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By Woodrow J. Hinton
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The Zapruder home-movie footage of President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination took days to reach the American public. The secondhand video footage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center was broadcast almost immediately. The frightening images would be played over and over again on TV. We see the cameraman's sidewalk perspective of the black smoke pouring from the north tower of the WTC. Moments later, after a second jet crashes into the WTC's second tower, the video image turns wobbly as the amateur cameraman runs away from the explosion.
There was a frequently repeated phrase spoken by people stunned by TV's first reports of the terrorist attacks on the WTC and Pentagon: The WTC explosion looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie. But the reality surrounding Sept. 11 turned out to be stranger than any moviemade fiction. I can honestly say that one of the most frightening images of violence I've seen is the secondhand video footage of an amateur cameraman running away from the WTC explosion. Unlike moviemade explosions, this footage required no digital effects.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the movie violence that politicians would frequently deride is no longer an issue. Outrageous violence used to be movies like Dressed to Kill, Basic Instinct and the high school drama, O. The debates would involve images of gunfire, gangster violence and high school shootings. The work of various directors like Sam Peckinpah, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino would be re-examined with newfound scrutiny.
Our current perception of violence surrounds the threat of additional terrorist attacks. Hand-to-hand violence perpetrated by gangsters and cowboys against other gangsters and cowboys seems quaint by today's standards of terrorism. Today's battles will be fought by groups and states against other groups and states. What was once considered fantastic action -- terrorist-themed movies like Die Hard With a Vengeance, Air Force One and The Siege -- have become real-life possibilities.
Moviemade villains used to be men with guns. But today's villains are men with box cutters and knives. They are men who use planes as airborne bombs. By comparison, guns seem banal.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have become the new century's "day of infamy." Earlier this summer, the World War II extravaganza Pearl Harbor re-created the other "day of infamy" with state-of-the-art editing, special effects, digital enhancement and rigged explosions. Pearl Harbor displayed the brutish acts of war for the purpose of visual shock and visceral stimulation. Director Michael Bay painstakingly staged Japan's surprise attack on the Unites States Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Digital effects created a sweeping view of the Battleship Row attack that fills about 45 minutes of the three-hour-long movie.
In Pearl Harbor, a bomb falls from a Japanese Val towards the U.S.S. Arizona. By using digitally inserted bombs, warships, planes, crewmen, fire, smoke, sky and water, Bay is able to re-create terror as if it were seen from the bomb's perspective. Basically, Pearl Harbor is about creating violence as spectacle. Yet, its elaborate explosions pale compared to the gut-wrenching impact felt by the secondhand footage of the WTC explosion. Pearl Harbor required the vast resources of a Hollywood studio to create its make-believe carnage. One passerby and a handheld video camera was all it took to convey the horror of Sept. 11's WTC disaster.
The Pentagon cooperated with Bay in the production of Pearl Harbor. It's safe to say that they viewed the film's violent spectacle as perfectly patriotic. This collaboration between Washington and Hollywood reflects back on the days of the Production Code standards during World War II. During those times of conflict, it was felt that parameters had to be set over Hollywood's depiction of battlefront images, physical force and the resulting emotional trauma. The Office of War Information determined what was different between American's good, sanctioned military actions and the criminal, evil ones practiced by our enemies. The Production Code recognized the danger in presenting war in its full, intense and graphic reality. Under their scrutiny, photos of office workers jumping to their death from the World Trade Towers would have never been allowed in Time magazine.
The current goal of movie, TV and media is to emphasize the ideological difference between American military force and Islamic Terrorists like Osama Bin Laden who assault ordinary American lives. The challenge is to sidestep propaganda and prevent powerful images from the Sept. 11 attacks from generating paranoia, complete catharsis and additional traumatic tensions. Images of unchecked patriotism could lead to racist treatment of Arab-Americans. In times of war, the influence of movies and TV can be corrupting.
A guidebook like Manhattan on Film, offering a walking tour of popular New York City film locations, seems sad and discouraging in light of the Sept. 11 tragedy. It's hard to feel good about the Manhattan skyline while rescue crews continue to dig away at the WTC wreckage.
Recently, at a Toronto Film Festival screening of the girl-meets-girl comedy, Kissing Jessica Stein, the audience groaned every time the film flashed a panoramic shot of the New York skyline and the World Trade Towers. It's no surprise that a Manhattan-set, romantic comedy like Sidewalks of New York has been delayed. The same fate awaited the Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner, Collateral Damage. In the film, Schwarzenegger plays a fireman who loses his family to a terrorist attack on an office tower. Future films with terrorist story lines await their fates.
After Sept. 11, it's unclear whether movie audiences will want to see a film like the Jennifer Lopez thriller, Tick-Tock, In the movie, Lopez plays a FBI agent who sets out to defuse bombs set at various Los Angeles shopping malls.
It's safe to say that movie audiences once expressed a hunger for violence. After watching the secondhand footage of the WTC explosions, I think that hunger is over. ©
