United 93 vs. Crash

[John Cope]

The climactic moment in the film, after all, comes when a guy on the plane says "Let's roll," and that's actually what the real guy on the plane said.

And that moment is underplayed intentionally by someone who presumably was not there. Whether that was primarily the actor or Greengrass' decision, it's a great one and one of the moments for me which substantiates the film's serious and worthwhile intent.

[Jeff]

Don't bother guys.

A Barmy-approved version would find a team of Gulf War I-vet special forces commandos secretly on board the plane. The action-packed thrillride would climax with the cigar-chomping leader of the commandos (Bruce Willis) impaling the final terrorist with a flagpole bearing Old Glory. "These colors don't run, Raghead!" Bruce winks at camera. Audience roars with approval, confirming Barmy's suspicion that the movie is awesome.

[domino harvey]

I'm not sure what it says about me, but your hypothetical movie does sound awesome

[swo17]

Domino = Armond White?

[domino harvey]

I'm surprised it took you guys so long to figure it out. I mean, I thought I tipped my hand when I openly wished for the Ting Tings to write a song about Amistad in the Lumet thread

[domino harvey]

The ever-eclectic John Waters has chosen to present United 93 during the Maryland Film Festival

[HistoryProf]

I can't believe I just read this entire thread. what a clusterfuck.


Never did see United 93 - I honestly just don't see the point. I put it in the same category of the Daniel Pearl video...why anyone would want to watch either is beyond me.

and Crash...goddamn....what a horrific embarrassment to the Academy. Interesting to see the prescient comments about how quickly it would be forgotten. I don't think it made it out of 2006 firing any synapses anywhere. The worst kind of hallmark hall of fame tripe. I've never been so pissed to have wasted $3 on a new release rental as I was after watching that piece of shit.

[NilbogSavant]

The ever-eclectic John Waters has chosen to present United 93 during the Maryland Film Festival

I love that they picked a still full of motion blur.

[jbeall]

I can't believe I just read this entire thread. what a clusterfuck.

Never did see United 93 - I honestly just don't see the point. I put it in the same category of the Daniel Pearl video...why anyone would want to watch either is beyond me.

Wow. I'd forgotten this thread existed. HistoryProf, I've never watched United 93 a second time and have no plans to do so, but I think it's worth watching once. Lots of reasonable people have objected to this movie's very existence, and I can see why, but I thought it was moving. (And back when it was first making the internet rounds, I made the mistake--yes, mistake--of watching the Daniel Pearl video, and goddamn I wish I hadn't.)

[HistoryProf]

I've come close to watching it a couple of times - even dvr'd it once and then deleted it after it sat unwatched for a month. It was just such a horrific day, I don't personally care to revisit it. I'm sure it's a well made film, and I trust Greengrass's approach added to the verisimilitude...which actually makes me less interested in seeing it. It has to be an emotionally devastating experience.

[Grand Illusion]

I almost walked out of the theater watching United 93, and not because of the quality of the film. It's almost unbearable. That's the only film that I've ever felt that way in, before or after.

[Sloper]

I can't think of a film during which I've wept so unrestrainedly - it was everything from when they started texting and calling their families. The thought - 'this actually happened, just like this' - made it almost unbearable. I dreaded watching it the first time, and am not sure I could do it again.

Can't remember much about Crash, but it wasn't all that bad. Just typical harmless Oscar-chasing 'well-intentioned' bland-o-drama. I thought it was quite watchable.

[dx23]

Does anyone else find it distasteful that Universal is releasing the BD of United 93 next week?

[tavernier]

Does anyone else find it distasteful that Universal is releasing the BD of United 93 next week?

Not at all! I'll be watching it while drinking my 9/11 wine

[willoneill]

Does anyone else find it distasteful that Universal is releasing the BD of United 93 next week?

I'm not sure distasteful is the word I'd use; I think it's more that it's the most obvious time to release it. However, if I thought the film itself was distasteful, I would probably agree with you.

[Brian C]

I actually suspect that it will be one of the less distasteful tributes we'll see in the next couple weeks...

[flyonthewall2983]

Nothing will top those gold coins they sell on daytime TV.

