Posted on 04/16/2006 5:31:56 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter
New Zealand September 11 hero Alan Beaven is to be immortalised in the first Hollywood movie about the terrorist attacks, but his Auckland family will not rush to see the film.
Beaven's brother, Ralph Beaven, said the idea of watching a film of his brother's ordeal was traumatic.
Universal Studios is soon to release United 93, which will focus on the United Airlines flight which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania before it could reach its intended target in Washington DC, thought to be the White House.
It is believed the hijackers failed in their mission because a group of heroic passengers, including former Auckland University student Beaven, stormed the cockpit. Beaven will be played in the movie by British actor Simon Poland.
A year after the 2001 attacks, Beaven's wife, Kimi, revealed to the Sunday Star-Times that her husband's remains were found in the cockpit of Flight 93 and his voice was on the cockpit voice recorder.
The film, to open on April 28 in America, has ignited debate there over whether the country is ready for such a vivid portrayal of the attacks.
When a trailer advertising the film was played at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out, "Too soon!"
The trailer contains news film of one of the planes about to hit the World Trade Center, and a cinema in Manhattan took the rare step of pulling it from its screens after several complaints.
"One lady was crying," the manager told a local paper. "I don't think people are ready for this."
Ralph Beaven said he would not go to the cinema to watch the film. "For me personally, I'm not sure I'd go along, I think it would be a little too close to home. I don't want to go down that track again.
"It would be very emotionally charged, especially seeing someone else represent your brother."
He said he might consider watching it later in the privacy of his home, if it was issued on DVD.
His brother had been an environmental lawyer in San Francisco who had fought for the underdog against big corporations, and who did not seek the limelight.
"He was not the sort of person who deliberately set out to have a lot of publicity. He was a down-to-earth Kiwi, he wore jeans and jandals."
Beaven said he had never received official word as to what exactly his brother's role was on the flight, and he believed Kimi Beaven's belief he had fought with the hijackers was conjecture.
>>>So nobody is allowed to talk about anything until all information has been discovered and all the potential trials have been concluded?
There you go twisting again. Copy and paste where I said this.
>>>What I will not do is say a film-maker should not deal with a subject altogether.
Copy and paste where I said this.
In April 1995, as part of our HS senior class trip, we visited Washington DC and New York City. One of our stops in this trip was the Twin Towers. To this day, I remember the view of the City from the observation deck, and I still have the ticket stub from that visit.
In my mind's eye I can see that mental image of that clear day, the city stretching from miles beneath me...
But that beautiful clear day is then replaced by the images of Sept. 11th...the planes flying into the Towers, the fires, the people falling...and the Towers collapsing.
I DON'T trust Hollywood to honor the heroes of 9/11, and I'm quite surprised that so many on this forum seem to think this movie will portray the heroes of that day with the respect and honor they so deserve.
All the families of Flight 93 were asked first how they felt about this movie proceeding into production, and they all are in support of honoring these brave heroes ... no less brave than our uniformed military for their courage.
The Kiwis don't sound too happy about it.
Your Post #77
And since you just admitted that we don't know all the accounts of Flight 93, how will this 'interpretation' be used for tainting juries for upcoming trials?
Does this statement not indicate that it is wrong for this movie to have been made because of the potential for tainting future jury pools?
If this potential for tainting future potential jury pools is to be a reason films should not be made, would that not preclude the production of films on a wide variety of subjects?
I don't agree.
As a group, I would think that Freepers have a remarkably clear view of what happened on 9/11/01. We've discussed it in tens of thousands of posts since then, read countless newspaper and magazine articles, and stacks of books. We've archived the photos and the initial news reports. We've counter-protested those who really do want to shove 9/11 down the memory hole. Whether one chooses to attend United 93 or not is a personal call that has very little to do with one's awareness of the events of that day.
Frankly, it puzzles me a bit to hear the opinion that 9/11 can only be remembered or understood if one watches a particular film. I enjoy the movies as much as most folks do, but I find that I understand history best from those things I read.
Different people process information in different ways. Some folks are much more visual, and movies are a far better way to process information.
AND disrespectful for the families. This is no different than showing fallen soldier coffins in the media.
When this war is over, and everyone knows what really happened, then knock yourselves out with the movie of the week.
You are commenting on a picture I posted to Wormwood?
Yes. My apologies if I misunderstood your intentions in posting it.
I'm going to go see the movie. I also saw Moore's movie. I will probably see Stone's movie.
We will just have to disagree, I guess.
> The Kiwis don't sound too happy about it.
To the best of my knowledge, New Zealand only lost one countryman to the 9/11: Alan Beavan on Flight 93.
That said, many of us had friends, colleagues and family who were not Kiwis but who perished on 9/11.
It is difficult to gauge how the general NZ populace will respond to the movie. I for one intend to see the movie, out of respect.
"DieHard"
Agreed. For me the movies are a better vehicle for emotion, though I realize that may be entirely different for others.
