Screenings of Oliver Stone‘s World Trade Center (Paramount, 8.9) are happening soon for NYC policemen and firefighters who risked their lives on 9/11. I was kind of scratching my head, though, when I read this USA Today quote from a spokesperson for “the union representing Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officers,” warning that “ground-zero rescue workers [should] be aware that watching [World Trade Center] could cause post-traumatic stress disorder.”
I guess any film that takes 9/11 veterans back to that day is going to be upsetting. The first 20 or 25 minutes’ of World Trade Center that I saw in Cannes felt solid, realistic and urgent, but I haven’t gotten the idea that it rocks audiences in the same way that United 93 did. (A fair portion of it happens inside a dark hole.) But maybe not. A NYC friend who’s seen it says that “for some of these guys who were on duty that day, maybe. The magnitude of it is different than that of United 93. A lot of it take place at night…that’s when they were finally dug out. And that makes it kind of eerie. And there’s the claustrophobia factor, and above ground a lot guys running around, what’s going on here…a lot of confusion. I could see it being a fairly unsettling thing for anyone who was down there that day.”