Posted on 04/26/2006 11:56:31 AM PDT by bondjamesbond
Hollywood’s 9/11 Propaganda Docudrama Opens A New Box of Demons
"United 93" is an odd film by any standard. Filmmaker Paul Greengrass (notable for his terrific 2002 docudrama "Bloody Sunday" about the 1972 British Army massacre of 27 civilians in Northern Ireland) wrote and directed what is a disturbingly prosaic piece of dramatic conjecture about one of the most puzzling events of 9/11. As a fictionalized docudrama, "United 93" punctures all suspension-of-disbelief because of the intrinsic absurdness that the mightiest military power on earth couldn’t scramble a dozen squads of F-16 fighter planes to perform aerial escorts for the "11 commercial airliners" believed to be hijacked on 9/11. Greengrass disguises art as journalism by matter-of-factly declaring that United 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at the "heroic" hands of its passengers in spite of the fact that the now famous "crash site" produced not one human corpse or even a single drop of blood.
A somber prologue introduces four young Muslim men praying inside their hotel room in the wee hours on the morning of September 11, 2001. The scene divulges a subtly racist undercurrent that plays out during the film with the thinly concealed hubris that America’s Neocons have benefited from under the guise of false patriotism since 9/11.
In the film’s production notes, Greengrass gives his mission statement: "There are lots of ways to find meaning in the events of 9/11. Television can convey events as they happen. A reporter can write history’s rough first draft. Historians can widen the time frame and give us context…Filmmakers have a part to play, too, and I believe that sometimes, if you look clearly and unflinchingly at a single event, you can find in its shape something much larger than the event itself—the DNA of our times."
"Sometimes" is the key word that absolves Greengrass of his self-imposed responsibility for mapping out any DNA of falsification or rampant government and corporate corruption that permeates every dust particle left behind in the wake of 9/11.
In practice, the filmmaker leverages the contrasting estimable talents of Ken Loach’s devote director of photography Barry Akroyd ("Raining Stones") with three editors—Clare Douglas ("Bloody Sunday"), Christopher Rouse ("The Bourne Supremacy"), and Richard Pearson ("Men In Black II"). His "clear and unflinching" gaze at the "single event" diverts in telling ways from recorded facts. Greengrass gets a performance windfall from Ben Sliney the actual FAA Operations Manager on duty at Herndon, Virginia on 9/11, playing himself with the hard-bitten charisma that comes from years of experience. However, Greengrass still can’t help nudging out dramatic truth when he has Sliney give the order for a "national ground stop" for all air traffic in the country, when, in fact, it was FAA head Jane Garvey who gave that order. The cell phone/air phone calls are an area of tacit fiction that the auteur fudges with discreet but significant treatment. The actual recorded calls from the "passengers" of United 93 are suspiciously vague and calculated. The calls were never more than a couple of sentences long and share a symmetrical brand of abstract logic that rings false in the context of a hijacked aircraft.
Transcripts of the "calls" reads like answers from a sixth grader cheating on a test he doesn’t know the questions to.
"It’s bad news. I need you to be happy." "Ted, what can I do? What can I tell the pilot?" "We’ve been hijacked. He had an Islamic book." "It’s getting very bad on the plane… the plane is making jerky movements."
These examples taken, from the 9/11 Commission’s Report as referenced in writer/director Dylan Avery’s persuasive documentary "9/11 Loose Change," are telling for their clipped structure and ridiculously short length. They don't convey any of the mile-a-minute patter that a panicked person would use to call for immediate help in a hijack situation.
Greengrass fudges the notable call in which a "passenger" introduces himself to his own mother using his first and last name. The director’s "clear" gaze doesn’t extend to quoting the "actual" air phone dialogue, perhaps because he couldn’t compensate for its inherent falseness. He does however include the caller asking his mother if she believes him when he tells her the plane has been hijacked.
The three murders that reportedly took place on United 93 present another area of speculation that Paul Greengrass manipulates with purposeful distraction. Flight attendant Betty Ong reportedly had a 23-minute conversation, although only four-and-a-half minutes were made available, in which she described that the flight’s purser and 1st class flight attendant had been stabbed and that crew were unable to breath in business class due to someone spraying mace. And yet in the film, only passengers appear to be stabbed.
Ultimately, "United 93" is a regurgitation of suspicious media-fueled speculation about events on an airplane that we know very little about. This is a movie that does more to discourage raising questions about what really happened to flight 93 than it does to encourage debate over the bastion of lies that have been fed to the American people.
It is an interesting footnote that United flight 93 was not scheduled to fly on 9/11, and that the plane (tail number N5IUA) was spotted by United Airline’s employee David Friedman on April 10, 2003 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and that the plane is listed as still valid with the FAA. Dylan Avery provided essential information used in this article in his documentary "9/11 Loose Change."
