9/11 Art Shoots For the Heart

The image of a person grieving expresses a certain rawness, a singular emotional intensity that, strangely, rarely surfaces in images of the 9/11 aftermath. Artists dealing with acts of terror are often content to represent a more general sense of national grief through abstract images, like the photographs of twisted debris that comprise Joel Meyerowitz’s photo-book “Aftermath.” Often, this results in gripping, affective art.

But when someone explicitly grieves for a friend who died in the attacks, the moment is special, charged with the weighty energy that comes only with proximity to mortality. An artist considerate of his or her audience composes these moments with a precise and practiced eye, unearthing images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without forcing us to relive the horrific experience in its protracted entirety.

The violation of this tacit standard of acceptable length both endows Oliver Stone’s recent film “World Trade Center” with tremendous emotional force and casts it as an excruciating exercise in emotional and sensory masochism. The film depicts the “true life events” of Port Authority Police officers John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña). Their 24-hour struggle to survive while trapped under tons of rock and rubble contains too many screams, tears, and fireballs to feel genuine.

The real drama develops from the grief experienced by the men’s wives. Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaa’s portrayals of suffering provide the most sincere emotional punch in the film. In stark contrast, the men’s episodes of torment are so repetitive and exasperating that they destroy the verisimilitude Stone and his screenwriter Andrea Berloff establish in the precious moments prior to the towers’ collapse.

In “United 93,” on the other hand, writer/director Paul Greengrass maintains a terrifying sense of reality, even though his film relies on flimsier “facts” than “World Trade Center.” Somehow, a quasi-fictional portrayal of the hijackings seems less offensive than one offering constant, visceral detail.

Greengrass’ characters, while based on the actual passengers of United 93, are nearly nameless. The spirit with which they fight to escape their fate suggests the way other 9/11 victims might have resisted, given the chance, thereby lending a grander sense of purpose to Greengrass’ film.

On the other side of the spectrum is Ken Kalfus’ new novel “A Disorder Peculiar to the Country,” (see review, B3) which portrays the acrimonious divorce between Joyce and Marshall Harriman. Although the novel has a tighter focus than “United 93,” it isn’t as myopic as “World Trade Center,” using the Harrimans’ divorce to represent the sociopolitical changes that rocked post 9/11 America. Kalfus’ prose is as expansive as it is visceral, enhancing the sense that anyone could be fated to divorce, decapitation, or worse, without making the plot feel contrived.

Such insecurity can also be enfeebling. Indeed, paralysis is one of the many reactions explored in “The Great New Wonderful,” the most impressive piece of 9/11 art I’ve encountered. Writer Sam Catlin and director Danny Leiner weave together five fictional stories examining the ways in which New Yorkers might have dealt with the trauma of the attacks, a year later.

The filmmakers examine myriad emotional states—fertile ground for the talented ensemble company. The stories can require psychological excavation, an undertaking performed literally by Dr. Trabulous (Tony Shalhoub), a cantankerous psychologist who analyzes Sandie (Jim Gaffigan). As Dr. Trabulous discovers, Sandie has buried his rage inside himself, a stark contrast to the brooding Satish (Sharat Saxena), a hired security goon who externalizes his anger.

Bearing one’s own grief, the filmmakers suggest, is a recipe for violence: a personal distillation of the terrorist rage deftly portrayed in “United 93.” Meanwhile, the wives in “World Trade Center” are forced into public grieving, the country’s immediate reaction to the attacks.

Yet somehow rage, an inevitable byproduct of constrained sorrow, yields prophecy and deeper insight. In “The Great New Wonderful,” Satish’s anger boils over and he kicks his disarming colleague and neighbor Avi (Naseeruddin Shah) to the ground—a stunningly brutal act. Then, as Avi stands, he delivers a simple but crucial lesson contained in all 9/11 art: “Life is very short, my friend. We should all know that by now.”

—Columnist Kyle L. .K. McAuley can be reached at kmcauley@fas.harvard.edu.