So I could ramble on about the various parties I went to last week. Beginning with Monday at a bar called Monday's in Chicago, or Tuesday's decadence of my own, Wednesday at Spin, which unbeknownst to me at the time was a gay nightclub, or shit the culmination of events on Thursday which was the end of the semester party at the Billy Goat. Who knows—that Goat party was so crazy it deserves a post of its own.
But on a more somber note, a Chronicle photographer and I went to see United 93. Now before we get at the heart of this matter, the weather was in the 60s in Chicago that day. The sun was shining, kids were running into traffic (as kids do) and me and the photographer hailed a cab to catch a showing of this flick. From this day, he will always ask me why we went there. It's not that anything bad happened at the screening. No booze was involved and nobody got punched in the face. It was the sheer power of the movie that turned the rest of the afternoon into a farce, something Eugene Ionesco would call absurd.
United 93, the documentary style big budget drama, is the type of a movie that can suck the beauty out of everyday things—things like the playoffs or chasing skirt, or fuck, even chasing the story. And I say that and I mean that as a compliment because United 93 is such a powerful film that everyday things mar in comparison to the memory of that day. Prada Shoes, Virgin record stores, Millennium Park and Chipotle can all go fuck themselves when compared to something that actually means something. Granted, we all know the story of that flight. But the way that the film is made, with hand-held camera angles and real people who experienced it acting out what happened that day, mixed in with the confusion, despair and the harrowing climax is what will probably make this the best 9/11 film out there.
Originally when United 93 came out, I wanted to see it. That was it and that being three weeks ago; I faulted on that promise, hence the Billy Goat and the debauchery. But somehow I got a copy of the television drama Flight 93 and my 9/11 curiosity was sparked again. But I won't go into the details and I can say that both have its merits and high points, Flight 93 playing the emotional cues (read me crying like a bitch) and United 93—well that's a different story.
United 93 is disturbing.
Having seen it I must say that the movie resonates far after you leave the theater. I won't spoil it, but the ending serves as no payoff; it just makes you sit there, as the lights come on, forcing you to deal with the reality of what fucking happened that day.
Too Early? That whole argument that it is too early to have movies about 9/11 is horseshit. We have to watch, despite what a USA Today poll says. Families of those who lost their loved ones will obviously not be happy with big budget portrayals of those tragedies and they deserve all the respect they can get. But it's the public that needs to be reminded.
Even though we say "We will never forget" I have a hankering suspicion that a lot of us did. I have a hard time believing that a movie such as United 93 is being used as a way to make money. Sure it will. But it's probably Oliver Stone's WTC that will take that honor. United 93 is meant to show you the horrors on that plane that movies made for television can't. That's the point. You pay to get disturbed.
Sure even the cynics will say that 9/11 is so five years ago and we should get over it. Bullshit. Letting time heal wounds is one thing—a privilege reserved for the families who suffered—but for the rest of us, we need this.
There is no glory in watching this film. As my cohort put it, this movie makes you feel like shit. Indeed. And it's not what you see on the screen that does so, it's what you see when you leave the theaters, on the street that does.
People are living this weird safety laden life now, some even sick of thinking about 9/11. Does the movie reinforce our hate of terrorists? Possibly it does, but not in its portrayal, since the film does a good job in not dehumanizing the hijackers, but in reinvigorating our previous hatreds—mainly we hated being attacked then and we would hate to be attacked now. I have no sympathy for the devil as much as I have no sympathy for the fuckers who crashed planes into our buildings. But the movie suggests that they had their religious agenda, albeit faulty by some of our religious standards (by my standards is another story, a story filled with violence and no remorse), and the heroes of the flight had theirs: Survival. That's what makes the movie powerful. We can listen to the phone calls over and over again. We know they, as one passenger puts it, did not want to be there, but it's the experience that counts.
The movie makes you feel like shit because you see yourself in others on the street. You yourself have forgotten. You did. Life goes on as usual on the streets. It's not like that for the families of the tragedy. Life is not the same. But I'm getting preachy.
Walking past yuppie stores and fancy diners down Michigan Ave. helped to reinforce that idea. We have no clue where we are, we read what's on the news with a grain of salt and then talk about it over drinks. We are far away from the day that changed everything. We are so far away that we ourselves have been changed, blinded by technology and gadgets, we are just sort of there, experiencing it all like a fly on the wall—not a good shape to be as citizens—that's a journalist's job.
My 9/11 experience lacked any drama but all tears and rage. I was on a subway train when some commuters talked of a plane hitting the WTC. Then more commuters came in, talking the same shit. Then a bum came on begging for change. And when you saw it live on TV, that second plane smashing into the second tower you were like: WHAT THE FUCK! And then there was silence. Complete silence. Nobody said a word. You knew this was different.
Everybody knows where they were and what they did. 9/11 is my generation's Kennedy Assassination. No shit we can't forget it. Our futures are based on this single event and the political mess that spawned on from it . Was it revenge that made the administration do what it did? Perhaps. Was it the sudden need to act? Who knows?
Politics are different issues though. We can skewer and squander, talk and compromise, issue rebuttals and commentaries and so what? What happened afterward—a giant political mess, a war, and no hopes for the future?
But we, as Americans, are still collecting on the chain of events that started it all on that faithless morning in September. Is it too early to be reminded? No. Listen; if we are keeping count of Mickey fucking Mouse's birthday, then we deserve to be reminded of 9/11 from time to time. And I live in Chicago, the home of the Cubs, so don't talk to me about hope. Hope is all we have here. Let's stop talking and bullshit and God, as silly as it sounds try to fix something. Next stop immigration debate. Then the bus veers of the turnpike into the unknown.
We're a long way off from the moment where Will Smith lights up a cigar and calls it a "Victory Dance" as he did in Independence Day. We're doomed.
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