After I wrote my review of the film United 93 this morning, I was pretty drained emotionally. In fact, I didn’t think there would be anything that would be able to pique my interest and motivate me to write about for the rest of the day.
Good thing I happened to run across Slate’s Dana Steven’s review of the same film. There’s nothing like reading full blown, to the max idiocy to get the blood pumping to my brain and get my fingers itching to do a little keyboard solo on someone who exhibits as much jaw-dropping cluelessness as Stevens.
If you are one of those who saw United 93 and are keenly disappointed that Director Greengrass failed to turn his project into a 90 minute brief to prove the incompetence and evil of the Bush Administration, you would think Ms Stevens a genius rather than the pouting philistine that she appears to be. In truth, Stevens review is illustrative of a view quite prevalent on the left that, in essence, boils down to this: Things would have been different if you know who had been President.
The convoluted reasoning behind this notion rests with the hypotheses that 1) 9/11 was Bush’s fault; 2) the situation was made worse by the incompetence of the President; and 3) the government worked much better the previous 8 years and the gaffes, goofs, confusion, and panic were solely the result of the government going to hell and a handbasket during the 8 months of the Bush Administration.
Oversimplification?
I hope I don’t sound like a cynic with a heart of lead when I say that United 93, as grueling as it was to sit through, left me feeling curiously unmoved and even slightly resentful. At some point, Greengrass’ exquisite delicacy and tact toward all sides—the surviving families, the baffled air-traffic controllers, even the hijackers themselves—began to smack of political pussyfooting. What is Greengrass actually trying to say about 9/11? That it was a terrible day on which innocent people suffered and died? That the chaos and shock of that morning’s events (skillfully evoked via hand-held camera and real-time pacing) kept anyone, even the air-traffic controllers who watched the hijackings unfold, from understanding what was going on until it was too late?
First of all, yes Dana you “sound like a cynic with a heart of lead” since you asked. And that “political pussyfooting” (nice touch including the hijackers although one gets the impression you have more sympathy for them than you do the controllers) which we take to mean the director’s reluctance to assign “blame” was, of course, the entire rationale for the film. Sorry you missed it.
As politicized as the 9/11 Commission eventually became in its public sessions, the final report had much to say about why the entire United States government froze up into one massive ball of ice. Much of it was institutional. Some of it, like FAA protocols for dealing with hijackings were hopelessly inadequate to deal with what happened on 9/11. From the report:
“In sum, the protocols in place on 9/11 for the FAA and NORAD to respond to a hijacking presumed that:
- the hijacked aircraft would be readily identifiable and would not attempt to disappear;
- there would be time to address the problem through the appropriate FAA and NORAD chains of command; and
- hijacking would take the traditional form: that is, it would not be a suicide hijacking designed to convert the aircraft into a guided missile.
On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” (emphasis mine)
“In every respect” would seem to take in the alternative history scenario of Bill Clinton to the rescue although people like Stevens never seem to let such mundane details like, you know, actual facts get in the way of a good anti-Bush rant.
One might ask why government was so unprepared for the disaster but this would bring up some royally uncomfortable verities about the way the United States snoozed its way through the entire 1990’s (George Bush #41 included), something Stevens and her ilk have no stomach for doing. It is much easier to simply blame it all on Bush with any alternate telling of the myth akin to breaking a commandment (that is, if lefties believed in such things).
Stevens’ complaints don’t end there:
United 93 is no Schindler’s List, relying on characterization and storytelling to draw viewers into identifying with an otherwise unimaginable horror. If anything, Greengrass’ agenda is an anti-identificatory one. If the Spielberg of Schindler’s List is a wheedling seducer, Greengrass is a chillingly precise archivist. He never cuts away to the families of the Flight 93 passengers, arriving home to listen to their heart-rending voicemail messages. He never visits the inside of the three planes that did crash into buildings that day; we’re aware of their fate only through the words of the air-traffic controllers, some clips of CNN news coverage, and one terrifying stock shot of the plane hitting the second tower. He barely even names the passengers—an hour into the movie, I still hadn’t figured out which one was Todd Beamer—and makes a point of stressing their utter unspecialness, their glazed stares and dull in-flight chatter. The suspense, such as it is, is purely negative—we know in advance what will happen to Flight 93, so the maddeningly slow burn of the film’s first hour (Businessmen heft suitcases! Flight attendants chat about condiments!) serves only to torment us with the anxiety of the inevitable.
Note to Dana: MAKE YOUR OWN GODDAMN MOVIE ABOUT FLIGHT #93 IF THAT’S THE WAY YOU FEEL ABOUT IT!
