September 11 (2001)

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    ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ at 20: Revisiting the Fear and Anger

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    Michael Moore’s hit documentary isn’t a prosecutor’s brief but a political and emotional appeal, rooted in the ways in which the country’s burdens are unequally borne.Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” opens with a dazed look at the 2000 presidential election, when it seemed that Vice President Al Gore might defeat George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas. “Was it all just a dream?” Moore’s voice-over intones, before going on to chronicle Bush’s first year in office, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.The opening might remind some viewers of witnessing election night 2016 and Donald Trump’s surprise victory, but that’s only one echo of several in Moore’s blockbuster documentary. Twenty years ago, “Fahrenheit 9/11” landed in an era facing similar challenges to today: wars abroad that divide people at home, worries that the country was losing sight of long-cherished principles, fears about presidential abuses of power. It felt like a do-or-die moment, much as 2024 does, and Moore embraced the roles of truth-teller, fire-starter, satirist, confidant, and man-of-the-people bullhorn.The movie was a popular phenomenon: It became the top-grossing documentary domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, making $119 million. This was years before streamers pumped out hours and hours of nonfiction features and series. Controversy erupted even before it was released, when Disney tried to block its distribution out of political concerns. After a Palme d’Or win in Cannes, a June release followed.The groundswell showed that Moore was tuning into a national mood. As Bush sought re-election in the thick of the Iraq occupation and terrorism alerts, Moore’s film vented about the toll of the Iraq War and the administration’s overall response to the 9/11 attacks. (Cue the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, C.I.A. warning to Bush: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”) Whipping up sympathy and outrage over the deaths of young U.S. soldiers and Iraqis, and the perceptions of Bush as out of touch, Moore stirs up a potent cocktail of damning news clips, filmed confrontations and tag-alongs, and plain old ridicule (for instance, Attorney General John Ashcroft bellowing a patriotic song of his own composition).It’s all less preachy than polemical, with doses of Mark Twain showmanship and heartstring-pulling. Moore’s feature managed to capture a popular political narrative about recent U.S. history without feeling out of date as soon as it was released. It’s a feat that today’s constant EKG of social media response has made more difficult (along with evolving trends in how movies are made and released). In a time before YouTube, Moore’s documentary performed a service in surfacing footage of casualties or abuses in Iraq, or insensitive presidential gaffes, that was not always available to see.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Toby Keith’s Music and Politics Were More Complicated Than You Might Think

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      His choice to become a post-9/11 culture-war champion overshadowed the work of a musician who was funnier, subtler and more politically slippery than his most famous work let on.It is important to note right from the beginning that Toby Keith, when presented with the opportunity to become the music industry’s jingoist-in-chief, leaned in. At the turn of the millennium, just after the Sept. 11 attacks, Keith, who died Monday at 62, released a string of songs that were notable for their political stridency, commitment to American exceptionalism and flexed-bicep threat.Keith had a three-decade career in country music, selling more than 20 million albums and releasing 20 No. 1 Billboard country singles. But he will indisputably be remembered first and most intently for this era of songs: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American),” a thunderstorm of pro-war propaganda peaking with the exclamation “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way”; “American Soldier,” a warm hum of bombastic treacle; and even “The Taliban Song,” a cheeky ditty in the Jimmy Buffett mold aiming to satirize, if not quite sympathize with, life in Afghanistan under the repressive Taliban regime.These songs, released in 2002 and 2003, made Keith a culture-war champion. He understood instinctually that culture is politics, and politics is theater, and for this fraught period in American history, he was determined to provide the soundtrack.Nonetheless, Keith’s career was also an object lesson in how one incandescent and hard-to-ignore moment can shine so brightly that it obscures more nuanced truths below. For most of the rest of his career, Keith was a sly humorist, a good-natured blowhard, a chronicler of what really happens below thick skin.Much of his best music was about how masculinity is performance. Take “As Good as I Once Was,” one of the great country songs of the 2000s, which is delivered from the perspective of a man in decline, physically and sexually:I got a few years on me nowBut there was a time, back in my primeWhen I could really lay it downAnd if you need some love tonightThen I might have just enoughThe semi-rapped “I Wanna Talk About Me” manages to wrap a critique of male petulance in a song superficially about a woman who doesn’t come up for air. And then there’s “How Do You Like Me Now?!” which is perhaps Keith’s most blustery song, a victory march in search of a Ford F-150 commercial.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Timeline of Toby Keith’s Biggest Songs and Career Moments

