9/11 on Film

War makes heroes or villains out of us all. That premise seemed to be the calling card of most Vietnam films in the 70s and 80s, and this kind of post Vietnam era outlook has carried over to movies such as Saving Private Ryan where it is not so much the war but the valor in war that matters.

There was a sort of war-athon occurring on AMC recently, and back to back they showed Midway and Letters from Iwo Jima. In watching, I noticed two diverging philosophies. Midway showed men on both sides as honorable and intelligent and unfailing in their duty. Letters from Iwo Jima, despite whatever inaccuracies that some groups are likely to say the films incurs, showed the unpleasant realities of some men committing questionable acts and others engaging in acts of heroism. I really don't know if Vietnam films helped bring that out, but it seems like most of the recent war films have found a new way to play on that basic tenet. That might be a theory that needs testing.

The Deer Hunter, which arrived only a few years after Vietnam ended, was one in a string of movies that helped to make sense of the war, not just in the actions of the soldiers who were there, but in the context of what it all meant. The perspective deployed as the years went by run the gamut, from Apocalypse Now to Born on the Fourth of July, and each had something different to say. Coppola once famously said that Apocalypse Now wasn't about Vietnam. It was Vietnam.

The Movie Blog has a 9/11 feature you might be interested in about the realities of 9/11 on the silver screen, which compelled me to write this article. Like Vietnam, 9/11 movies might help us to make sense of the events, especially as these films are given different contexts based on directorial voice. It's probably impossible to take as many liberties with 9/11 as we do with war films, as tragedies come with their own set of rules. Since we were the victims, the heroism would have to come through the triumph of the human spirit. One "tragedy movie" that comes to mind is Munich, which came out decades after the tragedy and dealt primarily with the aftermath, and I'm reminded that tragedies are difficult to swallow. We all feel like the victims when we remember them. For example, I have difficulty in imagining a Katrina movie, at least one that tells it like it should be, and the only reason I advocate 9/11 films is because 9/11 was a turning point that cast our enemies in a whole new light. It didn't have anything to do with war, but it was part of a larger conflict.

People do seem to be mistrustful of films that use these kinds of events since money is going into so many different hands, and the controversy seems to be ubiquitous such as when the filmmakers tried to procure the rights to use the United 93 crew in the eponymous film. But I think that like Vietnam there is an opportunity here to talk about 9/11 in a way that nothing else can capture. Simple text can not unveil emotional potency, and video only tells us what happened. Finding a creative way to distill the themes and values of 9/11 will be the next step, and I think that it can be beneficial to the viewer if done right.