There is nothing more annoying than a “woulda, shoulda, coulda” critic who doesn’t possess an ounce of talent to actually make a film themselves but who is more than willing to tell a director how he should have made his. The movie Stevens is proposing Greengrass make is so far removed from the director’s vision that it makes her pouty, foot stomping tirade about what’s missing from U-93 sound like someone running their fingernails across a blackboard. Absolutely hopeless.
It’s fair game to criticize a director for an unfulfilled vision or a lazy vision, or even for having no vision at all. But to actually posit the notion that a critic’s judgement on what vision the director should have had as legitimate criticism smacks of pure politics to me.
And if that doesn’t convince you of the political motivations of Steven’s disguised critique of U-93, try this:
In the last five years, “9/11” has become a generic brand name for terrorism, its sky-high recognition quotient useful for ginning up support for any and all manner of belligerent causes. The closest this film ever comes to a political statement—and possibly the only laugh line in the movie—is the snappish question of a beleaguered official: “Do we have any communication with the president at all?” Greenglass may not want to come right out and say it, but the audience’s weary chuckle made it clear: As we slog into the fourth year of the war being waged in 9/11’s wake (and, at least in part, in its name), there’s still no satisfactory answer to that question.
Yes, “9/11” (the quote marks are a nice touch – as if only a few deluded souls care about it in any context at all) is very useful for “ginning up support” for “belligerent causes” – kinda like war except you and the other misanthropes on the left don’t really believe in that kind of nonsense. To you and your ideological brethren, what happened that day was more about skewering Bush than anything untoward that happened to the United States. It’s sickening.
As far as the “joke” about communications with the President, here’s more from the 9/11 Commission:
The NMCC learned of United 93’s hijacking at about 10:03.At this time the FAA had no contact with the military at the level of national command. The NMCC learned about United 93 from the White House. It, in turn, was informed by the Secret Service’s contacts with the FAA.225NORAD had no information either. At 10:07, its representative on the air threat conference call stated that NORAD had “no indication of a hijack heading to DC at this time.”226
Repeatedly between 10:14 and 10:19, a lieutenant colonel at the White House relayed to the NMCC that the Vice President had confirmed fighters were cleared to engage inbound aircraft if they could verify that the aircraft was hijacked.227
The commander of NORAD, General Ralph Eberhart, was en route to the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, when the shootdown order was communicated on the air threat conference call. He told us that by the time he arrived, the order had already been passed down NORAD’s chain of command.228
It is not clear how the shootdown order was communicated within NORAD. But we know that at 10:31, General Larry Arnold instructed his staff to broadcast the following over a NORAD instant messaging system: “10:31 Vice president has cleared to us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down if they do not respond per [General Arnold].”229
More inconvenient facts regarding what was happening in the government that day. The answer to the question “Do we have any communication with the President at all?” was a resounding yes. The coordination between NORAD and the FAA was, as shown earlier, entirely inadequate to deal with the situation. The audience chuckling is much more indicative of the success that Stevens and others have had in perpetrating the myth of Bush incompetence that day than what really happened, something that Greengrass wasn’t interested in portraying anyway.
Yes we should be upset with our government for the way 9/11 was handled. It was incompetent. It was negligent. It was without question a disaster. But the exact same thing would have happened regardless of who was President. To say otherwise isn’t speculative, it’s a deliberate falsification of what we know from history.
If Stevens didn’t like U-93 that is her right. But to turn a movie review into a diatribe against the Bush Administration only makes her look like an idiot who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
2:59 pm
[...] Update: Bloggers are reviewing the reviewers, too. Moran is back for a second bite at the apple, the “apple” in this case being Slate critic Dana Stevens. Cranky Insomniac de(con)structs Paul Farhi’s front-page treatment of the film at WaPo. Psychologist Robert Godwin responds to some of the choicer comments at the Huffington Post as part of his longer essay on the psychology of envy. Meanwhile, Varifrank talks about his own “survivor’s guilt” and challenges conservatives who complain about Hollywood’s silence on the war to put up or shut up at the box office. [...]
4:29 pm
If Gore had been president the only difference is that he would have been reading “My Pet Goat Learns About Global Warming” to the children.
4:35 pm
Reviews of Flight 93
Lots of people going to see the movie about United Flight 93 this weekend. AllahPundit has a link roundup of reviews over at HotAir.com. The best of the best amongst the blogger reviews comes from Right Wing Nuthouse’s Rick Moran, who follows u…
5:25 pm
I agree with your criticism of Dana’s review 100%. However, I want to point out one thing you wrote that may come back to haunt you:
It’s fair game to criticize a director for an unfulfilled vision or a lazy vision, or even for having no vision at all. But to actually posit the notion that a critic’s judgement on what vision the director should have had as legitimate criticism smacks of pure politics to me.
