This is going to be a really outstanding show. Get your TIVO's set up.
Cyrus Nowrasteh's The Path to 9/11 on ABC
LIBERTAS
— Jason Apuzzo @ 3:42 pm
By now you've all read Govindini's review of ABC's forthcoming The Path to 9/11. Her review has been making its way around the internet and talk radio, building buzz for the film. I wanted to briefly make a few comments myself about the show, which I just started watching last night.
I'm about 90 minutes into it and so far it's fantastic. What surprised me about it was it's verité-French Connection-Battle of Algiers style, its fast pace and suspense. The film also abjures melodramatic music, which is so often what kills material like this. Instead Cyrus Nowrasteh, David Cunningham and their production team took a kind of 'police-blotter' realist approach, using a lot of source music (from radios, night clubs, etc.), letting the story simply tell itself. I also loved the use of wide-angle lenses, which add a touch of eerieness to the proceedings.
The show is really absorbing - so much so I was up past 2 a.m. last night watching it. This show is not a chore to watch - not some dry history lesson - and frankly I'm shocked that something this good will be appearing on prime time television, about 9/11. Note that I haven't even mentioned yet that this show finally gives us the context within which our present war is being fought - and I'm stunned at what got 'slipped-in' to this film, little details that will absolutely drive liberals nuts. I won't spoil things for you, though - because I want you to watch the show.
A lot of conservative ink was wasted recently on Oliver Stone's middling World Trade Center. It's a shame, because The Path to 9/11 is the real deal - a clearly superior project in terms of its scale, complexity, truthfulness and style.
I'll have more to say about this project in coming days.
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