I’m not going to bore you once again with my argument for why there is no wrong time to make a good movie about 9/11. I won’t again remind you that we have no problem with books or songs about 9/11, and I won’t ask you why film should be treated as any less of an art form. What I want to address is a bit of misinformation that I have seen again and again on the web – namely the claim that Universal did not work with the families of United Airlines Flight 93 when putting together Paul Greengrass’ United 93.
The truth is, as Paul has said to me in a series of exclusive interviews here on CHUD, that all of the families were involved in the process, and all of the families gave their blessing to this film. The other day we brought you the news that United 93’s website was up – today I want to draw your attention to a behind the scenes featurette that has Paul explaining how important the families were to this film, and has some of the family members speaking their mind. Click here to see it (make sure you allow pop ups on Firefox)
United 93 and Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center are going to be two of the most important films of the year. Each person out there has to make a decision for themselves if the events of that day are something they want to relive in a movie theater. I’ll tell you this much – 9/11 was the worst day of my life. There has not been a day over the last four years where I am not haunted by that Tuesday morning. But lately I’ve found that catharsis can be had with confrontation, and I think these two films will be very important for all of us – whether they will be the end of one phase of dealing or the beginning of a new one, I don’t know, but I do know that United 93 and World Trade Center are serious films being undertaken with the noblest and most artistic of intentions.