Case Study Cmns 487

1
Case Study (Cmns 487)

• Jules and Gedeon Naudet's CBS documentary "9/11"
• Intended on filiming a probationary firefighter,
  Tony Benetatos.
• On a routine call on 9/11, the fire department
  and Jules Naudet captured the only known video of
  the first plane striking Tower 1.
• The Naudets captured the only known footage from
  inside Tower 1 of the World Trade Center that day.

2
Preview Clip

• 9/11 Documentary Part 5b (517)
• http//youtube.com/watch?vvLy-njXLkgI

3
df
4
Collective Memories in images

• Camera lens capture the drama, disbelief, panic
  and fear in the eyes of the firefighters.
• It was filmed live and in real time.
• Depicted chaos images of New Yorkers on the
  street witnessing this traumatic event.
• Images of a nuclear winter debris, smoke,
  ashes, dust
• Viewer is able to watch as to see how these brave
  emergency and rescue crews were able to summoned
  up the courage to perform that day.

5
Critically Analysis

• Reference to Barbie Zelizers article - Finding
  aids to the past bearing personal witness to
  traumatic public events
• Commemoration of 9/11 offers one way of working
  through the difficulties that arise from
  traumatic experience, by bringing individuals
  together on their way to collective recovery
• We personally as a nation can also collectively
  connect through the shared emotions and feelings
  of the firefighters grief, pain and anger.

6
Critically Analysis

• Enables people to take responsibility for what
  they see, bearing witness moves individuals from
  the personal act of seeing to the adoption of a
  public stance by which they become part of a
  collective working through trauma together.
• Almost without our realizing it, we bond with the
  men in the movie and, most of all, with Benetados
  and the two filmmakers who are following him.
• Coping mechanism for trauma allowed for numerous
  ritualized activities that compounded and
  elaborated on its presence. Those activities in
  turn helped individuals over time reconnect with
  the collective.

7
Critically Analysis

• The 9/11 documentary helps to preserve a
  collective memory and foster a continuing
  dialogue about the traumatic event of the past.
• Bearing witness thus becomes a mark of the
  collectives willingness to move toward
  recovery.