The right has been doing exactly that for years – look at any Oliver Stone movie.
I haven’t seen United 93 yet, but I hope to this weekend or next week. Your review was fantastic, by the way.
5:50 pm
Andy:
My beef with Stone has always been on purely historical grounds.
His fantasy about Nixon – Nixon meeting with the cabal that killed Kennedy – and trying to pass the picture off as some kind of biography is ludicrous.
Ditto JFK. I’ve read two dozen books on the assassination (most of them regarding conspiracy theories) and all one needs to debunk each and every one of them is a little common sense and the conspiracists favorite source book; the Warren Commission Report.
If that weren’t bad enough, Stone made a hero in that film of a homophobic, paranoid, glory hound who was running for Governor of LA to boot. The case against Garrison is infinitely stronger than the case he made against poor Clay Shaw whose life he ruined.
I could give a good goddamn about Stone’s “vision.” It is his twisting and warping of history that is reason for his being kicked out of the academy.
5:57 pm
Rush Limbaugh interview Greengrass for his newsletter, and he played excerpts of the interview on the radio this past week.
This is how it begins:
“GREENGRASS: I’ll tell you one of the most chilling things that I have learned from my experience of looking at terrorism. About 20 years ago the IRA bombed the hotel where the prime minister, Prime Minister Thatcher, and her cabinet were, and about ten people were killed, and Prime Minister Thatcher—who I never agreed with politically in the entirety of her career, but she was our prime minister, and I don’t agree with blowing her up. Luckily she escaped. Later that night, the IRA issued a statement. They said, “Tonight you were lucky. You have to be lucky every time. We only have to be lucky once,” and in that expression is the heart of the mind of the terrorist operation.
“We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every time,” and the truth is we can’t always be lucky.”
Rush has posted both interviews—written and audio—on his website.
Part I: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_
042806/content/paul_greengrass_interview_excerpt.guest.html
Part II: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_
042806/content/limbaugh_letter.guest.html
NOTE: PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THE ABOVE LINKS - FOR SOME REASON, THEY DIDN’T WRAP CORRECTLY IN THE ORIGINAL POST AND I WAS FORCED TO BREAK THEM.
RM
7:03 pm
The overwhelming disappointment of United 93 seems to be that it couldn’t or didn’t evoke some sort of politic statement that would correlate with the personal tendencies of the critics.
It’s sort of like looking for a political statement in a train wreck. The train, the tracks and the signals have no politics. Who’s fault is it if it generates no political statement ? Simply, it’s those who look for one.
9:53 pm
The thing I get out of all of this is the lack of vision of beaurocrats and people in office who we are trusting to look out for us. There is now way reactions between so many affected people can be other than a snails pace (much too little, much too late) without practice of first responders to hypothetical situations. Think of the multitude of targets in the United States and it’s allies and all the weapons and household chemicals that can be weaponized to attack them…
We have been very lucky since 9-11.
11:16 pm
Rick—
It seems that liberals have yet to wake up from the marijuana-induced sleep advocated by draft-dodger Bill Clinton. It’s clear that Clintonian advocates like John Esposito, Richard Clark and Jamie Gorelick have prostituted themselves before the cause of Islamo-Fascism in order to resore Clintonian corruption to the Federal Government. With the likes of George Soros and Ben Cohen, how can these criminals do anything else but succeed? God help us if this ever happens!!
11:24 pm
The left wing has an unending supply of idiots, and traitors that killed 67 American Soldiers this month. Thanks to the CIA leakers, the failures called retired Generals, and the antique MSM.
11:46 pm
Rick,
I concede your points about Oliver Stone – I should have proffered a better example.
Talking about historical accuracy though, I’m curious about your impression of the events that took place inside the plane. Obviously, the filmmakers had to use some creativity since it’s not entirely clear how events unfolded and what specific individuals did. Since you don’t mention it directly in your review, did you think the unknowns the filmmakers added in were on the mark? I’m also curious if the director had access to the cockpit voice tapes that were recently revealed in the Moussaoui case and how that part meshed with what we know from them.
I really need to get a reliable baby sitter so I can go see this thing for myself in the theater.
1:40 am
Brainster,
You are completely wrong. Al Gore will eventually find Man Bear Pig.
Wont Leve Naim,
You described the problem with bueracracy. Too many layers causes the government to play the telephone game. At the destination, the message gets completely messed up. The only problem is that lives are at stake.
