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Also this issue: City of the Future Neo Metro Like Grandfather, Like Son After Life |
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September 5-11, 2002
screen picks
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The 9/11 Show It's been a year since the attacks, and we still can't decide how we want to remember them. Actual footage of the attacks and their aftermath has long been deemed too graphic, but even artistic representations are far from safe -- at least one commentator accused Bruce Springsteen of profiting from the attacks by releasing an album of 9/11-themed songs. With the anniversary looming, such hand-wringing has only grown more frenzied, with TV stations planning daylong "commemorations" but unsure of the politics of advertising during them. No one wants to deny the networks' right to run ads during their usual parade of shootouts, car crashes and faraway floods, but some things are apparently beyond the ad-dollar pale.
It's not that there's no legitimacy to such concerns -- just that they're disingenuous, naive and fundamentally wrong-headed. Turn on your TV or step into a bookstore and you'll see that there has yet to be a tragedy we can't figure out a way to profit from. And so what? There's a difference between profit and profiteering. Given the way our media are structured, it's inevitable that as information is passed along someone will make money off it somewhere; an author might donate her royalties to charity, but don't expect the printer, the binder, the shipping company, the distributors and the booksellers to do the same. If, as expected, the networks' "tribute" turns out to be a maudlin barrage of sticky reminiscences and gung-ho patriotism, with a little Iraq-bashing thrown in for good measure, getting it for free still won't be cheap enough. And I'll happily give a few of my dollars to anyone who can help make the slightest bit of sense out of what's been going on.
Of course, if you dread the daylong pageant to come, you can always just not turn on your TV. But set aside an hour and a half of VCR time in the evening (beginning at 8 p.m.), so you can watch Sundance Channel's "9 Views: 9/11" once the hype has died down. Indeed, you'll want time to ponder some of these nine short films (and, perhaps, the option of fast-forwarding through some as well). It's telling that although they're inevitably colored by the aftershocks, most of the shorts stick close to the scene of the crime; more than half rely on images of New York in the hours and days immediately following the attacks, while the San Francisco-based Sorra Collective's 9/10 recalls "the last night of the 20th century." Tara Young's Clouds and Chel White's New York, which bookend the program, set silent images of the city to music. In Young's case, the images captured on the walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the morning of the 11th achieve a strange kind of beauty, while White's skylines hide the skeletons of buildings being rebuilt. Caveh Zahedi's The World is a Classroom tries to capture the impact by recording the processorial debates that erupted in his filmmaking class in the days after the attacks, but instead serves as evidence of how vanity trumps compassion. With its jarring faux-jazz score, Beverly Peterson's 71 W. Broadway, Ground Zero, NY starts off without promise, but it quickly evolves into a captivating memoir of her struggle to return to her apartment -- when she finally does get in, everything is covered by a half-inch of ash -- and the toll taken on her neighborhood: the residents who move out unreplaced, the merchants whose businesses continue to suffer. Ira Sachs' Untitled simply collects the pictures from the "Missing" posters which dotted lower Manhattan for months, but the approach proves inestimably powerful -- for six minutes, the rhetoric, the buzz of commentary, the politics and retribution all slip away, and you're left with the bare fact of their lives, snuffed out. With all that's likely to fill the air on that day, it's a relief that, somewhere on the dial, for six minutes there will be nothing but them.
Just as still, if not as silent, the Chestnut Hill Film Group will be showing Andy Warhol's Empire from 3-11 p.m. with musical accompaniment to be provided by DJ Dan Buskirk. Warhol's static paean to New York's tallest building (then and now) provides a chance to think about why what are essentially office buildings should hold such a special place in our hearts, or perhaps just an opportunity to go and sit somewhere dark and quiet for a few hours. Sundance Channel echoes that valedictory to New York Sunday at 9 p.m. with "NY, NY," two hours of shorts celebrating New York in its prime. There are a few weak spots, like Jem Cohen's dragging, aimless Lost Book Found, which demonstrates New Yorkers' endless ability to be fascinated with themselves. But there are thrilling entries as well, like D.A. Pennebaker, whose 1953 Daybreak Express marries dizzying footage of the elevated subway to the sounds of Duke Ellington, and Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and James Agee's In the Street (1944), a collection of snapshots from the streets of East Harlem.
Afghanistan Year 1380 (Mon., Sept. 9, 10 p.m.; Wed., Sept. 11, 4 a.m. WHYY-TV) The fact that most Americans will read the title and think they're in for a historical drama is all the evidence you need of Afghanistan Year 1380's relevance. In fact, 1380 was the Muslim year that began not long after the U.S. started bombing Afghanistan, the consequences of which are broached by Alberto Vendemmiati, Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Giuseppe Petitto's documentary. The three, whose Jung (War) In the Land of the Mujaheddin was shown in Philadelphia earlier this year, continue their focus on the European doctors attempting to provide much-needed medical care to the country's people. The hourlong Year 1380 is more a collection of images than a story, and while there's no erasing the image of the bloody stump that remains after a child has innocently played with a land mine, there's less to learn than you might hope.
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