Early Descriptions of Oliver's Stone's World Trade Center
LIBERTAS BLOG
Oliver Stone recently previewed the first 20 minutes of his World Trade Center at Cannes. Some descriptions of the footage have been leaking out onto the internet. There's this one, for example, from over at JoBlo.com:
The film starts off with a focus on a digital alarm clock resting next to a bed at 3:29AM. It rings at 3:30AM, as Cage shuts it off, gets up, takes a shower, puts on his uniform and heads out for the day. A close-up of his wife, Maria Bello, reveals her eyes open in bed.
The next few minutes are many beautiful shots of New York City, pre-9/11 with various shots of the Twin Towers sitting along the gorgeous New York skyline, particularly during those early morning hours. Stone also focuses on many other NY landmarks like the subways, Wall Street, Central Park and many people laboring to work as they discuss the Yankees and such.
We're also shown a few other Port Authority workers as they leave home in the morning and head for work. Once at the station, we're shown three specific officers in the locker-room goofing around with one another, in actors Michael Pena (playing Jimeno), Jay Hernandez (playing Pezzulo) and Armando Riesco (playing Rodrigues). Close-up shots of all three actors are shown looking into the camera as they put on their police hats and close their lockers.
Cage gives out everyone's assignments for the morning, and we see the men walking about their designated stations around the city in the morning, dealing with homeless folk and tourists. Then, we see a large shadow in the sky and fade to black. The subsequent scene features the inside of the Port Authority station as the officers are standing about and hear (and feel) and huge BOOM!
All of the Port Authority workers are asked to return to the main station for updated designations for the day. They are told that a plane has hit one of the Twin Towers and a bunch of names are called to join Cage to head down to the World Trade Center, in an attempt to help folks out over there. One of them actually says, "What kind of a shmuck would fly a plane into the World Trade Center?" in a typical New York accent.
It's obvious that no one knows exactly what is going on, other than the fact that it's a bad thing and that they can help others out. Cage takes his truck and the rest of them pile into a bus, heading to the WTC. At this point, we are shown the first real shot of the first tower on fire…but on TV (I imagine this is real footage). People are standing in front of a TV set, watching and confused.
As the officers head toward the disaster zone, they are speculating about what happened on the bus, as one suggests that it might just be a private plane or one that simply ran out of gas. Another guy laughs that idea up, while another reports that his wife just told him that the second tower got hit over his cellular. Some of the others laugh that off, and most don't believe it at that point.
As they arrive closer to the scene though, we get our first slow-motion shot of the officers looking out the window of their bus, in confusion and fear, as a man is being looked after on the ground, seemingly after having had a heart attack or something.
Approaching the towers, they're suddenly hit with the enormity of what is happening. Walking out of their bus, they are inundated with paper flying down from the sky like snow, and lots of noise, thuds and such. Looking up, the boys are all left speechless, as they see the smoke bellowing out of one of the towers. They still can't see the second tower hit or anything, as the smoke is just too much.
Then, one of them remarks, "They're jumping." A shot of the top of the tower shows a shadow falling from the side of the building, while we continue to hear very loud THUDS to the ground. Cage approaches the gang of officers at this point, and asks for a few volunteers to help him form his group to head up now. The three officers mentioned earlier volunteer and follow Cage into the first tower, in an attempt to climb up and help people out.
In the meantime, we are continuing to see and hear the utter chaos and devastation around them, as debris is everywhere and people are coming out of the building with all sorts of smoke issues, as well as bloodied body parts. Cage keeps his crew focused and keeps repeating "Stay focused" a few times, as the young men clearly appear overwhelmed by the utter size of this devastation. Once inside, the boys grab a bunch of cans of air and supplies, put on helmets and yellow fire-suits and head through the lobby of the building, running into firemen on their way to tower two, and others.
Cage says to the fire chief, "Why, did something happen to tower two?", and the chief replies back, "We don't know, they just asked us to help out over there." At this point, you realize that nobody really knows what's happening, but they're all doing their best to try and deal with this very chaotic situation.
Then, as Cage's crew turns to head toward the stairs, they hear an even more resounding BOOM, and then a lot of rumbling and shakes, as the building starts falling apart all around then. Cage looks over to the atrium, which was packed with people a minute ago, and sees massive debris falling all over those poor lost souls. We cut to a close-up Cage's face screaming, "Run to the elevator shafts!!", as he runs towards them himself, and a massive powderkeg of debris and stone begins to hurdle its way toward them.
This sequence is especially loud and powerful, and was incredibly potent as an audience member. All we see next is the boys jumping for their lives and a FADE TO BLACK.
The Cannes audience started clapping at this point, but stopped when we all noticed the black on the screen open up and feature a close-up of Cage's eyes, completely covered in BLACK except for his eye-balls. Again, the film faded to black and featured the title WORLD TRADE CENTER. I don't think the actual film will have the title at that point, but that was the end of our presentation, followed by solid applause from the audience.
All well and good … but the issue still remains: will Stone be able to behave once the film's in release? And do people really want to support an Oliver Stone project on 9/11 with their money?
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