9/11 + 5
With time, the arts world has begun to grapple with the day, the aftermath, and the new world
A Boston Globe Special Report, Sept. 3, 2006
Audio slideshowBoston Globe film and movie critics examine how popular culture has changed five years since the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001.
A soundscape beckons
The theaters and the concert halls of New York City went dark after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but it was not long before arts institutions began grappling with how to respond. Less than six months later, the New York Philharmonic announced it would commission a new 9/11 memorial work from the American composer John Adams to open its ... (By Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe)
The theaters and the concert halls of New York City went dark after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but it was not long before arts institutions began grappling with how to respond. Less than six months later, the New York Philharmonic announced it would commission a new 9/11 memorial work from the American composer John Adams to open its ... (By Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe)
After the crash, the conundrum: To fight together, or to drift apart?
Of course, it started with a plane crash. That's the first, most obvious way that ABC's ``Lost" has become TV's most prominent nod to our menacing new world. The tale of disparate characters, crashed on a tropical island, is full of overt references to the world we live in now. Through ``Lost," we get war-in-Iraq wish fulfillment: Sayid, the noblest ... (By Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe)
Of course, it started with a plane crash. That's the first, most obvious way that ABC's ``Lost" has become TV's most prominent nod to our menacing new world. The tale of disparate characters, crashed on a tropical island, is full of overt references to the world we live in now. Through ``Lost," we get war-in-Iraq wish fulfillment: Sayid, the noblest ... (By Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe)
In the face of unimaginable loss, finding consolation in Shakespeare
The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. (By Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe)
The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. (By Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe)
A plane on fire crosses the sky, and an ordinary day becomes extraordinary
It seems both appropriate and poignant that an Englishman would be the one to get it right -- to render not the immediate aftershocks of 9/11, but the longer legacy of steady-state apprehension, that uneasy alliance between denial and emotional free fall. Most of the calamities of the past century have been handled with a particular sidelong acuity by English ... (By Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe)
It seems both appropriate and poignant that an Englishman would be the one to get it right -- to render not the immediate aftershocks of 9/11, but the longer legacy of steady-state apprehension, that uneasy alliance between denial and emotional free fall. Most of the calamities of the past century have been handled with a particular sidelong acuity by English ... (By Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe)
In the banality of the security-camera picture, a vast and abiding anxiety
9/11 was predicated on two pieces of technology: the commercial airliner and the camera. The images of destruction that day mattered as much to the execution of the plan as the destruction itself. Seeing isn't just believing. Seeing can also be assaulting and fearing. As a tactic, ``shock and awe" long predates Donald Rumsfeld . When in history has the ... (By Mark Feeney, Boston Globe)
9/11 was predicated on two pieces of technology: the commercial airliner and the camera. The images of destruction that day mattered as much to the execution of the plan as the destruction itself. Seeing isn't just believing. Seeing can also be assaulting and fearing. As a tactic, ``shock and awe" long predates Donald Rumsfeld . When in history has the ... (By Mark Feeney, Boston Globe)
There is comfort in the life cycle: We age, we decay, we're reborn, like nature
Eiko and Koma's ``Offering" premiered in New York's Battery Park City in July 2002 against a backdrop of the Twin Towers smitten into ashes and air. Even now, the raw dance piece built of dirt and darkness resonates with the grief of 9/11. (By Thea Singer, Boston Globe)
Eiko and Koma's ``Offering" premiered in New York's Battery Park City in July 2002 against a backdrop of the Twin Towers smitten into ashes and air. Even now, the raw dance piece built of dirt and darkness resonates with the grief of 9/11. (By Thea Singer, Boston Globe)
The viewer is thrown into a philosophical quandary: Is the truth out there?
Although Mark Lombardi died at 48, a year and a half before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he made some drawings during the last six years of his life that speak with cool, eerily prophetic eloquence to the post-9/11 world. (By Ken Johnson, Boston Globe)
Although Mark Lombardi died at 48, a year and a half before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he made some drawings during the last six years of his life that speak with cool, eerily prophetic eloquence to the post-9/11 world. (By Ken Johnson, Boston Globe)
Young, old, banker, firefighter: The democratization of death
The most affecting work of art inspired by 9/11 wasn't a work of art. Instead, it was journalism, The New York Times' ``Portraits of Grief." (By Mark Feeney, Boston Globe)
The most affecting work of art inspired by 9/11 wasn't a work of art. Instead, it was journalism, The New York Times' ``Portraits of Grief." (By Mark Feeney, Boston Globe)
Polarizing, yes, but courageous
It's so obvious that it's anticlimactic, really. 9/11 even shows up in the title, and there's scarcely an argument that hasn't been made for or against the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Yet Michael Moore's molten jeremiad was the climax of a moment of national -- OK, international -- doubt about the current Bush White House and the war in ... (By Wesley Morris, Boston Globe)
It's so obvious that it's anticlimactic, really. 9/11 even shows up in the title, and there's scarcely an argument that hasn't been made for or against the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Yet Michael Moore's molten jeremiad was the climax of a moment of national -- OK, international -- doubt about the current Bush White House and the war in ... (By Wesley Morris, Boston Globe)
A rambling, anxious folk ballad with no refrain in which to take refuge
A year and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a disheveled 22-year-old Nebraskan walked onstage at the Roxy in Boston and began playing a new song. The song was a simple folk ballad called ``One Foot in Front of the Other," and the singer -- Conor Oberst, performing with his collective Bright Eyes -- whispered and screamed the ... (By Joan Anderman, Boston Globe)
A year and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a disheveled 22-year-old Nebraskan walked onstage at the Roxy in Boston and began playing a new song. The song was a simple folk ballad called ``One Foot in Front of the Other," and the singer -- Conor Oberst, performing with his collective Bright Eyes -- whispered and screamed the ... (By Joan Anderman, Boston Globe)
Leaping from stress to stress, with little relief
The Denis Leary drama, which premiered in 2004, is not directly about 9/11 so much as it is of 9/11, a TV product that trembles and erupts with life-changing incident and post-traumatic stress. (By Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe)
The Denis Leary drama, which premiered in 2004, is not directly about 9/11 so much as it is of 9/11, a TV product that trembles and erupts with life-changing incident and post-traumatic stress. (By Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe)
The capital of brashness finds itself suddenly humbled
Once upon a time, to be a New Yorker was to know the world revolved around you and to act accordingly. Let other cities deal in passive-aggressive niceties: From Wall Street to the Upper West Side to Bensonhurst, you took what you wanted and announced to anyone who might object that it was yours and what were they going to ... (By Ty Burr, Boston Globe)
Once upon a time, to be a New Yorker was to know the world revolved around you and to act accordingly. Let other cities deal in passive-aggressive niceties: From Wall Street to the Upper West Side to Bensonhurst, you took what you wanted and announced to anyone who might object that it was yours and what were they going to ... (By Ty Burr, Boston Globe)
