THE AFTERMATH
When the Bodies Are Real
By EDWARD ZWICK and MARSHALL HERSKOVITZ
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Within days of the unspeakable horrors in New York and Washington, film studios moved quickly to distance themselves from images that suddenly seemed offensive. Releases have been delayed or scrapped, and producers are busily editing out any mention of terrorism. This has been done out of respect for the dead and the grieving. And also, it seems, out of some inchoate sense of shame; as if these staples of American culture were suddenly inappropriate. Many ask whether "normal life" will ever be the same.

Yet in Hollywood, the word "normal" has a constantly changing definition. And any description of the current landscape must include the kind of big-budget mayhem that has become the industry standard.

But after the events of Sept. 11, can violent spectacles like "Armageddon" or "Independence Day" (to name but two) still expect the kind of lavish embrace they have counted on? Or has a single event forever changed popular culture?

Historically, movies have coexisted well with calamity. Depression- era films like "My Man Godfrey" and "Footlight Parade" offered a gleaming escape from economic realities. And films made between 1939 and 1945, in the midst of a world at war — "Gone With the Wind," "The Philadelphia Story" — are among our most beloved. The Vietnam era spawned classics like "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde," and maybe the golden age of modern American film. World War II itself may be the most popular subject ever — culminating in this year's blockbuster "Pearl Harbor." Even the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have begotten, in some perverse way, the genre of Japanese monster movies, where miniature cities are laid waste.

So why do we suddenly question such a Hollywood convention? Or has this new sense of shame really been here for longer than we think and it's taken this heinous act to bring it out in the open? Perhaps what this event has revealed, with its real bodies blown to bits and real explosions bringing down buildings, is the true darkness behind so much of the product coming out of Hollywood today.

Only now do we ask ourselves how we can thrill to an asteroid hitting earth, or watch the White House blown up by aliens, and sit munching our popcorn. Is it because we believed it could never happen? Or were we unwilling to see what these films expressed? Like a child with a toy gun, these images exist in a realm of symbolism. The explosions stand in for what? Perhaps it is nothing less than our rage at the powerlessness of modern life.

Terrorists, the pundits say, harbor a murderously distorted version of the same impulse. Is it possible we are ashamed to discover that we all are terrorists in our hearts?

We filmmakers now have tools at our command that allow us to depict anything. No catastrophe is too large; we can add blood spray, subtract limbs. We can reach in and touch that dark place in a viewer's heart, underscore it with rock 'n' roll, and fill theaters with teenagers howling as bodies are blown apart.

Of course there's room for violence — imagine a sanitized Shakespeare. The question is, do we appeal to what is nihilistic in the audience, or do we accept our responsibility as storytellers and act as mediators to the vast forces of the human soul?

The best stories aspire to make sense of what is otherwise overwhelming and chaotic. A great film may even be made about the most recent events. The horrors behind "The Killing Fields" or "Schindler's List" were no less. It is not the subject but rather the intentions that determine the moral possibilities of a film.

We have all been rocked by this tragedy. And as often happens, people vow to remember the sweetness of life and to change. Of course, such vows are often eroded amid life's daily concerns. Right now, Hollywood is full of an earnest sense of responsibility in this time of need.

And so it will remain — until we find out whether such sentiments make for good box office. __NYTimes.com (September 23, 2001)