When fiction preceded fact

In recent years, Hollywood has come chillingly close to anticipating last month's terrorist strikes in the U.S. As the industry worried about the possible imitative effects of such graphic depiction, ANAND PARTHASARATHY looks at some recent films in the genre -- and a few upcoming products whose releases have been deferred because they were too close to real terrors.

WITHIN MINUTES of the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington on September 11, executives in the major Hollywood studios were feverishly examining their upcoming products. The reality of `Black Tuesday', indelibly imprinted on the minds of millions worldwide, thanks to live television coverage, was so chillingly similar to dozens of movie scenarios, that thousands of numbed viewers said to themselves: "This was just like `Armageddon'''— where that other New York landmark, the Chrysler Building is destroyed by a meteorite... or "It was another `Independence Day'''— where the White House is knocked down by an alien attack.

Any immediate depiction of mass mayhem in a similar vein would seem like a cruel joke, the studios agreed. Warner Bros., was the first to react: they announced indefinite postponement of the October 5 release of their all-action Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle,``Collateral Damage". Arnie plays a fire fighter, Gordon Brewer, who loses his family when a skyscraper is destroyed in a massive terrorist attack. Frustrated with official inaction, he decides to wreak personal retribution on the terrorist leader. The film directed by Andrew Davis (known for "The Fugitive") had a tagline that would sound trite and insensitive now: ``What would you do if you lost everything?"

Almost simultaneously last week, Walt Disney pushed back to next year, the September release of its ensemble comedy starring Tim Allen and Rene Russo, ``Big Trouble", which follows the lives of several Miami citizens, from school kids and cops to gun runners and street ruffians. Innocuous? Unfortunately the climax was a caper about a suitcase containing a nuclear bomb that was being smuggled on board a plane — something that many Americans would find disturbing right now.

Opening India-wide today (October 12), is "Swordfish", a film that had its U.S. release in June — which even at that time generated some controversy, because of its graphic depiction of anti-terrorism strikes. Packed with massive explosions triggered by terrorist acts, and some manipulative depictions of a hostage situation, the film features John Travolta as a self-appointed counter-terrorist who coerces a computer hacker into stealing "tainted'' money that belonged to the baddies — then strikes back at terrorism with a fearsome brutality that is implicitly justified as being for the greater good. It is a point of view that is remarkably prescient — given the current preparations to launch wide-ranging strikes against terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The September 11 flattening of the World Trade Center (WTC) means that many films which include shots of this most striking landmark on the New York skyline, will have to go. Shooting has just been completed for the sequel to ``Men in Black'', the 1997 Tommy Lee Jones -Will Smith sci-fi comedy, for mid-2002 release. Now the climax will have to be re-shot, because the original shots were set against the background of the WTC. Indeed, the trailer for Sony/Columbia's upcoming film version of "Spiderman'' already playing in some theatres in the U.S., and downloadable from the Internet, was hastily withdrawn: It showed bank robbers caught in a web slung between the twin towers of the WTC.

TV channels too, were forced to examine their line-up of scheduled films. ABC pulled the plug on its advertised screening of ``The Peacemaker", a 1997 thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a nuclear scientist and George Clooney as a U.S. army colonel, who join forces when terrorists steal a nuclear device and try to plant it in New York. The film seen recently by Indian viewers on the satellite film channels, is replete with scenes of a panic- stricken New York as authorities try and track down the terrorists.

All of a sudden, Hollywood has been forced into a spell of introspection: did heightening the suspense by depicting some truly bizarre situations go too far? TV viewers in India who saw the mind-numbing live footage of the giant airliner ploughing right through the WTC tower, may be pardoned if they thought they had caught the special effects highlight of an overblown cinematic product created by a Jerry Bruckheimer or a James Cameron. And subsequent shots of stretches of Manhattan reduced to smouldering rubble, looked uncannily similar to feature film footage that showed the same area after ``Godzilla'' went rampaging.

In the days that followed New York's apocalyptic hours, there have been TV news scenes of nameless Arabs being arrested; of Muslim establishments subjected to arson attacks, Sikhs mistaken for Muslims and in one instance, murdered. It was a scenario that had been foreseen in the controversial 1998 thriller, ``The Siege", that was released in India and has just been seen on the satellite TV channels. In retaliation to the kidnapping of a suspected terrorist in the Middle East, his compatriots launch a terrorist attack on New York — blowing up a passenger bus, a theatre, even the FBI headquarters.

The cop in charge of the anti-terrorist squad (Denzel Washington) and an undercover CIA agent (Annette Bening) are in uneasy partnership as they try to flush out the terrorist cells in the city. But a President, egged on by a xenophobic public, calls in the Army which takes over New York.

The general in command (Bruce Willis) is no respecter of personal liberties and soon rounds up all the local Muslims and throws them into camps in his attempt to reach the ringleaders. The film makes some conciliatory noises about there being good Muslims as well as bad — but the dominant tone of the film is inflammatory.

There was a minor storm of protest at the time from Arab-American groups, at the film's pandering to the ill-informed stereotype of Arabs as terrorists. Leading critics condemned the film's insidious subtext that exploited America's suspicion of many Arab nations. In retrospect, such Hollywood products may have to share some of the blame if another bout of anti-Muslim xenophobia breaks out in the U.S., and U.K., in the weeks to come.

It is arguable that some of the more bizarre methods of destruction dreamed up by the U.S. film industry might even end up influencing or inspiring the very terrorists America loves to hate. We in India, have not quite forgotten how similar the belt bomb used by Rajiv Gandhi's killer was, to the device described in such clinical detail in a best-selling Frederick Forsyth thriller, only months before the assassination. And in how many films have we seen planes ploughing into high-rise buildings? Schwarzenegger's ``True Lies'' is perhaps only one example in recent years where aircrafts, whether intentionally or not, end up as spectacular weapons of urban destruction.

Somehow, after the ``live-action'' horrors of the recent past, gratuitous mayhem will in future appear to be unacceptably crude. ``Is the depiction of violence, America's most heavily exported cultural product?" asks The New York Times movie critic Elvis Mitchell, bemoaning the fact that ``the action movie has supplanted the musical...replacing dance numbers with shooting and hand-to-hand battles". He reminds us of ``a scary fact: the technology of violence improves every year -- and the power of such scenes keeps audiences roaring with excitement."

But the facts of today's world have a surfeit of horrors to offer. There is no ``entertainment'' anymore in fiction, that merely recycles, retells and possibly inspires the terrors of the real world.

Hollywood has called a temporary halt to products that feature graphic urban violence. But six months from now, will it be `business as usual' or will last month's terrible facts rein in Cinema's exploitative fictional forays? Hopefully film-makers will have the sensitivity to read the current message — and move on from there.

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