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      The singer-songwriter was known for anthems, and political stances, that alternated between confrontation and big-tent populism.Toby Keith first drew recognition beyond country music as the artist behind the divisive post-9/11 rallying cry “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” But the singer-songwriter, who died Monday at the age of 62 after a battle with stomach cancer, appeared to view himself as a unifying force. “As far extreme as I seem,” he said in 2003, “I’m probably catching the average Joe in the middle better than anybody.”Keith topped the country chart 20 times with a catalog of sturdily built anthems including those that romanticized the cowboy’s life and traded on the big-tent appeal of a favorite bar and the charms of drinking beer out of a “Red Solo Cup.” His robust voice was just as adept at conveying rueful heartache as it was at carrying riled-up swagger, and his surprisingly shaded political stances showed a similar range and savvy. Here’s a look back at some of his biggest hits and most prominent moments during a three-decade career.1993‘Should’ve Been a Cowboy’Keith topped the U.S. country chart with his debut single, in which he longed for a life spent “wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive,” and tipped his Stetson hat to legendary screen cowboys like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon of “Gunsmoke.” But the song was hardly the first rodeo for Keith, who had spent years playing the honky-tonk circuit in and around his native Oklahoma after high school. The 6-foot-4 musician also worked at an oil field — an experience that, he later reflected, “made a man out of me” — and played semipro football. He would come to view his winding path to success as a blessing.“If I’d come out of the box with my first No. 1 hit at 21, instead of when I was 29, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it because I wasn’t mature enough then,” he said in 2012. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      As ‘Come From Away’ Closes, a Newfoundlander Heads Back Home

