Some red meat:
Five Years Later, 9/11 Is Reduced To Just Another Edition of 'Artistic License Theater'
PAST DEALINE
Ray Richmond
Hollywood Reporter
9-7-06
(The following blog post is a dramatization drawn from a variety of sources, including the New York Times, Media Matters, the Associated Press and a variety of online political blogs as well as personal opinion. As such, for dramatic and narrative purposes, the post may contain fictionalized passages, composite and representative "fact-like" phrases, improvised observations and the compression of various pieces of information so as to make them appear far more vital and chronological than they actually are. Other semi-accurate elements are interwoven to establish the illusion of authenticity, though any paragraph that smacks of genuine truth is purely unintentional.)
Hey, if it's good enough for network television, then it's good enough for me.
You've probably heard a little something about this whole controversy over ABC's "The Path to 9/11" miniseries that treats the most horrific and deadly act of war ever perpetrated on the American mainland as merely another programming playtoy with which to concoct willfully distorted, historically revisionist scenarios. I've seen it, and everything you've heard is true: it's grossly slanted toward tarring the Clinton Administration with the ultimate responsibility for 9/11 and -- while it does spread a share of the blame to the Bush Administration on whose watch it happened -- it appears somewhat more consumed with making a political statement than illuminating us about the way things really went down en route to that fateful day.
"The Path to 9/11" is fraught with factual inaccuracies, misrepresentations and outright fabrications, and that's not merely a personal opinion. The man who wrote it, Cyrus Nowrasteh, readily admits that some scenes presented as fact did not occur, and ABC itself appears to change its story, its strategy and its prefab disclaimer on a daily basis as damage control in meeting each new protest and repudiated point. On Thursday, ABC actually released a statement that read in part, "No one has seen the final version of the film because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticism of film specifics are premature and irresponsible."
Huh? Now that's kind of interesting. If this is the case, then I wonder what the network expected me to do with that "Path to 9/11" review copy it supplied me with a few weeks back. Was I not supposed to review it? Nothing on the DVD said it was incomplete or something less than critique quality. Yet somehow, if I level criticism based on viewing said screener, I'm doing something that's "irresponsible"? I've been a TV critic for the better part of 22 years, and that's a new one on me.
If the producers are still frantically tweaking scenes in reaction to the rising crescendo of controversy over the film's utter contempt for the facts, then maybe they should have taken a better look at the thing a few months ago when all involved were touting the project for its accuracy, its impeccable research, its even-handedness. "Path to 9/11" had actually been designated as worthy of being a classroom tool in helping teach history. Now, ABC is forced to scramble to diffuse a slow-building but suddenly serious crisis that probably won't be quite monumental enough to force the net to pull it as CBS did "The Reagans" a few years back. For one thing, "Path" cost a reported $40 million, and you don't pour that kind of cash down the sinkhole just because a former President (Clinton) and a cabinet member or two are demanding it.
As was the case with author James Frey, "Path to 9/11" is being busted as something of a fraud: an artfully-produced, monumentally suspenseful and thoroughly compelling five-hour movie event that can't resist the temptation to repeatedly point its finger to the left in defiance of the known evidence. Sunday's first installment is decidedly unsubtle in showing Clinton as being too wrapped up in Monica Lewinsky and his uncertain political future to pay Osama bin Laden and his terrorist minions much heed in the late 1990s. In part two, the culpability of the Bush Administration is restricted primarily to the minimizing of the terrorist threat by CIA director George Tenet -- a Clinton holdover, doncha know. So even when Bill is out of office, it's still his fault! No wonder he's pissed at ABC. And he's hardly the only one.
Remember when 9/11 happened? In the rush of hyperbole, we were all convinced it represented the one cataclysmic occurrence that was utterly sacred. It would be forevermore depicted with the proper reverence and respect or not at all. This was hallowed historical territory, after all. Well, it took a mere five years for TV to render that ideal obsolete. We always hear protestations of, "It's too soon!" Well, in that spirit, allow me to chime in that it's too soon to be tampering with this truth as we would an urban legend. Suddenly, the facts surrounding the rise of terror cells and Al Qaeda and bin Laden aren't sufficiently fascinating and wrenching on their own? We need also to make stuff up to draw bodies to the tube?
Oh, and then as if to place an exclamation point on this craven commercialization of 9/11, ABC opts to run "Path to 9/11" during the night before, and the night of, the fifth anniversary itself. But no, they counter, we're broadcasting it without commercials, as if to point up the sensitive decision not to profit from the 9/11 memory. The subtext here is a curious one: this miniseries is so spectacularly weighty that its premiere carries with it the whiff of public service. As if!
Here is one thing no one has bothered to ask: why does a network spend $40 million on a high-profile project and then not only air it outside of ratings sweeps but do so sans conventional advertising? What's in this for ABC and its parent Disney if not money? Goodwill? Well, I think we can effectively scrap that one. Where this tracks more logically is in the alleged symbiotic relationship between Disney and the current administration -- firstly with regard to the decision barring Miramax from distributing Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" back in 2004. (Miramax ultimately bought the film back and earned distribution later that same year.)
As ABC has discovered on an almost hourly basis of late, you simply can't have it both ways. You can't present an entertainment project purporting to be a doggedly straightforward dramatization of the known details when it hatches scenes and character elements from the fictitious ether seemingly on a whim during shooting. You can't belittle the priorities and impugn the integrity of two former Clinton cabinet members -- National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- and then express surprise when they call you on the carpet for making it up as you go along. ABC has had a lot of explaining to do lately because it thought it could sneak a film on the air that peddles a largely partisan perspective and market it as a sobering and balanced rendering.
And so now, less than 72 hours before the "Path to 9/11" premiere on Sunday, the network is in full flail mode to keep this from devolving into "The Path to PR Hell." The storm will no doubt be weathered in part because it took the mainstream media so long to pick up on a story that's been percolating around the blogosphere for weeks. Yet there is a lesson for ABC to learn here, and it's this: you can call a rabbit an eagle all you want, but it's still always going to be a rabbit. And it's never gonna fly, either.
pastdeadline.com
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