character that Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrayed was based on an actual person. The movie shows him receiving a medal at the end (I believe it was the Congressional Medal of Honor), but in reality the only medals bestowed on him were posthumous. The racism that still infested the military at that time prevented him from getting the recognition he deserved. That the Pearl Harbor attack sequence (which was, admittedly, an impressive spectacle) was framed by a love triangle story that was painfully predictable, poorly acted, and abysmally written, made the movie even worse. “Pearl Harbor” was a deliberate and contemptible distortion of history, watered down in the name of political correctness, forsaking historical accuracy in the hopes of achieving a wider reception at the box office. “Pearl Harbor” was history as a cinematic comic book. When it comes to entertainment, Hollywood is capable of delivering a good product. But when it comes to history, the average Hollywood production will be an utter and abject failure.
Which brings me to the next question posed: “Would we hope to see something like “Titanic” to teach our descendants about September 11th, 2001?”
No. Children should not learn history from the movies. They should learn history from their families and from the schools, so that they will be able to discern fact from distortion when they see it portrayed on film. The cinematic depiction of history should never been seen as the final arbiter of past events. Unfortunately, too many people, particularly schoolchildren, grow up believing the movie’s versions of the events as fact.
Another thing. The movies may help give us an understanding of what it must have been like to witness these events, but they will always fail at giving us an understanding of what it must have been like to have actually lived through these events. Even while watching “Schindler’s List”, I still knew that I was safe in America more than fifty years removed from the events being depicted. I knew that I had never directly experienced the evil being enacted. Watching “Saving Private Ryan” helped give me a greater understanding of the horror the Allied forces endured in the Normandy invasion, but it never made me fear for my own personal safety, never made me wonder if I would be alive to see the end of the story. The same goes for “Titanic” and the quasi-historical “Pearl Harbor.” No matter how realistic the recreation, no matter how accurate the details, a movie will still never match the awful realities portrayed.
There is one thing about the WTC tragedy that distinguishes it above the other cinematic movies that I have mentioned so far in this e-mail. This was an event that was captured on live television. I myself watched the second plane hit on live TV, and I will never forget the astonishment and horror that I experienced at that moment. I watched on live TV the first tower fall. We all saw later the footage from multiple angles the planes slamming into the towers, and the graphic destruction that followed. There was no live coverage of Pearl Harbor as it happened, nor was there live coverage of D-Day, although film cameras were present at both events, recording the action in black and white images, sometimes grainy and indistinct. Movie cameras were still in their infancy at the time of “Titanic”; television did not even exist. But on September 11, the cameras of more than a half dozen networks and the amateur videos of numerous citizens captured everything in all of its detail.
What then, would the purpose of a cinematic recreation of these events? We have already seen it. We have all the detail we would ever want to experience. There is no need for a movie to help us or future generations imagine what the attack was like. The footage of the actual event is testimony enough to the event. No movie can possibly hope to fully recreate the full scale of devastation. The real thing will always trump the artificial when it comes to this story.
What would be proper is a well-crafted documentary that will chronicle these events, with all of the relevant footage included. But the footage should only be part of the documentary. The documentary would need to include the human stories as well. You would not need Leonardo di Caprio or Tom Hanks. The people who witnessed the attack, and who suffered from its effects, will be all that the documentary will need.
I wouldn’t say it was possible, I’d say it was inevitable…
I would imagine that Jerry Bruckenheimer, or whatever his sleazy name is, already has a first draft written.
I predict it opening xmas of 2002.
Lucifer, you took the words (exact quote, actually) out of my mouth.
They’re planning a movie about Elian Gonzales. Of course there’ll be one about this.
There’s already a book out, so I’m sure the movie will follow. Although maybe not for a few years, and most definitely not framed by a “love” story (although I wouldn’t put that past some people).
There’s already a book out, so I’m sure the movie will follow. Although maybe not for a few years, and most definitely not framed by a “love” story (although I wouldn’t put that past some people).
I think you chose the wrong movies for your examples. Tora! Tora! Tora! was a fantastic movie about the Pearl Harbor events, and strove to be historically accurate, as well as entertaining. It succeeded on all counts.
Midway was, of course, about the Battle of Midway Island. It was also mostly historically accurate and a very good movie. There were also several movies about the Titanic that were much better treatments than the James Cameron piece of dreck.
Anyway, I think there absolutely will be a movie or movies about the WTC, and I further think the only question at hand is whether it will be the “Pearl Harbor” approach, where the object is to put asses in seats, or the “Tora! Tora! Tora!” approach, where the object is accuracy and attention to detail. Given the past ten years of movie making, I think (sadly) that it will be more akin to the former.
Possible? I would bet every nickel I have now and every nickel I will ever have.
The multi-nickel question is: When?
My guess is that it won’t be within 5 years. Maybe not 10.
stoid
I am willing to bet my nickel that there will be a made-for-television movie by this time next year (probably by spring, in fact) and a feature film about it in 2003.
Of course the plot lines will be either a love story or murder mystery with the WTC disaster as a back drop.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa. While I would be the first to agree that some schlub is pounding on his Dell the first of a series of screenplays, this is a project that no producer would touch, at least for awhile.
Can you imagine the flack that would fly? From the survivors, from the families of the dead? Especially if they treat it like a sequel to “Towering Inferno,” with Tony Danza, Drew Carey, Kathy Lee Gifford, and Chris Rock, with a special appearance by Michael J. Fox.
And I can’t imagine anyone putting down money to see an incredible downer of a movie.
What about ‘The Perfect Storm’? ‘Saving Private Ryan’? 
There would be no flack if you used fictional characters, and painted them as heroes and/or martyrs (Bruce Willis as a heroic fireman comes to mind). And it wouldn’t be a downer if you concentrated on, say, one miracle rescue.
It’s not so much what you show, it’s also what you don’t show…
There was a Pearl Harbor movie – a feature movie, not a documentary – made less than a year later.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0035249
One comment from that page:
“Hollywood heroics and cliches abound in this small budget quickie. Barry ducks out on buddies, who are killed during attack, then must redeem himself. Probably worked well as recruiting tool when released, this effort is dated today.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. 
During World War II there were films out about the fall of Wake Island and the fall of the Philipines, both American defeats, within a year of the events and they did quite well at the box office.
So I really do think it will go over when it (they) comes out.