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      The Canadian actress Petrina Bromley has been in the cast during the show’s surprise hit run on Broadway. It resonated because “it’s about kindness,” she says.On Sunday afternoon, “Come From Away” played its final performance on Broadway, before a raucous sold-out crowd that wept and waved. By Monday morning, stagehands were already taking down and hauling away the real trees that gave the Schoenfeld Theater its forested look.Petrina Bromley, the lone Newfoundlander in the cast, returned to the theater to collect her belongings and to talk about the show, which told the true story of how Gander, Newfoundland — a small Canadian city with a big airport — sheltered thousands of airline passengers forced to land when trans-Atlantic flights were grounded by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.The musical, written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein and directed by Christopher Ashley, opened in 2017 and became a surprise hit, with its message of generosity and community resonating at a time when those values seemed in short supply.Bromley, like all members of the cast, played multiple characters, but she is best known as Bonnie, the woman who ran the local animal shelter, and wound up caring for the dogs, cats and two bonobos that had been onboard the planes. (Among the items in her dressing room: a variety of bonobo-related gifts sent by fans.)A scene from “Come From Away,” near the start of its Broadway run. Bromley said that when she first heard the creators’ idea for the show, she thought, “Good luck to you.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBromley, 51, has been with the show off and on for seven years, throughout its development and the Broadway run. All told, she has been in 1,514 performances of “Come From Away,” including pre-Broadway runs in San Diego, Seattle and Toronto as well as 1,362 Broadway performances. She has also been part of two concert presentations in Newfoundland — one before the Broadway run and one last month — and she was part of the cast of the filmed version, shot during the pandemic shutdown.Her status as a Newfoundlander — she is a career Newfoundland actress who was raised on the island and is returning there now that the show has closed — gave her a unique perspective on the show. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.How are you doing?It’s a lot, right? I thought yesterday would be hard, but this is actually harder. The trees are being felled. I’ve come and gone from the show a bunch of times but the space itself has always been here. And now it’s not going to be here anymore.You wound up in the show because you met the show’s writers in Gander on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11?I was in Gander with a local theater company, Rising Tide Theater — we were doing something as part of those events. We walked into the one coffee shop that wasn’t a Tim Hortons, and the only other people in there were this young couple sitting at a table with cue cards, organizing themselves to do an interview. I had the same reaction everybody in Gander had: “Good luck to you. I’m not sure how you’re going to turn that into a show, but have at it.” We stayed in touch through Facebook and stuff like that, and they saw me in a couple of shows in Toronto, and I was invited to audition.Apparently the audition went well.I was on the other side of the doors, waiting to go in, and some incredible person with an incredible voice sang “Let It Go” so incredibly well and loud and high and my inner monologue was, “What are you doing here?” So I abandoned my book and said to them, “You know, I think considering what the show is, and who I am, and where I’m from, I should sing you a song from Newfoundland.” So I sang a very silly song about a talking goat [“The Mobile Goat,” recorded by Joan Morrissey]. I think they were a little confused by it, but it was certainly something they hadn’t heard. And I do credit that tune with getting me the job in the end.Bromley talking with fans outside the theater on Sunday. “People do tell me their pet stories all the time, and it’s beautiful,” she said.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesYou had some apprehension about how Newfoundland was going to be depicted.When you have a culture that is distinct, it’s easy for it to be stereotyped. So the accent, and being poor, and being undereducated became the marks of what it is to be a Newfoundlander. In Canada, the “Newfie” joke was a big thing for many, many years, and we were often portrayed in the media and pop culture as stupid Newfies. That was my concern: Here are some mainlanders — “Come From Aways” — coming down to tell a story about us, and how are they going to paint us? But at the very first rehearsals in La Jolla, Chris Ashley made it very clear he wanted every character in the show to be treated with respect and not to be just cartoons. And as soon as he said that, I was like, “It’s all going to be fine.”When this show was in development, there was a lot of skepticism about whether it could work commercially.Absolutely. I’ve been skeptical the whole time. I was always wondering about the sheer earnestness of it, in a world that is as cynical as our world is. And telling a story about 9/11 in New York to New Yorkers — there was a lot of concern.Why do you think the show worked for as long as it did?Because it is about community, and it’s about kindness. There are no dragons and no helicopters and no wizards. This show raised up ordinary people doing very simple ordinary things — just helping each other out — and particularly in the past five or six years, with what’s been going on here in the States and around the world, kindness and generosity are things that we’re losing sight of.You played a woman who runs the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Are you an animal person?I have three dogs. I have allergies or I would have a million pets. People do tell me their pet stories all the time, and it’s beautiful. It’s a lovely way to connect.Did you ever meet Unga, the bonobo most discussed in the musical?She passed away before I was able to go to the zoo. If the pandemic hadn’t put a roadblock up, I would have been there to meet her. But I did meet Unga’s son Gander, and her other son Jerry, at the Columbus Zoo [in Ohio]. Bonnie and I went together and watched them in the enclosure. It was incredible.What is the level of awareness of the show in Newfoundland?You can’t not be aware of it — it’s everywhere. We just did those concerts back home — three shows in Gander and three shows in St. John’s, at large arenas, which sold out in minutes. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people have made the pilgrimage to come see it here or in Toronto or in places across the country where the tour was happening. It’s made its way into being part of the culture now. And everybody wants it to have a further life in Newfoundland.Bromley, center, at the final curtain call with Bonnie Harris, the woman she portrayed in the show.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesWhat was your career like before this show?I thought it was fine! I was a very employed, everyday working actor in Newfoundland, which is not easy to do. I had enough of a reputation and experience to be consistently working, mostly in theater, sometimes in TV and film. And I thought that that was as good as it gets. I still feel that way. I’m going home, back to Newfoundland, hopefully to fall back into working with the people that I love who create new, incredible work all the time.What is your career like now?I’m much more recognizable at home, which is lovely. I picked up a TV series back home, called “Son of a Critch,” and we just finished filming the second season of that. I’m a tertiary character, but it’s a lovely little gig to have and hopefully that can blossom into other things. I don’t have an agent, and I never have, and I have worked in Stratford [in Ontario] and on Broadway. But I’m probably going to get an agent so that I can work across Canada.What surprised you about Broadway?While I do have a lot of reverence for it, if you hold things on a pedestal, when you get there in a lot of ways it’s the same thing: It’s a job that you go to every day. I appreciate, being the age that I am, to have had the experience to know that it was going to have highs and lows, and that there would be ordinariness inside of the extraordinariness. And I’m always aware of the privilege of it, and the reality that none of us would have been on that stage but for the fact that a very tragic event happened and thousands of people died. And grateful that I got to tell a story, connected to them, that kept their memories alive in any way, shape or form for people who needed to hear it.What did you learn about New York City?It’s crazy. It’s great. To live in New York was incredible. But again, the layers get peeled back when you live somewhere, and you see that it isn’t just a helluva town. I found it difficult on many levels. To be in a very privileged position of working at this incredible place, but literally walking past the most desperate individuals I’ve ever seen in my life, people who are in jeopardy, on the street, asking for help, and we all walk past them and no one helps them. To come and tell this story, where giving a helping hand makes sense, and watch it not happen in reality on the street, I’ve found that hard to reconcile.Have you changed?Absolutely. In many, many ways. I like to think that I’m a bit more generous, a bit kinder than I was before this. It’s also made me a better singer. It’s made me a better actor. And certainly the cosmopolitan experience of living in a big city has changed me.Why are you going back?Because it’s home. There’s a joke about Newfoundlanders: “How do you know the Newfoundlanders in heaven? They’re the ones who want to go home.” More

