Taking clear-eyed look at Sept. 11

September 11th 2005

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)

September 11, 2005 Sunday

TELEVISION Taking clear-eyed look at Sept. 11

BYLINE: JOANNE WEINTRAUB, Staff, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

There’s a subtle but noticeable difference between the current crop of Sept. 11 anniversary specials and those of past years: With a few exceptions, there are almost no tears this time. With pure emotion receding, a more thoughtful, nuanced kind of storytelling is taking place.

The outstanding example remains last month’s detailed but wonderfully lucid “Inside 9/11,” a four-hour examination that will be repeated at noon today on cable’s National Geographic Channel. Other specials look at smaller parts of the picture, some telling stories that haven’t been widely heard.

“The Man Who Predicted 9/11” is Rick Rescorla, the 62-year-old head of security for the giant Morgan Stanley financial firm that once occupied several floors of the World Trade Center’s South Tower.

One of only six Morgan Stanley employees who died in the tragedy, Rescorla is credited - by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Stewart, among many others - with leading the other 2,700 to safety.

A British native who became an American citizen and Vietnam war hero, Rescorla believed for years that the 1993 terrorist bomb planted in the World Trade Center was nothing less than a rehearsal for a devastating attack to come.

Security-minded colleagues praised the evacuation plan he developed for just such a disaster, but others thought him overzealous.

When a plane struck the trade center’s North Tower eight years later, Rescorla insisted that everyone at Morgan Stanley leave the South Tower; later, when the second building was hit, he went back to speed that evacuation, which cost him his life. It’s hard to watch this History Channel hour without speculating on the difference a Rick Rescorla might have made before and after Hurricane Katrina.

Following Rescorla’s story on the History Channel is “Grounded on 9/11,” which looks at the chaos that loomed before air traffic controllers as the unthinkable happened and four planes, in quick succession, were discovered to have been hijacked.

This brisk hour focuses on the FAA’s unprecedented decision to ground all air traffic and the harrowing business of averting further disasters by rerouting and landing almost 5,000 flights carrying nearly 1 million passengers.

Restraint is the key to “The Flight That Fought Back,” the Discovery Channel’s 90-minute re-creation of events onboard United Flight 93, whose crew and passengers struggled with hijackers for control of a plane that was headed for Washington, D.C., but crashed instead in a Pennsylvania field.

With all the horror, anger and grief still surrounding the catastrophe of Sept. 11, it would be tempting to overstate the impact made by those on Flight 93.

Instead, the filmmakers intersperse brief dramatic re-creations with voice recordings, testimony from loved ones who received phone calls from those on the plane, and information about the hijackers uncovered by the federal Sept. 11 commission report. What emerges is an upbeat but not unreasonable version of events as they might have taken place. The show will air without commercial interruption.

PBS’ “The Road to 9/11” begins with the 1918 defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent carving up of much of the Middle East by the British and French.

Colonialism, anti-colonial reaction, secularism and the violent revolt against it, the alliance of oil-rich princes and fundamentalist clerics, the interests of the Cold War superpowers: All, according to scholars and journalists, played a role in the murderous rage that Osama bin Laden harnessed and set loose.

This hourlong exploration is especially convincing in its depiction of the interplay between radical Islam and political repression, which have worked all too well together against human rights in large parts of the region.

Short takes

* The splendid kids’ show “Nick News With Linda Ellerbee” offers a special edition, “Do Something! Caring for the Kids of Katrina” (7:30 tonight, Nickelodeon), that showcases the youngest survivors of the hurricane, answers questions about the disaster and gives young viewers information on how to help. The show was not available for preview.

* “Breaking Bonaduce” (9:30 tonight, repeated 11:30 tonight and frequently throughout the week, VH1), a new series about radio jock Danny Bonaduce’s marital problems and his attempts to solve them, breaks new ground for reality TV: A few weeks into shooting, the former child star (“The Partridge Family”) slashes his wrists in an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself.

The suicide attempt, which was confirmed in The New York Times last week by a VH1 executive, is not discussed in preview episodes sent to critics, though Bonaduce appears with his wrists heavily bandaged and refers to an unspecified accident. In and out of therapeutic sessions with his wife, Gretchen (a native of Waukegan, Ill., and former Wisconsin resident), the star is articulate, angry, sometimes self-aware and at other times scarily out of control.

Bonaduce, who has talked - even bragged - for years about his former troubles with drugs and the law, agreed to keep shooting even after he went into rehab following the suicide attempt. VH1 is pitching the result as a “dramatic, honest and compelling,” but even if someone consents to having his skin peeled off on camera, it’s still a public flaying.

* Kathy Bates directs and stars in “Ambulance Girl” (8 p.m. Monday, repeated 8 p.m. Thursday, Lifetime), based on food writer Jane Stern’s memoir about fighting back against depression, anxiety and a mid-life existential crisis by becoming an emergency medical technician.

As a fan of the book, I was glad to hear Stern’s distinctively thoughtful, witty voice coming through in Bates’ voiceover and some of the dialogue, but disappointed that this two-hour comedy-drama gives somewhat short shrift to her misadventures and successes as an EMT. Robin Thomas (“Murphy Brown”) does good work opposite Bates as Stern’s husband and writing partner, Michael.

* The “American Masters” profile “Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea” (8 p.m. Wednesday, Milwaukee’s Channel 10 and other PBS stations) isn’t intended as an exhaustive biography. Instead, it’s a concise, almost poetic rendering of the writer’s life, largely in his own words.

Filmmaker DeWitt Sage combines readings from Hemingway’s fiction, his letters and his memoir, “A Moveable Feast,” with commentary from literary critics and those in the author’s inner circle. The result is a fine companion piece to his award-winning “American Masters” F. Scott Fitzgerald portrait of a few years back.

WHEN TO WATCH

“The Man Who Predicted 9/11,” 7 tonight, repeated 11 tonight, History Channel

“Grounded by 9/11,” 8 tonight, repeated midnight, History Channel

“The Flight That Fought Back,” 8 tonight, repeated 10 p.m. and midnight, Discovery Channel

“The Road to 9/11,” 10 p.m. Monday, Milwaukee’s Channel 10

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E-mail: jweintraub@journalsentinel.com