Well, post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1616182/posts?page=83#83 claims that all families gave the ok for this movie. The Kiwis don't sound like they did.
I personally know people that were never even asked.
"I would be most interested to learn what Hollywood intends to do with its profits from this movie."
Hollywood doesn't profit. Depending on the contracts, the people that front the production with their money do.
Rush Limbaugh has seen the pre-release version and said it was well done. Accurate? How can anyone know for certain? But it should be shown as a reminder of what we face.
But the touchiest question about "United 93" has been answered: Can Hollywood, notorious for fudging facts in its hunger for a multiplex-friendly film, sensitively handle its first in-depth take on the Sept. 11 tragedy?
A majority of the film's toughest audience -- Flight 93's families -- say it has and that they appreciate it. They aren't offended by the timing of the movie. In the words of many family members, Americans have become "complacent" about their lives since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It was both excruciating and beautiful at the same time," said Los Gatos resident Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham was on the flight. Hoagland attended the Daly City screening with 60 other Flight 93 family members and friends. "I think it was faithful to what we know to have happened, and where (the filmmakers) had to improvise, the dialogue was believable."
The families are a tightly knit bunch, linked formally by a regular newsletter and a closely guarded e-mail list, but mostly by the at-all-hours phone calls that only another Flight 93 relative can truly understand. Quietly, some fear that their loved ones' midair heroism and death in tiny Shanksville, Pa., will become a forgotten footnote among the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center attacks.
Many family members, however, expressed ambivalent feelings about how Hollywood would shape into a commercial film what they refer to as the first moments of the post-Sept. 11 world. Two other made-for-cable TV efforts released in the past year have drawn high ratings but mixed reviews from the families.
San Rafael resident Jack Grandcolas, whose wife, Lauren, was on Flight 93, was more upset by a trade magazine advertisement touting the high ratings for the January A&E Channel movie "Flight 93" than by the cable film itself. Still, Grandcolas realizes that such popular culture treatments are inevitable; in August, Paramount Pictures is scheduled to release the $60 million film "World Trade Center," directed by Oliver Stone.
So, like other Flight 93 families, Grandcolas was apprehensive when he received a call from filmmakers about a year ago. Nevertheless, last fall he joined 20 Flight 93 family members in a hotel conference room near San Francisco Airport to hear British director Paul Greengrass explain his vision.
The director's pedigree helped. Not only has Greengrass received critical praise for his evenhanded approach to 2002's "Bloody Sunday," about a 1972 Northern Ireland shooting, but his 2004 action film, "The Bourne Supremacy," raked in $176 million at the box office.
In a three-minute trailer for "United 93," Greengrass said that after the families told him they were comfortable with making the film, he suggested that audiences "should listen to what their story is" so people don't forget the passengers' heroism.
"What impressed me is that he wanted to focus on the collective effort of all of the passengers instead of just focusing on a few," as past productions had, said Carole O'Hare, a 53-year-old Danville resident whose mother, Hilda Marcin, was on board. "And that's what we told him. We said we want everybody to be represented."
The filmmakers impressed the families with a rather un-Hollywood amount of personal touch over the next several weeks. Researchers and assistant producers conducted interviews in person with more than 100 family members and friends, flying from the Caribbean to New York to California. And actors portraying the passengers spent hours talking with families, asking about everything from what the passengers liked to wear to deeply personal anecdotes.
Some of those conversations could end up on the film's DVD. Universal has pledged to donate 10 percent of all box-office revenues from the first three days of the North American release to the Flight 93 National Memorial being planned in Pennsylvania. "But it never seemed like they were extracting information from us," Grandcolas said.
Family members said the film hews closely to the information contained in the Sept. 11 commission report. As much of what happened on the flight is unknown, Greengrass, who doubled as screenwriter, filled in the gaps. He also gave the actors permission to improvise, using what they had learned about the passengers.
Sometimes the film's real-time veracity was a bit too pointed. Grandcolas tensed during the preview screening as he watched "his wife" make a call to him from the plane. Garcia, as a matter of self-preservation, tried to watch the film as a critic. "I wanted to go outside my little box," she said.
As the lights went up in the theater, there was silence. Then a few sobs were heard. But when Greengrass appeared minutes later on a satellite hookup to hear their input, family members in attendance say only one negative comment was voiced. One unidentified woman felt the film was too violent. Garcia, among many others, praised his "courageous" filmmaking.
Near the end of their 45-minute chat, Garcia said, "Paul (Greengrass) went back to that woman and asked if she was OK now."
Many family members say they rode home silently in the rain from the theater. Emotionally drained, Grandcolas clung to the hope that the film would provoke other everyday Americans, like those on the plane, to ponder what they would do when confronted with such a situation.
"The hardest thing to do," he said, "is the right thing to do."
> The Kiwis don't sound like they did.
Clearly nobody asked the Beavans in NZ: their viewpoint seems quite clear.
More than 100 family members and friends doesn't mean they spoke to all the victim families.
bump
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