Just got back from seeing "United 93"

[pegkerr]

I expect I will have trouble sleeping tonight. The reviews are right. It is gripping and absolutely excruciating. I think it was absolutely respectful, and it did not strike me as exploitive. In fact, it was all the more powerful because it wasn't exploitive but, on the contrary, underplayed, which made the events depicted carry an even greater wallop. But that is my deeply personal reaction.

I cannot tell you whether or not to see it. I think that everyone must decide that for themselves. I believe that there are those who will never be able to see this movie.

I can only tell you that for myself, as painful as it is to sit through, especially the furious and desperate final twenty minutes, I am very very glad that I did.

Edited to add: here is my response to a comment made below by minnehaha B, who asked me, extremely reasonably, why on earth I would want to take my knowledge and memories of the event and replace them with a fictional dramatization designed to push all my buttons? I replied:

Another specific reason that I went to see the film is that I just finished reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. The book included a discussion of a study of some children at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California "playing the Purdy game." This was a case where a perpetrator named Patrick Purdy stood at a playground's edge and sprayed hundreds of bullets at the children playing there. Five died and twenty-nine were wounded.

In the ensuing months, the "Purdy game" appeared spontaneously in the play of boys and girls at the school, where the children reenacted the tragedy. Sometimes they played it so that the children killed Purdy.

The psychologists figured out that story is part of the way that children heal from PTSD, by emotional re-learning:

One way this emotional healing seems to occur spontaneously--at least in children--is through games such as Purdy. These games, played over and over again, let children relive a trauma safely, as play. This allows two avenues for healing: on the one hand, a memory repeats in a context of low anxiety, desensitizing it and allowing a nontraumatized set of responses to become associated with it. Another route to healing is that, in their minds, children can magically give the tragedy another, better outcome: sometimes in playing Purdy, the children kill him, boosting their sense of mastery over that traumatic moment of helplessness."

You can argue that I am not a child, and that I didn't actually 'live' through the events of United 93 personally. Very true. But this rang really true to me, and reading this chapter was part of the reason that I went to see the movie. I have always had enormous respect for the healing effects of story and have personally used it for emotional purposes previously myself--witness how I continually return to the same books when I am distressed about something.

I think this movie is partly our nation "playing Purdy" from the trauma of 9/11.

Anyway, the chapter is titled "Trauma and Emotional Relearning," if you'd like to look at it.

Understand: processing by re-telling (and even re-shaping) story is a way I process things. For me, seeing it was the right decision. But I also understand and freely accept that Your Mileage May Vary.

Edited to add again: And do me the courtesy of at least believing that I understand that the movie includes fiction mixed with fact, dammit.

Edited to add again: All right, people. No more comments on this post, if you please. Because, you know, I've just about had enough. Yes, I am being dictatorial, but hey, it's my journal and I get to do that. The ushers are sweeping up the popcorn and the projectionist has left the building. If you would like to discuss this further, please take it to your own journals. Thank you.
Sincerely,
The Management

Comments

[laurel]

I really can't see that happening and it makes me sad that you think some people would have that sort of reaction (okay, maybe some would, but I think it'd be very rare).

Peg's account of reactions matches what I'd expect and I think it'd be the same all across the political spectrum.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Clearly you don't spend a lot of time reading Republican rhetoric.

Rush Limbaugh: "'The overwhelming emotion I had was sheer anger at the terrorists, bordering on hatred,' Limbaugh said."

The National Review: "Periodically, I want to remember, to be reminded of everything of that day, to know what this war we're fighting is all about, and what the world can be during its worst hours and what individuals can be at their finest hours. I wonder how many other folks feel like that."

Blogs for Bush: "How many of you are going? Does anyone really think it is too soon? Personally, I think it's nearly too late...too long we have forgotten That Day, and what it meant...to the point now where we are a hopelessly divided nation...though, perhaps this film will start a re-unifiction on the issue of fighting terrorism."

I'll stop at three. But honestly, just search any conservative blog and you'll find the same sorts of stuff. Not only will "some people have that sort of reaction," but very influential Republicans have already had that sort of reaction in public.

B

First it's for the money...

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

... and not emotions, and now it's to stir up emotions for political reasons?

Except for the "not" part, you're almost certainly right. People often do things for many reasons, and I'm confident that at least some people involved in this movie had both of the reasons that you're suggesting, and many more. (I doubt that Todd Beamer's father is in it for the money, but his WSJ piece makes it clear that he's supporting the movie because of its implicit political agenda.)

Political agenda's aren't exactly unknown in didactic fiction, or didactic nonfiction. (This movie, from early reports, is pretty clearly a fair historical, taking very few liberties with known facts, and with fair if unknowable implications from the facts.)

My guess is that the political implications and potential popular political influence of it are the source of much of the objections to it, roughly for the same reasons that many people found that awful Mrs. Stowe's rabble-rousing novel so disturbing. (My own guess is that they've far less to worry about than they think that they do, but I'm a cynic, after all.)

[laurel]

Okay, I thought what fmsv meant was that people would somehow indicate this while in the theater (by cheering or raising a fist or applauding or I dunno what).

Honestly, I haven't the slightest bit of problem with people being angered by the movie (and/or the events portrayed in it)-- that seems a logical thing to me. I didn't expect the terrorists to be portrayed in such a way that one would root for them (unless, you know, you're a terrorist or someone very much for their cause).

I also don't have a problem with any of those quotes. (Do you? Why? Perhaps that's a conversation better had in person. I'm really trying to understand this stuff, but few people will ever discuss these things with me). Note I haven't gone and read the entire pieces.

If fmsv was more concerned about what people might say later, I don't see how that effects one's enjoyment (or non enjoyment) of the movie. But then I often don't understand the furor around certain movies (like The Passion or The Last Temptation of Christ, to name two I can think of right now). They're just movies.

Hrm. Not sure I'm being clear, sorry.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I'm not making any representation about whether ther is anything wrong or right with those quotes. I presented them as examples of things I thought you said would not happen. If I was wrong about what you thought, apologies.

B