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      in Music

      F.D.R. Speeches and Alicia Keys Album Added to National Recording Registry

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      A hit by the band Journey, radio accounts of the 9/11 attacks, “Buena Vista Social Club” and a recording of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run also made the registry.Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech about “a date which will live in infamy.” The rock band Journey’s song about “a small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world” who takes a midnight train going anywhere. And firsthand descriptions of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.Each of those are “unforgettable sounds of the nation’s history,” the Library of Congress said on Wednesday, adding that they are among 25 recordings selected this year for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.Since 2002, the Librarian of Congress, with advice from experts, has picked recordings that are at least 10 years old and are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” for inclusion in the registry.The program, library officials said, aims to provide a long-term archival home for the preservation of the recordings and to acknowledge their importance.The registry “reflects the diverse music and voices that have shaped our nation’s history and culture,” the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, said in a statement.“The national library is proud to help preserve these recordings,” she added.Other recordings selected this year include Alicia Keys’ first album, “Songs in A Minor”; the 1997 album “Buena Vista Social Club”; a 1956 recording of Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival; and the 1974 radio call of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, which broke a record previously held by Babe Ruth.The 575 recordings already included in the national registry include classical music; opera performances; blues and pop songs; monologues and poems; and speeches and radio broadcasts reflecting momentous news events. Among those are Robert F. Kennedy’s speech upon the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the 1973 Wailers album “Burnin’” and a 1977 recording of a Grateful Dead concert at Cornell University.That diversity can also be seen in this year’s selections, which include all of Roosevelt’s speeches as president and the 1981 Journey single turned karaoke favorite, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which the library described as “the personal empowerment anthem of millions.”One of the more somber recordings chosen this year consists of the Sept. 11, 2001, broadcasts by the radio station WNYC, which was located at that time in Lower Manhattan, blocks from the World Trade Center.That morning station employees broke with scheduled programming to describe the chaos of the terror attacks on the Twin Towers, broadcasting what the library called “the tragedy’s first eyewitness accounts.”“As the story unfolded,” the library wrote, “the dedicated staff of WNYC remained on the air.” More

