HBO 9/11 special (1 Viewer)

[MikeAlletto]

I searched and couldn't find a thread on this. Its on right now. Its interview with Guilliani and has some footage so far that wasn't on the cbs special. Is it me or are you all still not done with seeing these specials? Its been almost 9 months now and I still get very angry and sad...

 

[Brian-W]

Very impressive, and like the CBS special, very informative. Most of us outside of New York know 9-11 only by what the major news casts would broadcast.

 

[Chuck C]

Yet another beautiful piece on 9-11. Rudy handled the situation incredibly well. I don't think one could have asked for a better leader at the time.

 

[MickeS]

It was good, but there wasn't anything in it that felt new or important to me. Very emotional though, of course.

/Mike

 

[Jed M]

Sad doesn't begin to describe that. It was almost harder to than watch the real thing. The still shot of the man falling headfirst is haunting. It was the most powerful show I have seen on HBO in a long time, if not ever.

 

[CaptDS9E]

Yeah it still hits home all the time. Every time we go to Shea Stadium (which is a lot ) to see the mets as we get off the parkway you could look across the Marina and see the towers standing there. I always got excited to see them when I was younger. This past sunday i looked again out of instinct. But alas no more. Cant believe its been 8 months. Seems like yesterday. I havent watched the HBo special yet (taped it on tivo) but i plan on doing it today

capt

 

[Danny R]

For those of you who missed it, an encore presentation will be tonight (May 28) at 10 pm.

 

[Michael Reuben]

It was good, but there wasn't anything in it that felt new or important to me.

I think the only thing that hadn't been widely shown before (if it was, I missed it) was the very graphic footage of people falling from the top of the towers, which I found difficult to watch. Most news broadcasts didn't air that footage. Even what's included in the documentary gives only a glimpse of that element of the horror. I personally know someone who's still in therapy trying to deal with the trauma of seeing dozens of people jumping or falling from the upper floors.

M.

 

[MickeS]

Michael, I agree it wasn't widely shown on TV, but I've seen stills in magazines of people jumping and hanging on to the towers, and there have been plenty of eyewitness reports about it, so even that aspect of the show didn't feel like something I hadn't seen before.

I agree that it was difficult to watch, and no doubt it must have been horrible to witness it on site. I'm not sure the many clips and stills of those horrible deaths should have been included in this show.

/Mike

 

[Jim DiJoseph]

MikeS, this isn't intended to be combative, but IMHO this show may have included scenes that have been shown before, but the perspective was a bit more real - hence the graphic content. Saying that there was "nothing new or important" to you is disheartening to say the least. I know you went on to say that it was emotional, so perhaps your choice of wording is leading me astray.

In any event, I am one who is the first in line to cry foul when television is being exploitative and/or manipulative, but I felt that the way in which this material was presented, there was no exploitation...just truth. And yes the truth is shocking, and haunting, and abhorrent. Those of us who watched were warned. I'm not glad that those scenes are a part of me now, but I do have a clearer understanding of the horrors that occurred that day...not just from people hurling themselves out of windows, but also from people ducking into stores who opened their doors to save lives. The interviews with Giuliani's executive assistant were especially poignant. She even mentioned that at times, she feels anger toward her husband for choosing his job over his family, but that she knew that wasn't fair to him. It's troubling to hear that people experienced these losses, and still have difficulty with the types of feelings they feel.

 

[Brian-W]

I know this may sound cheesy, but 9-11 changed my life. Really.

I was in between jobs at the time, and on 9-11, spent 8am until 1am the next morning glued to the television, hoping for some good news of people being rescued. For the next 8-days, same regimine, 8am until 1am just holding out for hope and answers, as well as payback (to the perpetrators).

I've seen 9-11 images over and over again, cried numerous times, and want to keep those images in my mind so I don't stray from my new path, which is life is precious. Life can also be short, and if I were in a situation like 9-11, would hope that I'd felt secure enough that I lived life to the fullest.

Those images of people jumping just kills me. Like the police captain said, was it so dire that those people felt they needed to jump? If one person had jumped, it probably wouldn't have been as big an impact. But with the CBS special plus magazine images of dozens of people jumping, that's just heart wrenching.

