May 1 - I needed to see the movie because I needed to pay tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. It was really that simple.

The theatre seemed empty -- only about a quarter full. Many attended alone. The audience was silent even before the lights were lowered and remained hushed as they filed out after the movie. It was respectful and eerie.

The movie did not cause me to "relive Sept. 11" but rather to live through those elements which we learned of days afterward. I did find a curious solace in the reminder that the air controllers, FAA and even the military comprehended the magnitude and intent of events at the same moment as did we all.

The movie did not renew my rage so much as intensify the burden I accepted when I first learned of the defiant and desperate choice the passengers and crew made to retake the plane and avert another attack -- when I instictively knew that I needed to be among those who, in the words of Lincoln, would be "dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion."

Each will take something different from United 93 and no, I really haven't adequate words for what I took, but there are two essays that do: Right Wing Prof masterfully takes us from the movie to the Shanksville memorial and Gerard Vanderleun invokes a different scene at another site: those early memorials in New York constructed from flyers of the missing on fences and candlewax on sidewalks. I think much is said about the events within the movie by the descriptions and pictures of the imprompteau tributes at both sites which ache of loss and resound in thanks far more poignantly than any architect or committee could impose, and therein too lies the power of the movie: the only offering is one of stark events which do not condescend to explain or rationalize, and thus it respects the ordinary person.

Gerard's awed definition of heroism encompasses the firefighters and police as well as those on Flight 93 whose response to danger was to act, and it's much too good not to quote:

What I know in my heart, but what always escapes my understanding until something like this film renews it, is that heroism is a virtue that most often appears among us not descending from some mythic pantheon, but rising up out of the ordinary earth and ordinary hearts when the moment calls for actions extraordinary.

(Right wing prof link via a succinct but brilliant entry at It comes in pints .)

Posted by: Debbye at 09:21 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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