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      in Television

      Rudy Giuliani’s Rowdy 9/11 Speech Leaves Late-Night Hosts Reeling

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      ‘I’m not saying Rudy was drunk, but that’s usually when guys from Brooklyn start to imitate the queen of England,’ Seth Meyers said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘What Is He Doing?’This weekend’s 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks would not appear to be very good fodder for lighthearted late-night humor. But that was until Rudy Giuliani got involved.On Saturday, Giuliani turned a speech commemorating the occasion into a wandering, unfunny but still-comic monologue. He impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and reminisced awkwardly about his run-ins with Prince Andrew.Trevor Noah was one of many late-night hosts who responded with baffled amusement.“You know your speech went off the rails when people watching it are like: ‘I wish this guy would talk more about 9/11. What is he doing?’” — TREVOR NOAHOn “Late Night,” Seth Meyers said there was reason to agree with the commentators who suggested that Giuliani was not in full command of his faculties.“I’m not saying Rudy was drunk, but that’s usually when guys from Brooklyn start to imitate the queen of England.” — SETH MEYERS“I guess Rudy can add this tape to his reel of impressions if he ever auditions for ‘America’s Not Talent.’” — SETH MEYERSTaco Bell EnvironmentalismTaco Bell recently started a program that aims to help customers recycle the plastic from used sauce packets by having them mail those packets back.Noah said the idea deserved points for creativity but probably wouldn’t actually do much to help the environment.“This idea has all sorts of problems with it. For one thing, people who eat at Taco Bell don’t care about the environment. I mean, they don’t even care about their own bodies.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, this is a weird idea, but what did you expect? Coming up with weird ideas is Taco Bell’s whole thing. This is a place that will still wrap a soft shell around a hard shell and wrap that inside a Dorito’s chip — which is delicious, but you really think their idea to save the environment is going to make sense?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (M.T.A. Edition)“At the Washington Football Team’s season opener, a pipe at the stadium burst over a group of fans, and some people said it might have been sewage. I don’t know; take a look. [Shows footage] Well, that’s a good omen for the season, you know? Washington is still looking for a team name; it’s too bad the Browns are already taken.” — JIMMY FALLON“An investigation concluded last week that a recent M.T.A. subway outage that shut down 83 trains was caused by someone accidentally flipping a power switch. Said one man, ‘So thaaaat’s what it does.’” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingDr. Anthony Fauci talked to Noah about combating vaccine hesitancy and what he called the need for vaccine mandates.Jimmy Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, came up with a skit that allows her to declutter their house at the same time: It’s called “Win Jimmy’s Crap.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightJustice Stephen Breyer, who at 83 has been fending off calls from fellow liberals to step down, will talk to Stephen Colbert on Tuesday. Will Colbert hold his feet to the fire?Also, Check This OutThe Metropolitan Opera performed Verdi’s Requiem on Saturday, the company’s first time playing inside its theater since March 2020.Richard Termine/Met OperaAnthony Tommasini, The Times’s chief classical music critic, gave an enthusiastic review to the first performance at the Metropolitan Opera since the start of the coronavirus pandemic: a staging on Saturday of Verdi’s Requiem in commemoration of 9/11. More