4:43 am
Andy:
Great point. The article in WaPo (sort of sour grapes, I thought) brought up a similar point; how can we really know what went on during the drama in the air?
I felt most of what happened was entirely realistic and plausible. We know that many passengers made calls to loved ones in which they commented on the plan to take back the aircraft. The film made clear that the reason they were going to do so was not to heroically save Washington but to save themselves – a perfectly logical extrapolation of the facts.
We also have tantalizing tidbits of information on what the passengers were thinking in the minutes leading up to the assault. And while it was necessary to “invent” certain aspects of the attack, the fact that 1) we knew basically where the passengers were on the plane, 2) we knew where the hijackers were on the plane, and 3) we knew that in order to get to the cockpit, the passengers would have to get by 2 hijackers (the 9/11 Commission indicated that the other 2 hijackers were in the cockpit.) This represented the bare bones outline of the attack which again is reasonable and logical. Details like who led the attack, who made contact first with the hijackers would be interesting from an historians point of view but not necessary to move the narrative along in a movie.
In short, I thought the way the film portrayed that which was unknowable was logical and believable – as witnessed by the acceptance by the audience of the film’s ending. If Greengrass had tried for cheap theatrics in the assault, I think the audience would have rejected it.
The difference between Greengrass extrapolating events from known facts and other “docudramas” where events are necessarily telescoped in time or feature the ubiquitous “composite character” is night and day. The effort made here to reflect what really happened is matched by only one other film I can think of; Gettysburg. And the wealth of material avaliable to Maxwell in the making of that film dwarfs anything Greengrass had to work with.
5:57 am
I just posted a rebuttal of Stevens’ review in the Fray over at Slate. Here’s the url: http://fray.slate.com/?id=3936&m=17402743
-Cranky
7:11 am
United 93
Rick Moran has the most comprehensive critique so far, and being a movie buff like myself, with similar taste, has the best in depth review and most probably the closest to what I would have written….
8:26 am
Many spout haterd for Bush not because of the WAR per se. I think that is merely one of the symbols of their disdain for rules and or civic responsibility. The Clintonian W-Sh-C’s* are mad because they have been assessed, inconveniently it seems, for the cost of their freedom. And freedom is fight they have to engage in, as well as choose sides in the conflict. They have media and cover provided them by a generation of apologists and chickenhawks. But they prefer the bliss of ignorance, and would rather kick the can down the road for some other folks to deal with.
*would’ve, should’ve, could’ve’s
9:06 am
I don’t know if anyone ever watches the “business block” on Fox on saturday, but on Forbes On Fox, there was a discussion of the movie and it was a panel discussion.
I wished I had tivo’d it or something because one of the panelists said the following (not a direct verbatim quote, but as close as I can remember):
panelist – I predict that more people will see this movie on the internet, and that it will wind up being more of a PUBLICITY STUNT FOR AL QAEDA than anything else.
He was jumped on immediately by the host and others on the panel for saying such a thing but it didn’t seem to matter to him.
That was just about a couple of hours before we went to see the movie and I can tell you, that this will NOT serve as an AQ propaganda film, it was the first AMERICAN victory in this war!!
Back in 1969, when I was on my way to visit friends who had been in a serious car accident, I had to walk through the military wards at Bethesda to get to their rooms. I was in the Navy back then and so were my friends. I saw for myself what war had done to the bodies of the men who fought there. There was one in particular that will remain in my memory for the rest of my life. His wounds were so grievous that I wanted to look away. I didn’t. I made myself a promise all those years ago that I would NEVER look away.
Somewhere is written that “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance”. To me that means not looking away and facing evil head-on as those brave people did on Flight 93. God bless them.
Carol Johnson
9:49 am
WAR: REEL & REAL
Rick Moran took exception with a reviewer: If Stevens didn’t like U-93 that is her right. But to turn a movie review into a diatribe against the Bush Administration only makes her look like an idiot who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
7:42 pm
Rick, thank you for an outstanding review.
Shrinkwrapped says that the appeasing crowd (lefties, cowards, etc.) denies that we are at war with this enemy in order to avoid having to face their own feelings of helplessness, terror and rage at those who attacked us. I know this failure is born of weakness in mind and character. Others of us raised with a sense of right and wrong knew exactly what we were facing that day and have not flinched from the duty and responsibility to fight it or to support the fight.
I was both mesmerized by the movie and in shock during it. At the end, I was uplifted and proud, and I plan to see it again, probably next weekend. It shows me what I know to be true in spite of all the efforts on the part of the MSM, academia and Hollywood to deny it. U-93 is pure.
