There is then a cut to a shot of a normal day on a NY street, again showing the mundane and peaceful nature of what was disturbed, intensified by the removal of all traffic noise from the soundtrack.
The next shot is what the filmmakers intended to be a piece on the firemen fixing a leaking gas main, again emphasising the mundane which was to be disturbed by the extraordinary. The speech is phased out as a terrible roar is heard, to affirm the importance of this moment. All of the firemen involved look up in astonishment and the camera follows, involving the viewer in the moment, the camera tracks the plane as one would do in first person.
However the shot cuts away before reaching the all important footage of the first collision, there could be many reasons for this, it could be out of respect to those who perished only showing the start of their demise when absolutely necessary, out of respect to the viewer, not showing them such an emotionally charged shot without any build-up for them to mentally prepare themselves or from a more cynical perspective they may be simply saving the “best” for last.
It then cuts to a shot inside the building with looks of anguish on all the firemen’s faces, even their captain. Showing how horrific this event must be in order to shake those who are normally so emotionally detached and sound. This is then used to emphasise their bravery as, despite their obvious fear and disbelief, at the word of their captain they speedily make their way up into the burning chaos.
The other media response to the momentous event is an article by Salman Rushdie, the controversial author of The satanic verses a book focusing on a very sensitive issue about the works of Mohammed. As such he is no stranger to the Islamic issue and his opinion holds a lot of weight.
He attempts to put the article across in such a way that the reader will sympathize with him, this is shown in the first line of the piece where immediately he admits he has made poor judgements on the homeland security issue. He refers to an article he wrote the year before where he stated that “the defining struggle of the new age would be between Terrorism and Security” and how he worried that to “live by the security experts’ worst case scenarios might be to surrender too many of our liberties” and admits his mistake by saying that “On Tuesday September 11, however, the worst-case scenario came true” with this sympathetic atmosphere set he continues on to his own opinion of the issue.
The next statement he makes on the event is written with absolute factual conviction. “They broke our city.” The matter-of-fact structure leaves no room for argument. It may also be a reference to the phrase “broke my heart” thus striking an emotional chord with the reader and also inferring, as many others have, that NYC is the heart of the western world. Also by using the pronoun they he reinforces the concept of a “them and us” mentality.
He next shows how the effect of this event is widespread throughout the world by saying “even people who have never set foot in Manhattan have felt her wounds deeply” also by using the pronoun her; he is giving the impression that Manhattan is in fact a woman and that this travesty is not dissimilar to domestic violence.
He then affirms the heart metaphor by saying NYC is “the beating heart of the visible world” in addition to making a reference to the image he created earlier in the article of the “invisible shadow warriors” and how “democracy requires visibility” the light metaphor alluding to the underlying question of good and evil continued with the line “To this bright capital of the visible, the forces of invisibility have dealt a dreadful blow.” furthermore reinforcing the domestic violence image also.
He subsequently restates the gravity of the event again using an unarguable matter-of-fact tone by writing “No need to say how dreadful; we all saw it, are all changed by it” but counters that with a notion that one should not dwell on the past and should focus on the future, also reusing the light metaphor, by writing “and we must now ensure that the wound is not mortal, that the world of what is seen triumphs over what it cloaked, what is perceptible only through the effects of its awful deeds.”
To conclude, from assessing the verbal and visual responses to 9/11 it should be said that this verbal response is not so much an emotional response, in that it does not wrap the reader up in a hysterical emotional whirlwind but instead lends itself to the more rational consideration with a hint of emotive language to substantiate the readers intellectual interest. Whereas the visual response is quite the opposite, not providing much factual or rational information of the event but rather bombarding the viewer with some very disturbing imagery, not as an attempt at emotional manipulation but simply to put across the horrific mayhem of the event in such a way that the viewer can come much closer to true empathy with those involved (which could otherwise have probably not been achieved so effectively.) As such they are both very effective at the goal which they are attempting to achieve.