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      in Movies

      ‘25th Hour’: The Best 9/11 Movie Was Always About New York

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      While other directors edited out the twin towers from movies at the time, Spike Lee worked the tragedy into a story originally about other things.When Spike Lee came under fire last month for including 9/11 conspiracy theorists in his HBO documentary series “NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½,” historians and others expressed disappointment that Lee had seemed to give credibility to long-debunked claims. (He subsequently edited them out.) But for those of us who’ve followed Lee’s career, and its intersection with that seminal New York event of 20 years ago, the initial decision was especially baffling — as Lee also directed what many consider the quintessential film about post-9/11 New York City.“25th Hour” is not a “9/11 movie,” at least not in the way that “United 93” or “World Trade Center” are. In fact, the attacks were not part of the David Benioff screenplay that Lee signed on to direct, nor were they part of Benioff’s original novel (which was published in January 2001). But Lee is an intuitive filmmaker, open to improvisation and adjustments — and, as “NYC Epicenters” reminds us, he is a documentarian who saw his city in a moment of mourning, melancholy and transition, and wanted to capture it.Most of Hollywood did not feel the same. In the weeks following the attacks, feature films with terrorism plotlines, including the Barry Sonnenfeld comedy “Big Trouble” and the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle “Collateral Damage,” were delayed and drastically re-edited. Films still in production, like “Men in Black II” and “Lilo & Stitch,” were rewritten to remove echoes of 9/11. Skyline shots with the World Trade Center were edited out of the not-yet-released “Kissing Jessica Stein,” “Igby Goes Down,” “People I Know” and “Spider-Man,” and a sequence of that superhero trapping a helicopter in a web between the twin towers — the centerpiece of a popular teaser trailer — was deleted as well.Most controversially, some filmmakers chose to leave their skyline shots intact, but to erase the Twin Towers with digital effects. And thus the World Trade Center was wiped from “Serendipity,” “Stuart Little 2,” “Mr. Deeds,” and Ben Stiller’s “Zoolander,” which hit screens less than three weeks after the attacks. The director’s publicist explained at the time that he made the last-minute decision to remove the towers because the film was an escapist comedy and seeing the buildings “would defeat that purpose.”Spike Lee disagreed. “You could not even show an image of the World Trade Center. “I said, we’re not doing that.” With filming on “25th Hour” planned for the following winter, Lee set about weaving 9/11 “into the fabric” of the existing story, as his star, Edward Norton, explained on the audio commentary: “It was like looking at it through the angle of another story, but the melancholy that the city was full of in that year afterward. I feel like the impact of 9/11 emotionally is all through this movie.”Spike Lee added a shot of the “Tribute in Light” installation after reading about it. Touchstone Pictures“25th Hour” is the story of Monty Brogan (Norton), a white-collar drug dealer whom we meet on the last day before he is to report for a seven-year incarceration. That night, he hits the town with his childhood pals (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and his live-in girlfriend (Rosario Dawson), ostensibly for one last blowout, but also in an attempt to come to terms with the choices — and thus, mistakes — he’s made in his life.So the explicit references to the tragedy are minimal. There is the opening credit sequence, featuring the “Tribute in Light” art installation, in which 88 searchlights combined to create two beams representing the fallen towers (Lee said he filmed it the very night he read about it in The Times); accompanied by Terence Blanchard’s moving musical score, these images say far more about the tragedy than any news footage or expositional dialogue could. Occasionally, ephemera of that autumn — American flags, makeshift memorials, wanted posters of Osama bin Laden — pop up in the background.One scene, lifted almost verbatim from the novel, finds Monty delivering a lengthy, angry, profanity-laden monologue into a mirror, meticulously insulting New Yorkers of every imaginable race, religion and class (before landing on his family, his friends and finally himself). Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were added to the list of his targets.Most poignantly, Lee relocated a scene between Hoffman and Pepper to an apartment overlooking ground zero, and placed the actors in front of a large window to view workers sifting for human remains. “New York Times says the air’s bad down here,” Hoffman notes; Pepper disparages the paper (“I read The Post”) and insists, “E.P.A. says it’s fine.” (The federal agency was later revealed to have misled the public.)In one scene, characters look out over workers at ground zero.Touchstone PicturesSome of the film’s initial critics found these additions to be an intrusion — A.O. Scott deemed them “obtrusive” and “a little jarring.” But as the years have passed, the value of what Lee was capturing has become clear. On the film’s fifth anniversary, the film critic Mick LaSalle called it “as much an urban historical document as Rossellini’s ‘Open City,’ filmed in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi occupation of Rome.”But Lee didn’t just capture the way New York looked in those uncertain, shellshocked months after 9/11. His film captured how the city felt, the strange quiet that fell over the streets, the overwhelming melancholy that embedded itself in our collective DNA. “25th Hour” was not the story of those attacks, but it was a story about one way of life coming to an end, and another, far less certain one looming on the horizon.“We were very careful how we were going to portray Sept. 11 because we know it’s still very painful and that it will always be very painful for those who lost people,” Lee said upon its release in December 2002. “But at the same time, we couldn’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend like it never happened.” And that instinct, that insistence on documenting the city we lived in rather than the city we imagined, is what makes Spike Lee one of New York’s essential filmmakers.Jason Bailey is the author of the forthcoming book “Fun City Cinema: New York and the Movies That Made It,” a history of the city and movies about it. He is also the host of the “Fun City Cinema” podcast. More

