gumboot
25th August 2006, 08:52 PM
I watched United 93 last night, and it brought this question home to me in an overwhelming way.
Some of you know I'm a filmmaker. As such I'm relatively desensitised to films. The last films to truely overwhelm me were "Schindler's List" (age 12) and "Saving Private Ryan" (Age 17) (Omaha landing sequence).
I anticipated being fairly affected by United 93 simply because I'm become fairly familiar with the subject matter. But I was utterly obliterated by this film. They went for as "realistic" an approach as viable, and the succeeded in staggering ways.
The memory of what happened that day must not ever be forgotten. To deny it happened, to deny what these people went through, is a crime against humanity. It is a crime against the human spirit. In the face of an undefeatable attack, these people stood up and TRIED. Not just on the aircraft. In the FAA command centre, at ATC centres, and in the NEADS bunker. All of these people tried, and kept on trying until the last second.
To me, the single remark that summarises what is greatest about Democracy is a well known 18 word remark by John F Kennedy.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
What the people caught up in 9/11 did was the ultimate display of this value. The first responders in New York. The military who desperately chased shadows across the sky. The ATCs who prevented the thousands of other flights colliding with these rogue aircraft. And the ordinary people, caught up in the storm, who acted for the greater good. Last of all, the passengers and flight attendants on United Flight 93.
Despite the odds stacked against them, all of these people TRIED.
And the sad people who deny these events, they deny the thousands of people who struggled in vain. Another quote springs to mind:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910
To all the JREF ninjas out there, keep on fighting the good fight. May we never forget.
-Andrew
Some of you know I'm a filmmaker. As such I'm relatively desensitised to films. The last films to truely overwhelm me were "Schindler's List" (age 12) and "Saving Private Ryan" (Age 17) (Omaha landing sequence).
I anticipated being fairly affected by United 93 simply because I'm become fairly familiar with the subject matter. But I was utterly obliterated by this film. They went for as "realistic" an approach as viable, and the succeeded in staggering ways.
The memory of what happened that day must not ever be forgotten. To deny it happened, to deny what these people went through, is a crime against humanity. It is a crime against the human spirit. In the face of an undefeatable attack, these people stood up and TRIED. Not just on the aircraft. In the FAA command centre, at ATC centres, and in the NEADS bunker. All of these people tried, and kept on trying until the last second.
To me, the single remark that summarises what is greatest about Democracy is a well known 18 word remark by John F Kennedy.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
What the people caught up in 9/11 did was the ultimate display of this value. The first responders in New York. The military who desperately chased shadows across the sky. The ATCs who prevented the thousands of other flights colliding with these rogue aircraft. And the ordinary people, caught up in the storm, who acted for the greater good. Last of all, the passengers and flight attendants on United Flight 93.
Despite the odds stacked against them, all of these people TRIED.
And the sad people who deny these events, they deny the thousands of people who struggled in vain. Another quote springs to mind:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910
To all the JREF ninjas out there, keep on fighting the good fight. May we never forget.
-Andrew