MOVIES AND 9/11

Making adjustments to a post 9/11 world has not just been about
rebuilding the World Trade Center and reshaping shattered lives. In more
subtle, persistent and pervasive ways that touch on matters of emotion
and existence, the public at large extending to most of us not directly
affected, has had to reevaluate many core issues of daily life. Like
personal self-confidence and security and if these are conditions which
truly exist, no matter how sophisticated or elaborate your latest
purchases of alarm systems.
Reordering priorities and values following crisis and tragedy like
9/11, and how we see ourselves in relation to the world around us are
enigmas that get reflected back on us through movies. Often a substitute
or alternative to religion and the media in the culturally diverse and
consequently ethically ambiguous society we live in, the movie theater is
a shared collective moment in the dark where briefly and profoundly,
things can make sense and offer simple, comforting solutions.
But 9/11 seems to be changing that dynamic in our relationship with
movies. Where once many Americans took for granted that the United States
was the solar center of some imagined moral universe, after 9/11
confusion and uncertainty have emerged. Where many once took comfort in
the unbeatable, ever more futuristic armaments against whatever enemy on screen,
along with the national military hardware off screen, now vulnerability
and relativity have been thrown into and destabilized the mix. Do
potential opponents out there have their own points of view and set of
grievances?
In any case, there are ways around the most hacker proof of security
systems on the planet. Rivals can buy smaller versions of their own
arsenals in a world where anything is for sale if the price is right, or
they can find shrewd ways to turn your own hardware back on you.
That we no longer feel as confident and secure either physically or
emotionally is beginning to be seen in movies. In the ironically titled
The Good Girl, Jennifer Aniston's Texas small town department store clerk
Justine comes up with a variety of decisions about personal problems in
her life. In the end she's a beaming, fulfilled housewife and mom, but
Justine has found her way to happiness via adultery, deceit and betrayal. Every
questionable and indifferent act she's committed to conclude with a
happy ending makes perfect sense to her, but leaves the audience
astonished and borderline revolted. Could the same be true of a nation
where doubts may be growing that policies we embrace are less than
thrilling to the rest of the world?
In M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, Mel Gibson is a despondent rural
Pennsylvania farmer and minister who has abandoned his faith and his
ministry after a family tragedy. Compounding his dilemma is the suspicion
that a hidden, mysterious alien presence has come to town.
The usual American military might which has worked so well against
enemy forces in movies up until now, is as now useless as a slingshot.
The aliens cleverly, invincibly function under the radar. And just as
ironically, their defeat is discovered in a solution so simple and basic,
that no one could have ever imagined it. And their power to prevail is
contained in their very simplicity and pervasiveness in functioning. The enemy is no
longer a concrete military entity that can be assessed and targeted. The
enemy is perhaps everywhere.
But there's more. So mesmerized by this shaking up of the
traditional order of things is Mel's minister, that he is driven back
into embracing faith. Though Signs seems to indicate that the minister's
relief at good fortune has revived his religious passion, the audience
is once again left to dangle.
A more perplexing undercurrent in Signs is that the world has become
such an unfamiliar, chaotic and irrational place, that only acceptance of
an impenetrable supernatural or mystical logic can satisfy. And once
again, as in The Good Girl, only a very personal retreat - and by
extension patriotic and national world view in isolation - achieves
comprehension and fulfillment.
Much of this uncertainty and groping for new or at least reexamined
individual and social priorities seemed to surge in Hollywood as well.
Among the more normally bold and self-assured celebrity tribes, the only
previous erratic element was financial. Cosmetics, hormones or surgery
could take care of aging and physical deterioration. But was there a sure
quick fix any longer for the social irritants of an antagonistic world?
Celebrity self-confidence seemed to be crumbling all around. Even
the whole notion of celebrity was suddenly seen as shallow and
untactfully irrelevant when the world was in serious trouble, and we were
forced to notice. Some in Hollywood appeared to just be breaking down and
losing it. Others became more philosophical and self-critical, or at
least a little more self-aware.
Commonplace orgies of violence reveling in America's hi tech
military reign as masters of the universe on screen began to be seriously
questioned, and too close for comfort revenge fantasies like the Arnold
Schwarzenegger action vehicle Collateral Damage had delayed openings and
script revisions. Comic actors and filmmakers were torn as to when it
would be okay to be funny again.
Shortly after 9/11. Drew Barrymore broke down in tears at a press meet for her upcoming film, Riding In Cars With Boys. Struggling for words, she described the film as reminding audiences "how important it is to say 'I love you,' and how we're learning that in this world right now." After apologizing for a tearful outburst, Drew continued, "I can say that I really don't know how to do my job all of a
sudden, and how scary that is. And I don't know how to live and feel safe
right now. And how everyone is feeling that way too."