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      in Music

      7 Events in New York Honoring 9/11

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      On Saturday, performances and memorials around the city and online will mark the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Here’s how to find them.Twenty years after four coordinated terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda killed 2,977 people — 2,753 of them at ground zero in New York City — the nation and the city remember. They remember through dance, music, museums, TV specials and light beamed into the sky.And especially now, after a war in Afghanistan, the ways we remember move beyond commemoration. They start to connect the dots between the attacks themselves and the larger historical era that followed, and continues to unfold.History echoes and reverberates in Lower Manhattan, where businesses have shuttered once more, this time because of the pandemic. There, from the rooftop of the Battery Parking Garage, two 48-foot squares of light will recreate the ghostly images of the twin towers this Saturday night.Here’s a selection of events — both in-person and virtual — for New Yorkers to remember and reflect this year. Check websites for Covid-19 protocols.Verdi’s Requiem in MemoriamThe Metropolitan Opera plays Verdi’s Requiem in commemoration often. The last time it was performed there, the piece was in honor of the beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.Before that, the music was presented as a memorial to Luciano Pavarotti (2008), President Kennedy (1964) and Verdi himself (1901). Now, in its first indoor performance for an audience since March 2020, the Met Opera will perform the Requiem on Sept. 11 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks.Five hundred free tickets will be made available to the families of victims, and the remaining tickets will be $25. The event will also be broadcast live on PBS, hosted by the ballet star Misty Copeland from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan. From $25; metopera.org.‘Remembering 9/11’ at New York’s Oldest MuseumImages from “Here is New York,” a photographic archive of ground zero, at the New-York Historical Society. Hiroko Masuike for The New York TimesIn the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the New-York Historical Society collected materials — pieces of debris, parts of memorials — as rescues and memorials unfolded. And so began the History Responds initiative, which has since continued to document major events like the Black Lives Matter protests and the Climate Strike.Now, 20 years later, two ongoing exhibits — “Remembering 9/11” and “Objects Tell Stories: 9/11” — at the museum on Central Park West are showcasing that history. On Saturday, images from the photographic archive “Here is New York,” which documented ground zero in the moment, will be projected on digital displays in the Smith Gallery. $22 for an adult ticket; nyhistory.org.A National TV SpecialIn 2001, the rubble of the World Trade Center South Tower buried Will Jimeno — a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer — for 13 hours. He survived, as did his partner, John McLoughlin.Their experiences will comprise part of “Shine A Light,” a one-hour national television special airing on CNN at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The nonprofit 9/11 Day, co-founded by David Paine, announced that the special will be hosted by Jake Tapper and feature performances by H.E.R., Brad Paisley and Common.“We hope to demonstrate that even in the face of great tragedy, good things can arise,” Paine said in a statement. “That’s an essential and powerful reminder for all of us now, 20 years later, as we continue to deal with other tragic events.” 911day.org.‘Table of Silence’Daniel Bernard Roumain, center on violin, performing “Table of Silence” at Lincoln Center last year.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEvery Sept. 11 morning since the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Buglisi Dance Theatre has presented its “Table of Silence” — a free “public performance ritual for peace” — at Lincoln Center. The pandemic hasn’t changed that: Last year, 28 dancers draped in white fabric reached their outstretched arms toward the sky.Although that event marked the first large-scale performance at Lincoln Center since March 2020, it was closed to the public, available only as a livestream. This year, however, the 8 a.m. performance will feature both live and virtual elements. Limited standing capacity will be available on Josie Robertson Plaza, on a first-come, first-served basis. Free; tableofsilence.org.‘Memory Ground’Inside Green-Wood Cemetery, the top of Battle Hill — the highest point in Brooklyn and the setting of the largest Revolutionary battle — affords sweeping views of Lower Manhattan, including the World Trade Center. The musical performance “Memory Ground” will take place there on Saturday. The Mississippi-born and New York City-based composer Buck McDaniel will present original compositions. (Previously, his work “Detroit Cycles” premiered with the radio program The Moth.)Saxophonist Noa Even — whose solo commissioning project, “Atomic,” has toured across the country — will perform, as will the New York City-based string ensemble Desdemona. Each performance is 45 minutes, and will run at noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. $10 recommended donation; green-wood.com.The Crossing’s ‘Returning’The Crossing, a new-music choir, will perform in Philadelphia on Saturday.  Jessica Kourkounis for The New York TimesLatvian composer Eriks Esenvalds’s song “Earth Teach Me Quiet” begins with the line “Earth teach me quiet — as the grasses are still with light.”The Crossing, a new-music choir, will perform pieces by Esenvalds, Ayanna Woods, Michael Gilbertson and James Primosch on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia.While the event, “Returning” may not explicitly address the terrorist attacks, its themes — isolation, grief, confusion, hope and returning — are more than fitting. This “coming home to song” marks the opening of the Crossing’s back-to-live-performance season, in the spirit of return and renewal. $35 for general admission; thecrossing.ticketleap.com.A ‘Tribute in Light’ Across the CityAt sunset on Saturday, 88 7,000-watt light bulbs will reach four miles into the sky from the roof of the Battery Parking Garage, mirroring the shapes of the twin towers.This Tribute in Light, organized by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, was first presented six months after the attack. Each year after that, the ghostly echoes of the towers have lighted up Lower Manhattan from dusk until dawn on the evening of Sept. 11.Buildings throughout the city, including the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center Plaza and the New-York Historical Society will join in the memorial by lighting up their facades and rooftops in sky blue. More

