Discovery’s ‘Flight’ documents passengers’ heroism
“The Flight That Fought Back” is not a scripted drama as such. It is not a pure documentary either.
Rather, the Discovery Channel special about hijacked Flight 93 and the passengers who fought to take it back on Sept. 11, 2001, is a hybrid of reconstruction with actors, real dialogue drawn from public records and interviews with the loved ones of those who died when the United Airlines jet plunged into the Pennsylvania countryside.
As the film’s narrator, actor Kiefer Sutherland, is careful to point out early on, it is “informed speculation” about what took place aboard the San Francisco-bound plane that day as the passengers battled the terrorists and kept them from crashing the jetliner into their Washington, D.C., target.
“The Flight That Fought Back” is the first of a rising tide of films dramatizing the events of Sept. 11, something television and the film industry has stayed away from over the past four years.
ABC already has started production on a miniseries based on the 9-11 Commission report. Later this year, work will begin on an Oliver Stone film about two men rescued from the collapsed World Trade Center and another movie based on the best-selling nonfiction book “102 Minutes.”
Director Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Supremacy”) will begin work on a Flight 93 drama in October, and A&E has another reconstruction of the flight’s final minutes in the pipeline.
What took place on United 93 is more fully documented than the events on any of the other hijacked flights. Numerous passengers and crew members were able to reach relatives, United ground personnel and others by cell phone, with some of those conversations being taped.
“In terms of screen time, about 50 percent” of the film is reconstruction, based largely on those phone calls, says Phil Craig, one of its executive producers. “In terms of what you’re hearing, more like 10 percent.
“There are some dialogue scenes on the plane, and 90 percent of these are based on tape evidence and the memories of people who spoke to passengers on the flight,” Craig says.
“There are a very few occasions where we have invented dialogue,” he adds, “based on consultation with people who knew the passengers.”
As moving as the interviews are with the loved ones of those on board, we have seen and heard them before. We also have heard the recorded conversations between those in the air and those on the ground.
What’s different is that the filmmakers put us on board the plane, creating a sense of the tension, terror and raw heroism. Even those who may have qualms about mixing fact and speculation are likely to find themselves caught up in the minute-by-minute retelling of the story.
One of the passengers on Flight 93 was Elizabeth Wainio, a young executive with the Discovery stores, and it’s clear that Discovery feels a special obligation to her memory. Certainly, the filmmakers and Discovery have been very careful in the production of the film, taking every precaution to ensure accuracy and reaching out to the passengers’ families for their cooperation.
They also avoid overplaying their hand in terms of drama, although one dream sequence toward the end of “Flight” comes very, very close.
“This is a profoundly, profoundly important action that was taken by these people, important for the whole of America, important for the whole of the world,” says Discovery executive vice president Jane Root.
“That individuals who get up in the morning thinking they’re going to have another ordinary day end up linking together and doing something as magnificent and as extraordinary as these people did is a truly wonderful thing.”
Andrea Meditch, who oversees all of Discovery’s documentaries, makes the point that this is one Sept. 11 story that could be lost simply because there is no visual history of what took place.
“One of the fears is that, as other events come into the public consciousness, what happened that day – particularly to those people on that flight – might end up being forgotten or might end up as a smaller part of our lives than it should be,” Meditch says.
And – for much the same reason – the film gets strong support from Esther Heymann, Wainio’s mother.
While acknowledging that there will be differences of opinion among the passengers’ families about “Flight,” Heymann says, “If I don’t do another thing with my life, the most important thing that I can do is make sure this film is done right and that as many people as possible know about it.
“It’s such a beautiful example of good overcoming evil, of people not sitting passively and being victimized but actively choosing to make a difference, knowing that they were going to die.”
Still, “The Flight That Fought Back” will be the starting point for the debate over the dramatization of Sept. 11 and whether it is appropriate, or even necessary to our collective memory of that day.
Sarah Wainio, Elizabeth Wainio’s sister, may sum up that ambivalence:
The film, says Wainio, is “incredibly hard to watch. But I want this story to be shared, and I want people to be put on that plane.
“We have been dealing with it and thinking about it and imagining what happened that day for four years now,” she says. “But the public hasn’t always been thinking about it.”
In the end, she adds, “I have to be peaceful about it. It sounds like an oxymoron to be peaceful about something like this. But I know who my sister was, and I carry with me all my wonderful memories of her.
“This wasn’t her whole life. This is just how it ended.”