[colinr0380]

Not at all! I'll be watching it while drinking my 9/11 wine

A Long Island vintner has produced a 9/11 memorial wine that's been approved by the Sept. 11 memorial board.

But critics say the wine's in poor taste.

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

I love the fact that the advertising banner at the bottom of this page--as I loaded it--is for the American Military University, featuring "87 programs, including Intelligence."

As for actually having something to say about this five-year thread, I would only add a few questions that have either been overlooked or not given enough emphasis:

Is it simply facile to point out that the Daniel Pearl execution is an actuality (to cite one contributor's example), while United 93 is a reenactment? If we engage a moral debate that implicates our viewing habits, isn't there a profound difference between a dramatization of a plane crash and a film of people clubbing baby seals to death (to cite another contributor's example)? Too often, contributors on this thread have conflated the two, so far as even to call United 93 a "snuff film," which I always assumed involved the filming of actual murders.

Or, to play my own devil's advocate, is it more disingenuous to admire a reenactment of an atrocity, because it is too easy to console oneself that these are only actors?

And speaking of "actors," does the fact that real participants reenacted their experiences of that day suddenly discharge them of all histrionic responsibility? If indeed they are acting--which I would think is impossible to say otherwise--can't we judge the effectiveness of their performances? How do we characterize the special quality of a performance informed by actual experience; what specifically does it add to a performance that a professional actor cannot provide? Is it possible to say that it adds absolutely nothing?

I also wonder about the shame people feel watching thrillers based on real events. Can anyone honestly deny that the visceral, physiological thrill of eyeballing moving pictures is at least an elemental reason for our fascination with it, regardless of the subject matter? Some people on this thread sound embarrassed that United 93 excited them, as if they were caught masturbating. Some may turn away and some may be riveted, but does that decision--to watch or not to watch--constitute a moral quandary? Is it a point of pride to say that you could only watch this once, or refuse to watch it at all, when this would seem to be not so much a principled, political action as a gut-level decision activated by repulsion?

My fascination with these questions is, in part, prompted by Samuel Fuller's dismissal of most war movies as recruitment films, an attitude cited and celebrated by critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum. I would only counter this with the statement's short shrift given to the various ways in which a film is processed by a viewer after the fact--the intellectual incubation after the emotional egg is dropped, to put it crudely and perhaps stupidly. For me, this is the most important episode of cinephilia: the assimilation of the viewing experience outside of the theater. In this way, it becomes more a question of whether we can trust viewers not to exploit a film as a piece of propaganda it may or may not have been intended as. It is interesting to see the (inevitable, I suppose) shift toward foreign policy that this forum thread takes, wherein participants argue more about the culpability of nations and religions, and less about the role United 93 may or may not play in all of this.

I also bring this up because I wonder suspiciously about my own (some would say) perverse pleasures when it comes to movies. I am fascinated, for example, with the mondo film Africa Addio, a crass venture by anyone's definition, but at the same time, a riveting artifact caught up in a turbulent period of African colonial resistance--a poorly made film (the least of its problems) at once totally obscene, reprehensible, trashy, cynical--and, I would argue, important for the ways in which it calls into question European attitudes toward developing nations, distancing maneuvers deployed by exploitative filmmakers, the pitfalls of overlaying fabrication with actuality (that is to say, actual "snuff"), etc., etc. This is my caveat, or full disclosure: if I can justify watching Africa Addio as a potentially enlightening, sophisticated experience (if only after the fact), then might I as well justify anything? (I will admit, not proudly, that I tend to look away during the helicopter safari, the tripping zebras, and the spear-riddled hippo... ugh; which brings up another kettle of fish: why is animal violence--that is, all animals aside from our own species--more repellent to me than human violence, whether real or reenacted?)

Finally, is that 9/11 wine a cab or a pinot noir?

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

One more thing: I'm surprised no one has pointed out the unflattering and unverifiable portrait of the German passenger Christian Adams as a callow pacifist (not unlike Mr. Todhunter in The Lady Vanishes!). This would, I think, be evidence toward a jingoistic interpretation of United 93, much to Greengrass's discredit. It's harder to refute this, even though I'm in the "United-93-is-a-good-film" camp.

Okay, that's all.

[solaris72]

This is pretty great: Sam Strange Remembers: CRASH