Subject: Re: Band of Brothers
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 22:02:05 GMT
At 09:28 PM 10/8/2001 -0400, Tim wrote:
>Scottie wrote:
>> I don’t know, Paul. Our television reviewers here echoed these
>> same reactions all as enthusiastic as your own. Yet as I watched
>> I felt an increasing impatience that this was almost certainly NOT
>> ‘the way it was’: that film & television are no more suited to
>> the recreation of ‘reality’ than ballet or opera. They require
>> the same kind of acceptance of conventions as any Noh theatre
>> & we’ve all absorbed them long ago without realising it.
>
>[sitting in the movie very scared] But all the while, naturally, I was
>aware of that fourth wall, aware that I was watching, not participating or
>reliving, and actually said out loud, many times, "I could never have done
>this" or "I would never have survived this."
I'm picturing a guy crouched in his movie seat, riveted. But once in a
while remembering to have some popcorn. :-)
>Precisely. I went through it (no, I was not on site [of the WTC attacks]
>when it happened; I was about 20 blocks away), and have carefully observed
>the aftermath these last few weeks, and recently did an essay about what
>it all has been like.
>
>I found it to be terribly upsetting afterward, as I dredged up memories
>and details, and as I observed people around me and their responses. Just
>getting the essay on paper was awful, and, indeed, a disaster movie was
>NOT what it was like -- except for the aftermath, which reminded me of one
>of those horror movies with oversized monster, where senseless people flee
>the site of the disaster. That's what Broadway was like, because it was
>the main thoroughfare for people heading north, away from the disaster and
>toward paths out of the city. Dazed and dusty and palpably afraid.
Yesterday, I went to the library to read the 15 Sept New York Times
articles about the head of that bonds office that lost 700 of its workers
(damn, I can't remember the name and I know I will the minute I send this--
Ch____-______?). Someone had said it was worth the read. It certainly was.
After reading the journalist's account, as interesting and well written as
it was, I read this excerpt of an interview with the guy and it really gave
me more of a sense of the effect of the events on people around those
buildings. His emotions, his observations, his actions. For instance, I
didn't know before this that everyone running out of those buildings was
wet from the fire sprinklers. Also, the journalist's account described him
going to the front of a line of people waiting to use a pay phone and
taking the phone from the guy on the phone. It sounded a touch thoughtless
to me. But in his account he tells the context: he was a zombie covered in
dust walking, walking for blocks and blocks and every time he sees phones,
there is a huge line. His cell phone won't work and he keeps walking. At
some point he notices that everyone in the lines is clean and looking at
him like, gee, is that what it's like down there. Then he went and
apologized to the guy on the phone as he took it from him to call his wife.
He remarks in the interview about the looks he was getting: yeah, two
buildings collapsed and no one got dirty.
So there is value in someone trying to convey something because there is
value in trying to understand it. If you make a public version of your
essay, I'd like to read it, Tim, so let us know.
>> [..] All the cinema can do is confusion & noise.
>
>All I know for certain is that during some scenes, I didn't just sweat
>from the tension and anxiety -- I felt myself dripping with
>perspiration. There were more than a few occasions when I sensed myself
>to be inside the heads of the characters, just as confused as they were,
>just as unable to make sense of it all, just as lost. The only difference
>was that I was, fortunately, not scared -- my ass wasn't on the line, the
>way it was for the characters presented to us.
(It is strange how movies love violence. I think the differences of
personality and philosophy and feelings start mattering a lot less when
people are in terror. Violent situations seem like a cheap way to get over
the difficulty of conveying something to the viewer. Art is supposed to
help us understand life and each other, in my view. By putting forth a
situation in which everyone would react pretty much the same way. I mean,
they reveal they doubt they could adequately convey much at all..)
>I'm sure. The only thing I can say is something I may have said here
>before (forgive me if I repeat myself, but I can't remember what I've said
>where) is that as I watched "Saving Private Ryan" and parts of "Band of
>Brothers," I said to myself, and then to people after, "This is where
>Sergeant X and the Seymour of 'Bananafish' and the soldier in 'A Boy in
>France' came from. This horror is what spawned these characters."
A sense of recognition and understanding. To me, to say what I've already
said, there was something good that came out of that attempt to convey
something. Those attempts were via film. Interview, essay, film. They're
not perfect but can help us understand, to some degree.
Suzanne
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