Stones "World Trade Center"

Ok, I was hoping that he'd actually make a film that was throrough with regards to the actual events of 9/11, but this review from the WSJ Opinion Journal makes it apparent that is not what was made.

It is not my intention to question this decision as an artistic judgment; Mr. Stone set out to make a narrowly focused film about one thing that happened on September 11, 2001, to the exclusion of everything else. He has done that well, and it would be foolish to argue that he should have made some other movie instead.

But it is legitimate to examine Mr. Stone's movie in light of its moral message. A long article on the film in Newsweek quotes Mr. Stone: "The consequences of 9/11 are enormous to this world, not just to America." This is true; 9/11 changed world history. But he goes on: "This movie is made for the world, and if it's what I hope it to be, it transcends 9/11. It's about anybody, anywhere, who feels the taste of death, whether it was a bombing in Madrid or an earthquake or a tsunami" (emphasis added). Well, now we are in a different place. The world-changing character of 9/11 does not rest on the number of people who "felt the taste of death." Hundreds of thousands more people died in the December 2004 tsunami. It was a tragic event, but not a world-changing one. Unless you are an animist inclined to attribute moral significance to random acts of nature, a tsunami is "value-free." It just happened. But 9/11 didn't just happen. As "United 93" makes explicit, 9/11 happened because determined men with a plan boarded those planes and carried out their plan.

"World Trade Center" tells a different story. It is the story of 9/11 as experienced by the men on the ground as it occurred. As far as it goes, it does ample justice to the rescue and emergency workers who were present on that day. They did not know, could not know, who brought down the towers or why. The question is whether "World Trade Center" goes far enough when it comes to shaping our understanding of what happened.

I suppose telling the story of those on the ground is a legitimate story, but not including the cause pretty much castrated the story overall. Strange that Stone went to great lengths to point out conspiracy contexts in JFK, but doesn't here.

The fact that we were attacked on 9/11 is far too important to the story. This wasn't a natural disaster. The heroism of the people involved can't be forgotten. The public really could use a reminder that this all came to pass due to terrorists.