10:26 pm
“Weary chuckle?” Maybe I saw this movie in a different part of the country than the Slate reviewer (in fact I’m pretty sure of that), but you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the theater when I saw it.
There were no chuckles, in fact there was dead silence, except maybe for a sniffle or too.
I felt like I had air sickness after watching the movie.
If people were laughing in the theater they must be the type who think that Bush reading “My Pet Goat” is hilarious and somehow a meaningful insight into the man.
Rick, thanks for dressing her down. My only problem with the movie is that the people who need to see it will not. But maybe it will buck up those who do see it but have been flagging, and help them realize that we are in fact in a war, and one that we’d better win.
12:21 am
There is only one way this movie can be adressed by people who limit speach in the name of free speach, impose their beliefs on those who believe otherwise, manipulate the system to suit their goals while chastizing those who don’t agree…
It is only too obvious that this movie is not politically correct.
12:23 am
Now I have to go see it.
4:30 am
United 93 sucked, and I want my money back.
First of all, someone has said that “You don’t ‘review’ this film if you have an ounce of soul left to you. You watch it.” Pardon my soullessness, which I suppose is attested to by my dislike of Schindler’s List.
The movie opens in a hotel room(s?) of the four Islamofascists. They are troubled and angsty, reading their little god book, praying on their mats, and shaving their torsos. That’s as deep a picture of them that we get. No arrogance of self-assuredness, and no night-before strip club. (Remember that?) If they have any motivation, we’re not given an indication of that.
There’s not much action on United 93 during the first part of the movie, in spite of the fact that there’s quite a bit of footage of it. Most of the action takes place in different control rooms. There’s a military control room, where the day begins with a planned NORAD exercise. Once the military is interested, the guy in charge yells at one man after another to “light up all the blips” for one suspected airplane after another, while the guy in charge of him tries to get someone to okey-dokey shooting down planes. There are two air traffic control rooms, where the men track planes and wonder why someone doesn’t do something about this situation. The guy in charge is played by his real-life self, and (surprise!) is shown doing everything that he should have done.
Once things start on United 93, the (in)action on the ground is forgotten. Of course, the passengers find out by calling the ground that they’re not a hijacked plane but a guided missile. They quickly resolve to attack the Islamofascists and take control of the plane. After resolving this, they wait for ten or so minutes, while the people call home and sob and cry and you dear viewer get to watch. This unbelievable drawing things out continues after they start the attack, where they all pause to beat up one of the fascists instead of some doing so while the rest go on to take back the plane—even though they’ve thoroughly talked over how very necessary that is.
Having dispatched the first fascist, they rush the second, who holds them off with cart, mace, fire extinguisher, and knife, while the plane plummets and jerks, throwing everyone around and drawing things out even more. After a bit, Number Two is put out of the way. Then there’s a long attempt to get through the cabin door. For some reason, the plane is still in the air for this to be achieved, and for everyone to claw at the last two. Finally, everyone is put out of their misery.
I believe I can call this a snuff film because the action on the plane is so unnecessarily and unrealistically prolonged. I didn’t actually yell out, “Get on with it!,” but I was inspired to a few times.
One of my fellow viewers had to bail out early on because the movie made him sick. Not from the story or the emotions, but because all the cameras film fairly close up and constantly jerk around. You might think, though I wouldn’t, that this would be fine when the passengers are rushing the fascists, but it is done all the time, even in a boring staff meeting of traffic controllers. The cinematography works against the movie throughout all of it.
Any inspiration, resolve, respect, patriotism, that I left this film with, I brought into it with me. Sorry, I thought it was crap. Crap on ice.
12:58 pm
Johnmonkey – you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, and obviously if you didn’t like it, that’s a matter of taste.
But I think that the concept is that Greengrass filmed the movie based on what actually happened, or as much of it as they could put together. So, the cell phone calls (which Joe Morgenstern at the Wall ST. Journal in his review called the most contrived even though they were true) are based on transcripts, and apparently it really did take them that long to rush the cockpit.
My understanding is that he tried to keep things in real time. So obviously as the audience you’d love for them to have moved faster (somehow wishing that it’d turn out differently), but it doesn’t. Similarly, I’ve also read that the way the plane moved, banked, shook, etc. was all based on the flight data and a review of the Sept. 11 report. So, he really is trying to be accurate and not affect the pacing to make it more Hollywood.
3:12 pm
My response to the movie and the memorial is here—too long for a comment.
6:02 pm
Publius – You echo a lot of the commentary that I’ve seen, that one Should Like This Movie, for various reasons. I either like it or I don’t, and I have good reasons not to, in spite of the fact that there were bad reasons for Greengrass’s doing what he did.