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      ‘No Responders Left Behind’ Review: Heroes Need Heroes Too

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      John Feal works tirelessly as an advocate for rescuers injured or sickened in the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.In “No Responders Left Behind,” John Feal is a kind of action hero — political action, that is. This documentary by Rob Lindsay follows Feal’s tenacious efforts to obtain government health benefits and compensation for the thousands of rescuers with illnesses and injuries from working on Sept. 11, 2001, and beyond.Feal organizes multipronged campaigns to press Congress to pass aid bills, and the government’s delays and denials feel increasingly galling as the documentary retraces the timeline using interviews and archival footage. The banner piece of legislation on the benefits issue — the Zadroga Act — was not passed until 2010, with renewal and related pushes necessary in 2015 and 2019.Feal — who was injured by falling steel while managing World Trade Center debris removal — is blunt and funny in a way that helps cut through the movie’s hurried, sound-bitey, fundamentally televisual quality. Along the way, he introduces (and amiably rags on) some fellow injured responders, including Ray Pfeifer, a revered firefighter (who died in 2017). He’s open about his tactic of putting politicians on the spot and pushing buttons as necessary. Jon Stewart lends his celebrity as a loyal and sincere supporter of the cause, testifying before Congress.While pragmatic in bent, the documentary repeatedly underlines the toxic manner in which this country treats many who have sacrificed body and mind in service to others. With its blue-collar ranks of responders, the movie also shows who tends to bear such all-consuming burdens and how it can take someone singular like Feal to get both attention and results.No Responders Left BehindNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. Watch on Discovery+. More