Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Man On Wire

Two weeks ago when I was house sitting I flipped on the TV for
background noise while I was getting ready for work. A few minutes
later it registers in my brain that I'm listening to 911 calls so I
wander in to the bedroom to see what the hell they're showing on tv. I
get in there to see that it's 911 calls from September 11th sync'd
with video of people jumping from the towers. Not what anyone needs to
see while they're getting ready for work. And in my mind, not
something I ever need to watch. But to each his own.

That weekend I decide I really want to see Man on Wire, a documentary
about the guy who tight rope walked between the two towers. It was a
great movie. They filmed themselves a lot during the preparation
stages, and the director used the old footage and mixed it in with
reinactments and interviews with the participants.

The nice part of this movie is that it was just such a joyful event
having to do with the buildings. It was sad to see the beginning
footage of the towers going up, and knowing that they aren't there any
more. Amazing feats of engineering and architecture taken out in a
matter of hours.

Anyway, one of the absolutely refreshing things about this movie is
that they make no mention of what ultimately happened on September
11th. They didn't need to. That's not what the movie was about, and no
one needed the reminder. This is for the people who don't want to
watch video of people jumping from the towers while the 911 calls
play. This is for the people who want to remember something good.

4 comments:

Elaine said...

I agree, that sounds very uplifting and thats so important. So much good came out of the towers, its too bad they and the people who worked in them had to be destroyed in such a horrific way.

soniasax said...

that sounds great. i only wish it were playing at more theaters around here (it's only playing at a place in cambridge that i can't stand going to). it would be great to see something positive about the towers.

soniasax said...

that sounds great. i only wish it were playing at more theaters around here (it's only playing at a place in cambridge that i can't stand going to). it would be great to see something positive about the towers.

hokgardner said...

That's on my list to see. I'm glad you liked it.