The HBO special was well done, and really captured the horror of that day. Not the plane crashes or the towers collapsing (horrifying in their own right), but the people at ground level witnessing all of this.

 

[Jefferson]

I wasn't in the WTC but was nearby ....no television footage can convey it. It is still a taboo subject for most of my friends here, so most have not/cannot watch it, but I convinced myself that it would help me if I did.....I thought it was very well done.

 

[MikeAlletto]

I thought that by now I'd be able to watch technical shows about the towers and why they fell and be able to watch interviews with people involved and not still be angry and sad, but it still hits me hard. My family was planning on going to New York for thanksgiving this year when we all get together, one of the highlights being the WTC, but now we probably aren't going. I think it might be too much too soon.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I saw it, I thought the HBOs docu. was superbly put together.

I wasn't in the WTC but was nearby ....no television footage can convey it. It is still a taboo subject for most of my friends here

I hadn't seen any of the other documentaries (??), not because I was avoiding them, but because I don't have TV. But you are right that no TV footage can convey the real experience having been there (I work on Wall St.)

Ted

 

[John Berggren]

I'm thrilled that I only saw this on television. I don't know how well I could have handled the reality of being there. I absolutely adore NYC, and travel there once a year, at least. We were in town 9/7-9/9 for various shows that were losing cast members, and had discussed making a long weekend of it, taking Monday and Tuesday off. I feel lucky we did not. My friend, who we stayed with, had jury duty down by Wall St. on Tuesday. I was horrified trying to call his cell phone. It was hours before I knew he was fine. I feel for anyone who was there.

As someone who was stuck at work on 9/11, and one who couldn't huddle around the TV that people were watching it on, I had avoided watching too much of the TV coverage. My partner called me to tell me about what was going on, and watched the first tower fall, live. He was so completely distraught by it, I told him to turn it off - that we could watch it later, as I knew it would be on all day, all week, all month. He couldn't though, and I understand. He did watch the people jumping from the towers.

Anyway, I watched some of these images for the first time, and some images that I forced myself to forget. I remember having watched footage of the second plane, but the horror of it was brought right back with this special. The fact that this event was nearly 100% captured to film is amazing. We are very lucky, and unfortunate at the same time for this. Historically, we need to have this event as vivid as it is so that it doesn't happen again. Immediately, it was terrifying to have to see it on the evening news.

I was struck by the fact that no film has ever captured the horror of this day. Of all the hollywood blockbusters with exploding buildings and alien space ships, nothing comes close to the reality that transpired last year. Watching the smoke and dust move through the city streets, chasing the pedestrians was almost as awful as watching the buildings fall.

The people who were personally effected are in my thoughts. Anyone who lost loved ones and friends will have to live with this for the rest of their lives. The loss of life was tragic. I cannot imagine anyone wanting such a thing to happen. I found myself wishing that anyone who's life was cut short got a second chance. I wish that we had known. I wish it could have been prevented.

HBO made a fine special. I hope they drop it on DVD and send it to every high school in the country. I think everyone should remember this event in the years to come, and know the horror of it. Ten years from now there will be a generation of children in school who were not around for 9/11. I think they'll need to know, as will their children's children.

We mustn't forget. And for that reason alone, it's a great thing that this event was so well documented.

 

[David Oliver]

Excellent documentary. The first one I had really seen, I didn't get to see the CBS one, unfortunately.

One thing that got to me, which I had not thought about clearly before was watching the towers struck and then collapse and how so many people worked to build these monuments to human ingenuity and bravado and how they had been destroyed by cowardice. For some reason that made me more sad watching this than the devastating loss of human life and those left behind. Not that I think the loss of a couple of buildings is more tragic than 3,000 lives, but I had coped I think with the human tragedy and this documentary really brought hom for me the symbolic tragedy.

 

[Holadem]

David, when I first heard the news that day, for some strange reason that is what I thought of first: The WTC is gone. Only later did it dawn on me that hundreds had died. Strange how the brain works sometimes.
--
Holadem

 

[Daniel Swartz]

Could someone please confirm that this was an hour-long documentary (the HBO one)? Thanks.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I think it ran just over an hour.

M.

 

[John Berggren]

It was shown in a 75 minute programming block, so somewhere between 60 and 75m.