Sept. 11 film honors firefighters for heroics
By John Kiesewetter
Cincinnati Enquirer
Although more than 2,800 people died in the World Trade Center attacks Sept. 11, tonight's "9/11" CBS documentary isn't about death.
• 8 tonight • CBS
It's about heroes.
'9/11'
That's the description from filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet, the French brothers who were filming a documentary that day about rookie firefighters in Lower Manhattan.
CBS' special will air without commercials. The brothers described their film to TV critics.
"It's a positive story. It's not about death. It's a tribute" to the firefighters, says Gedeon, 31.
"From the very beginning, we were confronted by the choice: What do we do with this footage?" Jules says.
They refused "millions and millions for the footage" because they didn't want anyone "to exploit it, and repeat it over and over," Jules says.
Jules was 10 blocks away, with firefighters at a gas leak, when they heard a low-flying jet. He filmed the plane just as it crashed into the skyscraper.
"We heard the roar, saw the plane above, and it was coming out from behind a building and it went into the tower," Jules says.
Jules, 28, accompanied firefighters into Tower One minutes after the crash of American Flight 11, and filmed rescue efforts for 45 minutes inside the building.
The film will include both brothers' footage of the smoky hell from the second tower's disintegration — the thick black cloud which obliterated lower Manhattan, followed by the mass of gray ash that looked like devastation from a nuclear bomb.
Although CBS officials stress that "there are no gruesome or graphic pictures," "9/11" will include the sounds of bodies landing on the World Trade Center's glass-and-metal canopy as people jumped from the flaming tower.
"You hear the jumpers, and the sound is very tough," says CBS News producer Susan Zirinsky, "9/11" co-executive producer.
Viewers will hear only a few of the horrifying thuds, she says. "That sound, every 20 or 30 seconds, would be tough on the audience," she says.
But viewers will hear the raw, profane talk of rescuers.
"The language is rough, but so is the crisis. To totally sanitize what came out of their mouths ... would take away from the living historical document I believe this is. To sanitize it would be a mistake," Zirinsky says.
Viewers also won't see people running from the World Trade Center on fire. Nearly 20,000 gallons of jet fuel, which had dropped down the elevator shafts, exploded into a huge fireball in the lobby, Jules says.
"When we arrived, the scene was quite surprising. All the windows in the lobby had been blown out and people were on fire," Jules says.
He had to make an instant decision: Film or not film the fire victims? He turned his camera away.
"It was the first time I had ever seen anything like this. It was quite horrible, and I decided this was something people would not like to see," he says.
He focused on the rescuers.
That had been the brothers' intention when planning the documentary two years ago. Last July, they began filming a probationary firefighter who was joining Engine 7, Ladder 1 in Lower Manhattan.
"The story line was how a young kid becomes a man," Gedeon says. "It is a story about a firehouse, and the guys in the firehouse going through daily life ... and after what happened on Sept. 11, surviving it."
Jules also filmed firefighters finding fire chaplain Mychal Judge who died while giving last rites at the scene to a firefighter who was killed by a falling victim. And it was Jules who chronicled the confusion when rubble fell near Tower One. No one realized that Tower Two had crumbled like a giant sandcastle.
"We thought it was a partial collapse of our tower ... one floor on another," Jules says. When he ran outside, he figured that Tower Two was still standing, hidden by Tower One.
Jules filmed while literally running for his life with fire battalion Chief Joseph Pfieffer. When they crawled behind a parked car, the chief got on top of Jules, who was wearing only a T-shirt. "He wanted to make sure I was safe," Jules says.
Gedeon, knowing his brother was at the scene, tried to make his way from the firehouse to the twin towers. He was filming people running from the building when United Flight 175 struck Tower Two.
"I ended up taking, almost by accident, the second plane hitting the World Trade Center," he says.
It was 4 1/2 hours before the brothers saw each other again at the firehouse that was the original subject of their documentary. "Jules came back, and I just couldn't believe that he was alive," Gedeon says.he brothers continued to document firefighters' work, with the same sensitivity, at what is now remembered as Ground Zero.
Their film airs nationally tonight — one day short of the attack's six-month anniversary. Some victims' families have said it's too soon to air the footage. CBS executives disagree.
"This is the right time. We can't forget what drove this country to war. It's really important not to forget what happened," says Zirinsky, who is also executive producer of "48 Hours." "We felt it was history that needs to be told."
New York firefighter James Hanlon, an executive producer and narrator of the film, says families of firefighters who perished on Sept. 11 want CBS to air the film.
"They told me, 'Make sure this is seen. Make sure you put it (on)'," says Hanlon, who added that the film shows firefighters as heroes and consummate professionals.
