Because of its title and the timing of its release (about one month before the fifth anniversary of 9/11), World Trade Center, or WTC, as it’s known on the street, will probably go down in the annals as Ground Zero’s feature film of record.
There’s no doubt that the film’s intended to honor all those who were there—the rescuers, survivors and victims—but there’s the expected swirl of controversy surrounding the movie’s particular spin on the events of that tragic day. The film focuses on the true stories of two New York City Port Authority Police officers—John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno—who were rescued from a tomb of crushing blocks of concrete and twisted beams of melted metal.
McLoughlin, a 21-year veteran, and Jimeno, an idealistic rookie, entered WTC’s Concourse intending to rescue others. When the buildings collapsed, they—like so many of their brave and heroic colleagues—were trapped beneath the rubble. As we learn from WTC’s end scroll, Will and John were the 18th and 19th of only 20 survivors extracted alive from the collapsed Twin Towers.
“Approximately 3,000 people died that day, and there were 20 survivors...I can’t speak for the other 18, but John and Will are the symbolic epicenter of the story because they were actually at the very center of the collapse,” says Oliver Stone, who signed on to direct WTC after the script had been written. “Because of John’s foresight, they went to the elevator shaft. That saved their lives. Still, only two of their five-man team made it. This was a story waiting—no, dying—to be told.”
The making of WTC was initiated when Debra Hill, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher approached Jimeno and McLoughlin about producing a feature film based on their stories.
“We, as filmmakers, passionately felt it would be wrong if the only images of that day were buildings falling and people fleeing. We wanted the record to show humanity triumphing and that positive things happened,” says Michael Shamberg. “It’s important these stories enter our culture and show us how we acted in the best ways that day.”
The film skillfully interweaves scenes showing moment-to-moment experiences of the trapped McLoughlin (played by Nicholas Cage) and Jimeno (Michael Peña) and those suffered by their desperately worried families. “When I first thought about doing this film, I wanted it to be about my teammates,” says Will Jimeno. “But the producers saw the bigger picture—they wanted to show the strength of our wives, the rescuers, everyone who came in.”
Which leads to questions about why the film doesn’t give more attention to several other key characters, especially fallen teammate Dominick Pezzulo, who could have escaped from the rubble and sent back others to help, but instead remained to rescue Jimeno and was crushed to death by a secondary influx of debris. And why don’t we know more about chief rescuers Scott Strauss and Scott Fox, who continued valiantly to save others while assuming they would die in the process? Program notes given to the media gives details of their stories, but audiences aren’t told enough about these heroes. The film’s “where-are-they-now?” end scroll doesn’t mention them nor does it indicate 9/11’s impact on their families. Perhaps herein lies the source of some of the controversy.
“This is a simple film, a modest film about working class families. In the tradition of Hollywood—of Ford and Wyler—it’s a story about the very tightly connected emotions of four characters—two wives, two husbands. Getting that right is a huge challenge,” explains Stone. “This film is not a documentary. It’s not cinema verité. It’s not United 93. We had, and were true, to a series of facts, a chain of evidence; one that was fresh because people who were there told us their stories—Scottie Strauss, Scottie Fox and others, and the transcripts of Dave Karnes.”
Dave Karnes, the ex-Marine who walked out on his accountant’s job in Connecticut, donned cammo, went to Ground Zero to rescue people and located Jimeno and McLoughlin, stands out as an important figure in WTC. He’s not on screen much, but his presence is significant. Shot at angles reminiscent of the photography of Eisenstein’s heroic Alexander Nevsky, Karnes saunters past police barricades and climbs cool as a cucumber over smoldering rubble that, in reality, melted firemen’s rubber boots. He’s the only character in WTC who announces his intention to avenge the day—and the end scroll indicates he’s since reenlisted and served two tours of duty in Iraq. Perhaps his representation is the source for curiosity about the filmmakers’ intentions.
“Everything Dave Karnes says in the movie, he said in life,” says screenwriter Andrea Berloff. “I’d have to say that initially, Oliver Stone and I disagreed about using his avenge line. I felt it might change the movie’s tone. But I actually think it was the right decision to include that line. What it accomplishes is to bridge this beautiful movie to what is today. That one line shows how we got from there to here, and I think that’s important to see.”
It’s likely that everyone who sees WTC will have a strong opinion about the film and whether it’s an accurate and/or adequate representation of the Twin Towers tragedy. Everyone—New Yorkers especially—has haunting personal memories and profound impressions of that day, and unshakable convictions about how 9/11 should be memorialized. Hopefully, WTC will be just one component of the cinema coverage that will include a range of 9/11 films diverse enough to help us all heal from our painful wounds of that day.
“I think subjects such as these have to be confronted,” says Will Jimeno. “It’s difficult for me to watch WTC, but I leave the theater knowing we’re showing the good that comes from tragedy—and if you don’t understand that, that’s a tragedy.
