There is something oddly therapeutic in watching the worthy DVD extras included with Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center.”
Feeling the 110-story icons rumble to the ground in Stone’s moving feature film can rip open still-raw wounds from Sept. 11. But learning how Stone’s accomplished technical crew re-created that horrific pile of rubble transmits a strange healing quality.
There is so much skill, care and thoughtfulness involved in Stone’s “World Trade” project, surely the whole movie is an enduring symbol of the very Western culture that the hijackers vowed to destroy.
Many viewers will be drawn to the extras that follow the real-life recovery of Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) and John McLaughlin (Nicholas Cage), the Port Authority policemen whose rescue from the rubble is the heart of “World Trade Center.”
I was riveted, instead, by the “making of” documentaries that detail the painstaking efforts to accurately portray the disaster site. It is truly amazing movie wizardry to see how the crew depicts 17 acres of Manhattan rubble on a one-acre junk lot in Los Angeles.
For the claustrophobic interior shots of McLaughlin and Jimeno trapped near an elevator shaft, Stone’s crew stacked meticulously hand-built garbage in a hangar outfitted with hydraulics, tracks and smoke machines.
In on-set interviews, crew members say that once they finished their sublimely awful creations, they fully realized how hard it must have been for rescuers to get in, and for Jimeno and McLaughlin to get out.
Jimeno and McLaughlin were key advisers on the sets. Stone even asked Jimeno to lie down in his spot in the re-created wreckage to make sure it felt accurate. The experience chilled Jimeno to the bone.
“If they’re hitting a nerve with me, they’ve done something correctly,” Jimeno says in the documentary.
As the main feature, “World Trade Center” is powerful, if a bit formulaic. Of more than 2,000 people inside and underneath the towers when they collapsed, only 20 eventually came out alive. “WTC,” which some have speculated may get votes for a best picture nomination, cuts back and forth between Jimeno and McLaughlin talking to each other in the rubble, memories of their families, and their wives seeking answers up above.
If Academy voters want to honor a Sept. 11 movie with a best picture nod, Paul Greengrass’s “United 93” (also available on DVD) remains the better film. “United 93” is its own meticulous re-creation, of the hijackings themselves, without the emotional layer that sometimes makes “WTC” feel like cheating.
Each movie offers much to the viewer. “United 93” is for those still feeling the rage of that infamous day and seeking insight into the causes and potential solutions. “World Trade Center” is for those seeking recovery, who want to feel better about the strength of the American spirit.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at mbooth@denverpost.com.
