| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Black Elk" |
| Date: |
09 Sep 2006 03:44:04 PM |
| Object: |
"ABC's Twisted 'Path to 9/11'" |
ABC's Twisted 'Path to 9/11'
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 9, 2006; C01
Factually shaky, politically inflammatory and photographically a mess,
"The Path to 9/11" -- ABC's two-part, five-hour miniseries tracing
events leading up to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon -- has something not just to offend everyone but also to
depress them.
The docudrama -- allegedly produced as a warning to the United States
that the attacks, or something like them, could happen again -- falls
clumsily into traps that await all those who make fictional films
claiming to be factual. Except this time, the event being dramatized is
one of the most tragic and monstrous in the nation's history, not
something to be trifled with.
-cont.-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801949_pf.html
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: "ABC's Twisted 'Path to 9/11'" |
11 Sep 2006 10:45:04 AM |
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The uproar from the left about "Path to 9/11", I'm sure, probably
helped improve the ratings for this docudrama. I, for one, would
probably never have watched it were it not for the controversy. After
watching the first part last night, I felt this was much ado about not
much. To begin, I disagree with Shales' review of the aesthetic and
story-telling qualities of this movie. While it is a bit too plentiful
of shots of airplanes waiting for takeoff, it carries the story well
and is easy to follow. I also appreciated the subjective "newsstyle"
camera work which Shales decries, particularly as the CIA agents are
running up the stairs in the shantytown where they arrest Ramzi Yousef.
It reminded me of the Brazilian movie "Cidade de Deus" (City of God"),
comforted me in the view that the root causes of terrorism are more
linked to poverty and lack of education than anything else. The living
conditions are not very different in the shantytowns of Islamabad and
those of Rio de Janeiro. This is re-emphasized by the statement in the
movie that Yousef is a brilliant man, an engineer, but he just cannot
find work. "None of us can", insists another Pakistani in the movie.
In a nutshell, I expected a much more virulent right-wing propaganda
tool, considering the background of the movie's producers and was not
swayed to vote for Republicans in the next election.
This is not to say that this is not dangerous. It is true that the
"dramatized" portrayals of Clinton administration officials are
unflattering and may amount to libel or slander. But the main
awkwardness of the movie resided in the repeated complaints of FBI and
CIA members about "lawyers" who would get in the way of capturing the
terrorists. These complaints are voiced both by field agents and by
CIA director Tenet, making the complaint sound bi-partisan. They
sounded like a page right out of Karl Rove's playbook and are likely to
echo positively with a majority of the American public. Two months
before mid-term elections, can it be a coincidence that the movie's
main message mirrors the president's call for Congress to allow
military tribunals for those terrorists previously held in secret and
illegal prisons abroad?
Black Elk a =E9crit :
ABC's Twisted 'Path to 9/11'
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 9, 2006; C01
Factually shaky, politically inflammatory and photographically a mess,
"The Path to 9/11" -- ABC's two-part, five-hour miniseries tracing
events leading up to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon -- has something not just to offend everyone but also to
depress them.
The docudrama -- allegedly produced as a warning to the United States
that the attacks, or something like them, could happen again -- falls
clumsily into traps that await all those who make fictional films
claiming to be factual. Except this time, the event being dramatized is
one of the most tragic and monstrous in the nation's history, not
something to be trifled with.
-cont.-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090=
801949_pf.html
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