Parents Group Spotlights Release of Commemorative World Trade Center DVD
by Jenni Parker
December 14, 2006
(AgapePress) - - With the release of the 2006 Oliver Stone/Paramount Pictures movie World Trade Center on video this week, attention has once again been focused on some of the real-life stories of heroism that emerged in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil. Although World Trade Center received an MPAA rating of PG-13 for "intense and emotional content, some disturbing images and language," the pro-family media advocacy group Parents Television Council (PTC) is hailing the film for its "touching portrayal" of a moment in American history that is not to be forgotten. According to a Council statement, the film "captures for generations to come the dramatic story of honor, courage, and sacrifice that cast shining rays of light on a day of sudden darkness."
The new "commemorative edition" World Trade Center DVD, now available, features the film and bonus footage, including in-depth interviews with Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, two actual survivors of the World Trade Center collapse who are depicted in the film -- and interviews with some of their rescuers as well.
Scott Strauss, the Emergency Services Unit Responder who was the first person "down in the hole" to rescue Jimeno, is now retired from Emergency Services and works in the private sector. Strauss, who was a consultant on the movie, says of the actual rescue effort that day, that although "this is the kind of disaster we are trained for," he could not believe the scene he encountered; "it was a nightmare."
The former first responder says he and the other ESU workers kept looking in the rubble of the Twin Towers for people they did not find. "I couldn't believe there were no survivors," he recalls. "So when we found Will and John alive, they were like the Holy Grail," he says. "We had to get them out."
Will Jimeno, a former New York Port Authority Police Department officer and a Christian, was the inspiration behind the critically acclaimed World Trade Center movie. He and his commanding officer, Sergeant John McLoughlin, were trapped for 12 hours in a small space in the debris of the collapsed towers. Their life-threatening ordeal, along with the tireless struggle and the selflessness involved in the effort to save them, are the reality at the heart of what many are cheering as a moving and uplifting film.
Jimeno says 9/11 began for him as "a normal day like any other day." At work when news of the terror attacks came in, he was among those police officers and emergency workers called to go to the World Trade Center and recalls vividly what he saw upon arriving there that morning.
"It was like stepping into a war zone," the former policeman says. "We were a block back, and there was debris falling, and broken glass, and ... we looked up and, it was just a very horrific and sad sight, fellow human beings jumping to their death." As a member of the force, he remembers, "you put on that shield, that uniform, and you want to help people. You're there to protect and serve, and you felt so helpless."
In the midst of all that tragedy and chaos, "I remember Sergeant McLoughlin coming running from the buildings ... saying 'I need volunteers. We're going to go in and help these people out,'" Jimeno adds. At that point, he says, he and a handful of his fellow officers volunteered to go into the burning, critically damaged, and unstable building, even as terrified and injured civilians were trying to get out.
Besides the heroism displayed by the police, fire department, and other emergency workers who responded to the World Trace Center disaster scene, Jimeno points out that he also saw many civilians showing incredible courage and altruistic spirit in helping one another that day. The dramatic events that unfold onscreen in World Trade Center, he suggests, only scratch the surface of the true heroism, unselfishness, and human spirit exhibited on that fateful day.
World Trace Center co-producers Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg say they have received honors for their commitment to movie and television projects that are empowering, inspirational, and thought-provoking.
As partners in Double Feature Films, the two have produced such Oscar-nominated films as Erin Brockovich and The Big Chill; however, this latest project appealed to them both, Sher notes, "because it is about heroism in the sense that it reveals the best in humanity as people came together to help each other."
Of this important story, Shamberg says, "We had to get it right." However, the film producer emphasizes, the account of Jimeno, McLoughlin, and their rescuers at the World Trade Center is only one story from September 11 -- only one of many, many stories.
Still, World Trade Center, the movie, "shows the larger story of how on a terrible, tragic day, people risked everything to help each other," Shamberg says. "We must remember that."
