5 years later, 9/11 films, music give tribute

Last year, a documentary series proposed that an illusion was created in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. It was the illusion of an organized terrorist network--one fashioned by neo-conservatives.

Last month, a film about two real members of the Port Authority force, who survived the destruction of the Twin Towers, opened in theaters nationwide.

Most can name the second feature: World Trade Center. But how many can name the first--what has been lauded by some as one of the most valuable pieces of media concerning the events of Sept. 11?

With the sheer volume of art, photography, literature and film about the attacks released over the past five years, it is not surprising that some art forms dominate others in the public arena.

Even though the documentary series, The Power of Nightmares, has not been so widely recognized, it is one of the only forms of post-9/11 expression that is actually progressive, said Brent Hoff, former writer for The Daily Show and current curator of the DVD magazine, Wholphin.

"[The film] at least gives you a little background into what is inspiring this kind of radical Islamic fundamentalist movement," Hoff said. "I can't think of anything else that is doing a good job of helping us digest, contextualize and interpret the events that led to 9/11."

If this is the case, where does Art Spiegelman's collection of politically charged comics In the Shadow of No Towers, fit in? What about Bruce Springsteen's album, The Rising, a mixture of anthems dedicated to 9/11, or the upcoming film The Great New Wonderful, which features the stories of five individuals on the emotional recovery after 9/11?

And let's not forget those MTV all-star tribute videos, featuring the likes of Christina Aguilera and the Backstreet Boys belting out heartfelt tunes against the backdrop of 9/11 clips.

However, it is precisely the social necessity of these artistic expressions that Lawrence Weschler, author of numerous social and political works and a former staff writer for The New Yorker, questions.

While there is nothing particularly wrong with the better forms of these commemorative pieces, Weschler said, their function is akin to "gazing at our navel."

The most resounding problem, he noted, is that audiences and artists alike have become so immersed in what he calls the "noise" of the attacks that the impending issues of our geopolitical age have been precariously delayed as a result.

"It's a fetishizing of [9/11], and it's all about vanity and narcissism," Weschler said. "And the subtext is [that] at the end of the day, billions and billions of dollars go to completely stupid things like defense companies as opposed to alternative energy companies. And that is catastrophic."

The primary issue is not so much embedded in the quality of these post-9/11 artistic efforts, but rather the redundancy that comes with excessive quantity of such efforts. Even apart from media and commercialism, Americans can no doubt attest to being saturated with images of the attacks.

The question of timing has also been a point of dispute. Recent criticism has accused Oliver Stone, director of World Trade Center, of jumping too quickly onto the bandwagon of history's commemorative films.

Ariel Dorfman, professor of literature and Latin American studies at Duke, dealt with social tragedies firsthand in a 1973 coup in Chile-what he calls that country's "own September 11." His view of art following catastrophe is that it requires time to come to terms with the momentum of the tragedy.

"Catastrophes are never easy to deal with artistically because they tend to overwhelm us, demand an understanding that will only come with time," Dorfman said. "We will only know 30 years from now what really will remain and be resonant."

Weschler's concern is less with time than it is with function. He cites World Trade Center as an example of diverting public attention away from the more crucial global picture.

"It's very fascinating to watch, but it's total bulls-," Weschler said. "Oliver Stone should be ashamed of himself for wasting time on this."

Hoff is somewhat more forgiving, but said he agrees with Weschler that these fictionalized dramas do little to help process what happened on the day of the terrorist attacks.

Still, Oliver Stone's opinion of his film is precisely such: that it is a retelling of an event, rather than a vehicle for social change.

"Everyone's going to take something from it-what they want. You see a movie and you react to it or not. You like it or you don't. You dig it. Whatever you say, you walk out with your own feelings about that day, those people," Stone said. "I think the film honors those feelings of that day and remembers them. That's all it can do."

When asked about his view of the post-9/11 world, Stone said that people always talk about an event as the post-Titanic era or post-World War II.

"You've got to look at real life and see how people have changed," Stone added. "I don't think they have."

The question becomes whether the lack of change--the recycling of human emotions and visual aesthetic in the artistic spectrum--is nourishing to society or inhibitive. The art of the past five years may have been a method of coping, or it may have been an example of misguided creativity. But there is no question that artists felt a need to respond to the September 11 attacks, and that the need was enormous.