GREENGRASS, PAUL - UNITED 93
UNITED ON UNITED
Given a special screening at Cannes 2006, United 93 is a real time re-enactment
of the fourth flight hijacked on September 11, 2001. At the Festival, Andrew L.
Urban meets director Paul Greengrass, two of the widows, two of the actors and
an air traffic controller who re-enacts his own role in the drama. United was
the airline, but we can read into the title the actions of the terrified victims
that challenged the terrorists.
Lest anyone mistake the dedication at the end of United 93 “to all the victims”
Paul Greengrass never intended it to suggest some sort of moral equivalence
between the passengers and crew of the doomed flight, and the four terrorists
who hijacked and eventually crashed the plane, killing everyone on board. “I do
not accept such a moral equivalence. Nobody could look at those events and not
abhor the cruelty and the violence and the death of innocent people. That’s been
my position over many years of making films about political violence; I abhorred
it in Northern Ireland and stood against it, from whichever side it came … the
causes of political violence are always complex, always banal and always involve
the death of innocent people. I abhor political violence; it’s the enemy of
progressive politics…”
A large, lumbering sort of bloke, Greengrass is doing the media rounds during
the Cannes film festival where United 93 is screened in a special,
non-competitive slot. Anywhere would be incongruous to be discussing United 93,
the real time dramatisation of the flight on September 11, 2001 that crashed
into a field well away from its intended target: the White House. It seems
especially so, though, in the spacious ballroom of the sparkling Carlton Hotel
on the shores of the Mediterranean, with its gilded chairs, crystal chandeliers
and the ghostly echo of hundreds of past celebrations.
He’s accompanied by a small team from the film, including widows Melodie Homer
and Sandy Felt, two of the actors, Christian Clemenson and Cheyenne Jackson, as
well as Ben Sliney, the air traffic chief on the day of the hijack, who
re-enacts his own role in the events. The widows talk about coping with the
aftermath, and with their decision to co-operate with the filmmakers. “I
recognised that it was going to be made accurately and with integrity, not
sensationalised … that’s why I agreed and that’s why I have come here to talk
about it,” says Melodie Homer, whose husband was the First Officer on the
flight.
"personal responsibility"
Her response to seeing the terrorists portrayed on the flight was anger - but
not at the four young men. “I see them as brainwashed youth …” Sandy Felt, on
the other hand, “hated them…I believe in personal responsibility. The movie
humanises them and gives them personality so it’s even scarier.” Eventually
overpowered by the passengers, the terrorists couldn’t avoid crashing the plane.
United was the airline, but we can read into the title the actions of the
terrified victims that challenged the terrorists.
The actors, cast for their physical resemblance to the passengers and crew on
the flight, speak of the experience of making the film as unique in every way.
“We each had virtually a book on the people we play,” says Clemenson, who
portrays 38 year old Thomas E. Burnett jnr, a manger with Thoratec, a medical
device company. “We weren’t asked to do impersonations,” says Jackson, who plays
Mark Bingham, “but we had a physical resemblance … I also contacted his family
via email – after much trepidation, but they were lovely and helped a lot.
Especially as we had to improvise all the dialogue.” (Bingham was 31, a keen
rugby player who ran his own PR company: ironically enough, he was on his way to
attend the wedding of a close Muslim friend.)
Both Clemenson and Jackson believe audiences will be surprised by the portrayal
of the hijackers; “they’re not caricatures but individuals.” The four actors who
portray the terrorists had the hardest time on set, always staying apart from
the others, burdened by their roles. But the filmmaking process was
exceptionally arduous for all concerned: Greengrass would run 30, 40 or even 50
minute takes, and sometimes they would need to be repeated more than a dozen
times. (Resulting in a few continuity goofs…) “None of our training prepared us
for this,” says Jackson. “There are no lines, no marks to hit and the character
has to be found in new ways; for me, certain actions helped define my
character.”
For Ben Sliney, the re-enactment was relatively straight forward, except for the
scene when flight 175 slams into the South Tower. “That was the moment I
realised it was all part of a concerted effort…” (He also recalls making a
conscious effort to stay calm and speak quietly in the midst of the drama, but
on set, he was asked by Greengrass to be “a bit more dramatic”.)
Greengrass eventually got to the point of thinking that the film had to be made,
and he had to make it. “There was a voice inside my head … what’s the point of
making all those films about political violence in Northern Ireland, if you
don’t then go on and address 9/11, because it’s clearly going to drive all our
politics today and for the rest of our lives. I hadn’t decided and I was unsure
about making this film, and then the London bombings (on July 7, 2005) happened
and that really decided me. That was the day I said I was definitely going to
make this film.”
As Greengrass puts it, “there were two hijackings that day; the one that we
portray in the film, and the second was the highjacking of the religion, via the
use of selective quotations from the Koran and the misuse of the Koran. It’s a
call to so called sleeping Muslims; the purpose of these attacks was to
radicalise all Muslims.”
"the questions that really matter"
United 93 relates what happened on the flight in as much accurate detail as
possible, and for Greengrass, the film poses the question in the wider context
of political violence: “what the f*** are we going to do about it?” He dismisses
notions that it’s too soon to talk about it on film. “I don’t believe that,
because I’ve spent the large part of my working life talking to people who
suffered directly from political violence. And what you find is not at all what
you expect: you very rarely find bitterness and a desire for revenge. Of course
you find anger and grief, but what you do find in abundance are people whose
lives have no connection with each other save that their lives were destroyed by
a single act of violence – of whatever source, the British Army, the IRA or
jihadists – propelled on a path, a quest towards meaning, towards the questions
that really matter: why has this happened and what are we going to do about it.”
United 93 opens in Australia on August 17, 2006
Published August 10, 2006
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Paul Greengrass
REVIEWS
United 93 releases nationally in Australia on August 17, 2006
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