Twin Tower Cameos (2011)

This section is usually for feature films, but I just came across this short film that I want to share as the 15^th anniversary approaches.

Our star rating (1-5): 5

If you don’t have a lot of time to spend in remembrance of 9/11, Dan Meth’s almost 8-minute film is a great one to watch. The best of the many short films about the Twin Towers that I have seen on YouTube, it shows how the Twin Towers were woven throughout our popular culture and consciousness during their all too brief existence.

He starts with quick cuts from films documenting the building of the towers and then follows with clips from comedies to crime thrillers to romances, fantasy and science fiction. The dozens of brief clips films start with King Kong (the remake), and include Basquiat, The Art of War, Moscow on the Hudson, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Manhattan, Superman, Bonfire of the Vanities, Ghostbusters 2, Escape From New York, Staying Alive, Home Alone 2—all set to the mournful song by Kansas “Dust in the Wind,” plus one other song. The mournful mood of the first song seemed especially appropriate, the words reminding me of the great poetic put-down of human pride by Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ozymandias.” The second song seems merely irritating, though maybe if I could make out the words, it might seem fitting. (If you know the song, will you please let me know?)

Those clips show the Towers from a variety of angles—on the distant horizon, looking up at them, from above, or, in the case of Superman in which the hero gives Lois Lane, safe in his arms, a close night time fly-by their upper stories. In Wiz a group of dancers are performing atop them. I wish he could have used a clip from Godspell when Jesus danced with his disciples on the top deck, or the daring walk on the wire stretched between the Towers in Man on a Wire. Another significant omission was Munich, the camera panning across Manhattan’s skyline and freezing on the Towers at the ending. See my review for some reflections on the easily overlooked meaning of this.

The last part of Meth’s film might be too much for some because it includes so many clips of the planes smashing into the towers and their eventual collapse. If so, you could stop at the 3:17 mark when the screen goes black for a couple of seconds. The terrorists chose well their New York targets, the Twin Towers, as demonstrated by the clips in Dan Meth’s film, being an important part of our nation. On that terrible day we lost so much, along with those 3000 precious lives.

Access the film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYrr4xhlkAQ

 Also on YouTube is the docudrama Inside The Twin Towers, which I hope to review within a day or so. Aired on September 3, 2006 on The Discovery Channel in 2007, this film, narrated by Terrence Stamp, re-creates a minute-by-minute account of what happened inside the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. The portions that I have seen so far are excellent.