By the end of UNITED 93, it seemed most critics were too shattered to mention the one off-key note in this superb but almost unbearable to watch thriller: the portrayal of one passenger-- the ginger-haired German-accented man--on the doomed flight as not merely unwilling to participate in the uprising against the hijackers, but arguing "We should talk to them! What about...Mogadishu? What about...Somalia."
Which left me thinking: What is this guy talking about? Why now?
Gosh, I thought UNITED 93 was a docudrama. I hadn't realized that in addition to the four hijackers someone else aboard the plane was a great big pussy.
It turns out that the German guy-who was, like all the other people portrayed in the film, a real person-was not actually, as the Guardian puts it, a "surrender monkey."
Director Paul Greengrass, who has made several superior docudramas about justice denied and deferred (THE MURDER OF STEPHEN LAWRENCE, OMAGH, BLOODY SUNDAY), said (in interviews and in theatrical trailer-previews) that he'd gained the cooperation of the families of those killed on the doomed flight that set off from Newark airport on Sept. 11.
But the Guardian reports that Silke Adams, the widow of Christian Adams is "believed to have refused to cooperate on the film, saying that the memory of her husband's death was still too raw. This has left the film open to charges that Adams has been set up as the story's fall guy, the token cowardly German amid a band of brave Americans."
"United 93 is based on transcripts from the phone calls made by the passengers on board the plane, but much of the drama was improvised on set. "Surely one of the passengers didn't phone home to point out that there was a cowardly German on board who wanted to give in?" wondered the Sunday Times critic Cosmo Landesman. So far there is no evidence to suggest that Christian Adams did not support the other passengers, or refused to storm the cockpit."
I don't know where that "believed to" comes from, or how it can be substantiated, but the Adams of the film does stand out -- not as a pacifist but as kind of a 'tard who learns that the crew and other passengers have been murdered 20 feet away from him, sees their blood on his seatmates clothing, yet still thinks it's time for a chat.
Indiewire's Anthony Kaufman saw United 93 at the Tribeca Film Festival in May and was as perplexed by portrayal of the Euro-Pacifist. When he cited this as a major flaw in the film, he took a beating from respondents on Alter-Net.
As moved as I was by UNITED 93, I agree with Anthony, even though he told me he thought that the pacifist was Dutch. Look, AK--you've got to get down with your Northern European stereotypes: the Dutch are treacherous, kinky collaborators, the Germans are either treacherous Nazis, treacherous collaborators, or treacherous pork-eating perverts
Oh, I kid. Except about the pork and perversion.
Something about United 93's brief portrayal of a Euro-wussy amid the ordinary Americans turned everyday heroes - reeked of bullshit in a film that was otherwise so powerfully factual. ( Somalia: WTF? Why bring up that mess when there's a gun in your face?)
After I'd seen the film, I talked to Anthony about "that European guy" -- I found it hard to believe that that Greengrass, having gotten the cooperation of all the UA93 families, would honor this man, Christian Adams, a wine importer on a business trip to the U.S., by letting actor Erich Redman portray him as a clueless man who would cave. (It's not that ordinary people, when taken hostage in other situations, haven't cowered or behaved out of craven self-interest--attempting to bargain or using other hostages as shields. But in all the accounts of UA93, where was the mention of Adams' saying anything like "we should see what these hijackers want?")
Again from the Guardian, here's the actor's interpretation of his role, which was developed through on-set improvisation.
"Redman said that he based his performance on an interview he read with a former colleague of Christian Adams. "He never made any rash decisions and everything he did was always well-considered," he said. "I think he would have said, 'Let's not do this, let's be quiet, let's not interfere with [the terrorists], because once we have landed the authorities will take care of it. I think that's quite a reasonable thing to say." Redman added that Adams was "not one of those gung-ho Americans wanting to storm the cockpit and smash those people's skulls in."
Both Anthony and I were puzzled at the actions of "Mr. Adams" as the burliest male passengers and surviving flight attendants make their move: The actor leaps up from his seat yelling "No!" before being shushed and restrained by other passengers. Neither one of us could figure out if "Adams" was attempting to warn the hijackers (and if so, why) or if he was merely freaking out from the stress of the hijacking. A little late, if he was. Greengrass's movie--following the 9/11 report and other news sources--shows that by then, the other passengers were well past panic, so clear were they in their their thoughts and action. They seemed to be in a frame of mind that almost beyond death.
Did you ever hear, in any of the reports of what happened on that flight, of a passenger who protested so emphatically?
As we all know (or should know, unless we want to subscribe to ridiculous conspiracy theories), the passengers on UA93, the flight from Newark-San Francisco-having witnessed or been informed of mayhem in the first-class cabin and the attack on the World Trade Center--had about 30 minutes to realize they were riding on a suicide mission. Not every passenger stood up to retake the plane, according to the last phone calls made to their families) but surely they all knew, and understood, that as a group, they were going to die. Yet they selflessly chose to attempt to divert the plane's path. Whether they were seated, running forward, or breaking down the door (and even if they didn't, as the film shows it, get inside the cockpit), their resistance is inspiring.
What remains haunting about that day, and about Greengrass' film, is how swiftly these ordinary people moved from their ordinary lives into an understanding of that their lives were ending--and an understanding that in their last minutes, they would do something brave and terrible. How uncomfortable UNITED 93 becomes as the passengers, who were strangers only an hour before, turn out to be as bloody minded as those who would kill them all.
To set up the non-American passenger as a phony obstacle to their heroism-is insulting. Even the four hijackers got a more humane portrayal.
