Return to 9/11

In recent weeks, Oliver Stone's Sept. 11 epic, "World Trade Center," has become its own ground zero of national debate.

Columnists who have attended advance screenings of the movie have been generally favorable, though not without injecting a healthy whiff of ideology. "It's impossible not to take a political message from the movie," writes National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez, who goes on to describe the movie as an argument on behalf of faith, heterosexual marriage and "united outrage."

Armchair critics in the blogosphere, meanwhile, have been predictably sour, even though most have seen only the two-minute theatrical trailer. "Hey Oliver," taunts Agent Smith on starpulse.com, "how 'bout waiting at least 20 years or so before trying to cash in on other people's tragedy?"

And then there's MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, who went the bloggers one better.

"Neither I nor anyone I know is going to see it," Carlson reported. "How could your memory, your experience of 9/11, be any more vivid than it already is? Don't bring it to the silver screen. We don't need it there."

Welcome to the opening of an Oliver Stone film.

Breaking into the mainstream in 1986 with his Oscar-winning Vietnam memoir, "Platoon," Stone quickly morphed in the public consciousness from brilliant cinematic upstart to alleged conspiracy-theorist nut, primarily because of his Kennedy assassination chronicle, "JFK." Although the crackpot rep is largely unfair (while Stone took some liberties, he drew most of his material for "JFK" directly from the Warren Commission report and preexisting conspiracy theories), the loony label stuck. That's Hollywood.

Still, Stone forged ahead, taking on cultural institutions -- the Sixties, Watergate, even the National Football League -- with movies that had the moxie to plumb events of historical significance, often while the ink was still wet on the newsprint. If nothing else, that took guts.

Why go there?

But now Stone has embarked on the greatest gamble of his career, resurrecting the wrenching pain and seismic shockwaves that erupted five years ago next month, when four fuel-fat jets plowed into the American psyche, forever changing this nation's perception of itself and its place in the global community.

Public discourse about 9/11 has always been tortured. Like a family nervously discussing a favorite uncle's alcohol problem at the dinner table, many Americans find the conversation more harrowing than helpful -- so why go there?

And yet the truth is, America has always been obsessed with its own dramas. Whether on TV or on the big screen, on front pages or in quickie books, we are a nation bent on relentlessly reliving our darkest moments until either the pain has been exorcised or we just grow bored.

The West Virginia mine disaster in January, for instance, commanded newspaper and TV coverage far beyond the usual cycle. Hurricane Katrina segments still run on cable news channels nearly a year later. Even the networks' prime-time dramas have joined the collective chest-thumping, incorporating terrorism storylines into their shows as blithely as they do Pepsi can product placements.

But this time it's different. Like Paul Greengrass' "United 93," which was released earlier this year, "World Trade Center" asks us to tear the scab off the rawest of national wounds. This is where Carlson and his ilk, despite their arrogance, merit an answer to their question: Why does America need to see this movie?

The answer is painfully simple: Because much of the country has forgotten the real lesson of Sept. 11.

For a short while after that cataclysmic morning five hazy summers ago, parents hugged their kids a little tighter; neighbors dropped in on one another unexpectedly, then stayed for dinner; and Americans everywhere added a few extra words to their nightly prayers, asking God to provide comfort for people they didn't know.