Rated R, 111 mins. (C-)
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But, gee, MNJohnnie... We're the most powerful nation on Earth. Surely we can whistle up a dozen squadrons of armed F-16s at a moment's notice to supress the obvious and continuing threat posed by the rogue state of Pennsylvania...
A Dutch friend of mine became completely obsessed by these conspiracy theories. (He was on one of the planes diverted to Canada on 9/11.) This guy had plenty of other problems, including depression, drinking too much, etc. Anyway, just yesterday his body was found floating in a canal in Amsterdam.
I suppose the conspiracy theorists could make a case that he was done in because he had figured out too much. It isn't true, though. The conspiracy mindset didn't exactly kill him, but it certainly made him more isolated and gave him excuses to avoid treatment.
What a load. "N5IUA" isn't even a valid registration, and the actual registration of the aircraft, N591UA, of course has been deregistered and apparently reserved by someone else. What is it that the moonbats want us to believe about 9/11, anyway?
I am sorry about the loss of your friend. Surely he did not deserve that end.
It is tragic how the cynical and calculating efforts of conspiracy mongers, whose sole purpose is to damage President Bush, take such a tragic toll on the vulnerable and easily manipulated people in our midst. Your friend was no doubt made much more miserable because be believed every silly lie they spewed out in their never-ending attack. The marginal are further marginalized by feeding them a steady diet of this nonsense.
One more reason to loathe the Moonbat Left. They prey on the most vulnerable in our society, all the while mouthing pieties about their great compassion and concern for the downtrodden.
They want you to believe whatever you need to believe in order to distrust the President. It is the extension of electoral politics to a new and reprehensible level. They don't care what falsehood they promote or who they hurt (like Joylyn's Dutch friend), as long as they can turn President Bush's greatest strength into his greatest liability.
She was quite a woman...Not only was she on United 93 she was also on American Flight 11 at the same time.. "I think we're getting hijacked," Ong said from her seat in the back of American Airlines Flight 11. "The cockpit's not answering their phone, and there's somebody stabbed in business class. ... I think there's Mace."
Hey, whatever it takes to discredit President Bush. It doesn't matter in Ong was on Flight 11 or Flight 93. The important thing to remember is that BUSH KNEW!!! and that BUSH LET 9/11 HAPPEN IN ORDER TO ENRICH HIS OIL BUDDIES!!!. All the rest of it about who died where and when is just details which obscure these absolute and irreducible facts.
United 93 will make people angry with terrorists, and make them more inclined to fight our nation's enemies. This does not serve any useful purpose, if the ultimate goal is to tear down President Bush.
Farenheit 911, OTOH, will make people angry with the President and make them more inclined to ignore our nation's enemies. This was very useful, because it eliminated any distractions that might be caused by a productive war on terror, and focused attention on what was really important, which was electing John F. Kerry in 2004.
You just gotta look at these things the right way...
Thank you for the expression of sympathy. Of course now I wish I'd had the patience and the stomach to try to reason with him when I got these trans-Atlantic calls telling me why he thought Wolfowitz, etc., knew about 9/11 in advance.
Not sure what reasonable people in Amsterdam believe. Seems he had no trouble finding moonbat types who filled his head with nonsense.
The moonbats are out there, everywhere. And they are immune to logic and reasoned argument.
But, you know what? If Algore had managed to steal Florida in 2000, I would probably be camped outside the White House fence right now, spouting nonsense to everyone within earshot.
By now, Gore's jargon-filled speeches would have stunned us all into insensibility.
What is it that the moonbats want us to believe about 9/11, anyway?
Look at how this guy says this in this review above:
"Transcripts of the "calls" reads like answers from a sixth grader cheating on a test he doesn’t know the questions to.
"It’s bad news. I need you to be happy." "Ted, what can I do? What can I tell the pilot?" "We’ve been hijacked. He had an Islamic book." "It’s getting very bad on the plane… the plane is making jerky movements."
"These examples taken, from the 9/11 Commission’s Report as referenced in writer/director Dylan Avery’s persuasive documentary "9/11 Loose Change," are telling for their clipped structure and ridiculously short length. They don't convey any of the mile-a-minute patter that a panicked person would use to call for immediate help in a hijack situation. "
He's saying it was all fake. How on God's Green Earth can they possibly beleiee that this could be true and not ONE single person who was "in" on it would have talked by now?! It is so preposterous, it's laughable.
Furthermore, the eeeeeevil Bush cabal managed to throw this whole flawless op together in only 8 months!
Of course, they also have to believe that these evil geniuses are completely incompetent in all other areas of human endeavor.
You are simply part of the conspiracy.
As it happens, I saw the 2nd plane hit the tower live myself from a conference room in midtwon 49th st & 7th ave.
Obviously, I am part of the same conspiracy :)
Fixed that for you :)
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