"So yes, I try to think of all the things I can do to make things
better, such as all of us are doing right now. But I didn't think that I
ever believed I was a role model, because I'm too humble to ever believe
that I could be so fortunate to be in that kind of position."
"And if I could only be one right now, I think it would be the most
meaningful and important time to be that. I still would never assume I
am, but I think it's incredible how confused we are right now."
"So the only thing that I'm starting to realize right now, is how we
have to somehow figure it out together. And know that it's going to be
minute by minute, and hour by hour, and day by day."
"And how much I am so impressed with how all of the good people on
this planet are trying to be so gentle with each other. And to gravitate
towards that. So I would only hope that I could be some kind of a role
model. And yet I think we're all going to be learning together."
Matthew Perry recalled at a more recent press day for Serving Sara, how following 9/11 he took a cue from David Letterman as to how and when it would be okay to try to help people laugh again. "It was very bizarre on the set of Friends. We took a couple of weeks off. But there was that kind of like, okay, when can we be funny? December, January? When can that be? And I think David Letterman really set the pace for that when he came back."
"David was so brilliant, and heartfelt and funny when he first came
back. He kind of set the tone, that it was okay now to be funny again,
and make light of things. You know, that's the nature of what comedians like to do, is to take a serious situation and break it, and make people laugh. And that's what
I get to do for a living. That's what we all do. We all take being funny
very, very seriously."
"The tragedy hit us all, it hit everybody, obviously. And it hit
everybody on the show. But it was time to go back to work, and do what we
do. That's what everybody does. Eventually you get back to what you do.
And hopefully with more of a positive bent on things, you know."
Quentin Tarantino was more philosophical about his reaction to 9/11, and the effect on both society and making movies. "Watergate was part of my childhood, and that whole kind of erosion of your trust in the American government," said Tarantino when he met to talk about his official role in the rerelease of Iron Monkey. "Since then, there's been like this aspect that everybody has been asleep on the couch, and that we all of a sudden woke up. Like there is this big world
out there, and stuff has consequences. And we're not
immune to it. There is no bubble protecting our land here. So that's kind
of a good aspect."
"But the thing that I just keep focusing on, is that three thousand people woke up that Tuesday morning, thinking that they had their whole
lives ahead of them, you know? And they went to work and didn't survive
the morning. And it's just like, every time you think about it like
that, you know, you think about all your B.S. problems, and all the
things you have left standing with different people, and everything like that. And it
makes you just realize, Bam."
"I mean, there's three thousand people out there, as well as a whole lot of foreigners. You know, a whole lot of other people from all these other countries died in that World Trade Center. And every income, from CEOs of companies to the janitor, went down in those buildings. So it's like I just keep thinking about that,
about a whole bunch of people who woke up, thinking they had their whole lives in front of them, and they didn't."
"I don't think it's going to affect movies. I think it might affect the movies that are going to get released in the short run. But it's not going to change anything for me. When someone is an artist, then world events shouldn't change things that much.
"If I was an artist in France when the nazis occupied the country, all right, I might leave. But I'm not gonna change my art. I might try to escape, but I'm not going to like start singing the party line. It's like when you're dealing with an artist who has a vision and a way of looking at things, stuff like that shouldn't change anything. It's
the executive's job, to do that kind of thinking."
Does Tarantino think we'll ever go back to trivial stuff again, like talking
about Jennifer Lopez's body? "My response to that is yes and no, you know what I mean? Like I'm glad all that Gary Condit stuff is off the air, and nobody cares about it at all. I mean, that just shows how infantile we were, that we didn't
have any real things that grabbed our attention."
"So we just got completely lost in tabloid trivia. And it turned into like everybody in the world talking about something as ridiculous as that. Not that the situation wasn't serious. But it just shows how juvenile we were, in that regard."
Woody Allen, predictably, had perhaps the most unpredictable 9/11 tale to tell, during a press day for Hollywood Ending. "I was in my kitchen that morning, and somebody called and told me to turn on the TV. When Soon-Yi and I realized what had happened, we went over to the hospital in our neighborhood to give blood."
"It was amazing, the line went around the block. And then one of the
cops told me, I don't know if they'll take blood from you. You look like you should go home and eat!"
Woody also recalled the strangest question he got asked about 9/11. "People would ask me, is this the death of all humor, and can anyone ever be funny again. I said, we'll be back. And yes, people will be making jokes."
"What did they think, that we were going to close down the city and everyone was
going to move out? It was the craziest thing."
Prairie Miller