What was it like to be carried alive from the ruins of the Twin Towers on 9/11? Oliver Stone was in London last week to discuss his movie World Trade Center and shed light on a film critics have called one of the most pro-American pictures of all time – no mean feat for a director previously accused of being unpatriotic.

The director was accompanied by New York Port Authority Police Department officer Will Jimeno, one of only 20 people to be pulled alive from Ground Zero on September 11.

Stone’s film brilliantly evokes the confusion and fear of the tower’s attack and collapse, before documenting the terrible predicament of Jimeno and his sergeant John McLoughlin as they struggle to keep each other alive under the wreckage.

Stone lived through the Kennedy assassination, and says he quickly realised that in many horrible ways the events unfolding on his screen on 9/11 resembled a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. How then did he distance himself from simply recreating the disaster as a Hollywood event?

Background

• World Trade Center

• World Trade Center - Sunday Times review

• Ground Zero, the film set

• Relatives back Stone's 9/11 plot

• Coming soon: 9/11, The Movie

Background

• United 93

Oliver Stone on World Trade Center

What was it like to be carried alive from the ruins on September 11?

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

“The events could be filmed as a Towering Inferno and it would make a helluva exciting popcorn movie,” says Stone. “But the beauty and originality of this to me was that it was completely apolitical, it was a microcosmic story, the whole human race getting sucked down, and out of this belly of the whale are spit back these two men.”

In this terrible, internationally momentous event, Stone finds humanity. The trapped officers remember scenes from their past in vivid detail.

“These are the familiar, almost banal moments in a domestic relationship that we overlook,” explains Stone, “and when you don’t have your spouse coming home it’s those moments that make you realise how much we take for granted.”

Stone says many of his previous pictures have been interested in what he calls “death states”. At its heart, World Trade Center explores what keeps men alive when all seems lost.

“This movie gave me a chance to talk to two people who’ve been as close to death as it’s possible to be. What is the thing that connects them to the Earth? I may be wrong but I think they survived because of metaphysical reasons. The mind kept them alive.”

The film has received a mostly good critical reception at home, banking $63m in the US alone. Did this gratify the director after the often-hostile reception many of his previous movies had received? “Well they couldn’t find Alexander’s wig or sexuality,” jokes Stone, “it was a minefield that could have blown-up in our face. We had political considerations, local considerations in New York, the producers spent hours and hours in dozens of meetings with all kinds of groups. We consulted Will and John and the rescuers, receiving sometimes very complicated technical advice.”

Initially neither NYPA officer was keen to have Hollywood tell their story. Why did Jimeno have misgivings?

“To be honest with you, we were hesitant,” admits the now retired officer. “They approached me and John about making a movie and we said: “We don’t want to do that.” But after meeting the producers we felt trust beginning to happen.”

“I was flipping a burger, Memorial Day weekend May 2005, when they told us Oliver Stone was going to be directing, and we were floored,” recalls Jimeno. “We knew at that moment that this had the potential to be a great film because whether you love of hate this man – and I love him – he stands up for what he believes in. He’s not going to let political correctness dictate what he’s going to do. We knew that they’d picked the right director, and he promised that he would do the film in a spirit of camaraderie.”

Jimeno makes much of Stone’s military experience – the director saw combat in Vietnam – and says that the day he saw the completed version for the first time “I gave Oliver a big hug and a kiss and told him he kept his word to me.”

The policeman – who was trapped for more than 10 hours in the wreckage – has strong feelings for those unable to get the film's core message of “faith, hope and love.” Quoting Edmund Burke’s “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” Jimeno stresses that “there were good men and woman on 9/11, and Oliver is showing them. All the experiences in this movie come from real people.”

Hearing Jimeno talk about World Trade Center is a humbling experience.

He was in hospital for three months post 9/11, still walks with a limp on legs badly disfigured and had concrete in his lungs when he was pulled from the wreckage. Yet he remains determined not to let his experience lead him to pass on “terror”, or retribution, to another generation.

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