Most people I've talked with about seeing the film have said they wouldn't want to, and I'm sure you're all hearing the same; that's largely the Obnish opinion as we can see. What's interesting is that the A&E TV movie version of the story called
Flight 93, back on 1/30/06, was the highest rated program A&E ever broadcast. So
somebody is interested. I do think it's easier for people to choose to watch it on TV than to travel to a theater to see it--you're home, the lights are on, dog's there, you've got your bag of Doritos, Diet Pepsi's holding out nicely. It's much more comforting, safer, than sitting in a dark theater with a film that's guaranteed to put you through the wringer projected 20 feet high in front of you.
I would suspect that a number of the people who might go see
United 93 are not admitting it for fear of seeming ghoulish. It's got a lot to do with the different ways people react to tragedy. Just as there are always going to be people who can't bear to look at footage of the planes hitting the towers, there are people who have to submit themselves to the horror to work through it. And I wouldn't say those people are morbid; everybody grieves differently.
At what point does something like Roberto Begnini's
Life Is Beautiful become allowable? A comedy (though an artfully done one) set in the Holocaust? It's not that the events of the Holocaust have become any less horrific, but we've got a distance of 50 years on it and not many people question the appropriateness of a Holocaust-themed "entertainment" nowadays--"artfully done" or not. (I mean,
Life Is Beautiful is one thing--when does
Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS become allowable?)
While researching some of this on the Internet Movie Database, I found out that there was a British TV movie version (looks like it was a "documentary with re-enactments" kind of thing) which was broadcast on Sept. 4, 2002--just under a year after 9/11. But that's a different country, and another example of distance blunting tragedy--it wasn't their country that was attacked, so it's not as much of an open wound over there. I wonder if there's been a similar TV re-enactment of the events of the London bombings and what kind of outcry that would produce in England.
shmoo Wrote:
seamonster Wrote:
The Deer Hunter - 1978, Apocalypse Now - 1979 (Viet Nam war ends in 1975) 3-4 YEARS
You're right about the Vietnam movies though, but again they aren't about specific real events.
Actually, I wouldn't count the Vietnam movies--the war had been going on for over 10 years by the time it ended in 1975. There were still fresh memories, but for the most part it was old news by then and most people had already worked past their "too soons."
By the way--a mostly forgotten JFK conspiracy thriller called
Executive Action opened in November 1973 on the 10th anniversary of the assassination. From the description, it's not all that far from Oliver Stone territory, and includes actual Dallas documentary footage (though not the Zapruder film) in what's probably leagues closer to a standard Hollywood thriller than
United 93. I'm sure there were plenty of people who thought that was too soon, too.