World Trade Center support criticised by 9/11 families
Story by Jack Foley
OLIVER Stone’s World Trade Center has been criticised by families of 9/11 victims for failing to give their campaigns enough financial support.
The director has pledged to give 10% of the opening weekend takings for the controversial film to 9/11 charities – but several family members of those who lost their lives claim the figure is very disappointing.
Commenting on the BBC website, Monica Iken, who lost her husband Michael in the attacks, wants to ask the filmmakers to give more money to the memorial if the movie is well-received by audiences.
She runs the September’s Mission charity, which supports the development of a memorial park on the former site of the World Trade Center, and she has also called for public screenings to include information on how to donate.
Another relative claimed that Stone and film company Paramount Pictures had refused to screen public service announcements before the film aimed at encouraging viewers to contact politicians to find out what was being done to prepare for future disasters – both man-made and natural.
According to Stone, five per cent of box office receipts from August 9 to 13 will go towards the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which is building a $500m (£270m) memorial on the site.
The remaining five per cent will be shared equally by three charities: Tuesday’s Children, which helps children who lost a parent; the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, due to open this summer; and the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund.
The film, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, tells the true story of the two police officers who are believed to have been the last survivors pulled from the rubble of the Twin Towers.
It has already received its world premiere and is due to open in US cinemas on August 9.
Reviews have, thus far, largely been positive, with most critics finding something positive to take away from it despite some misgivings.
The Hollywood Reporter, for instance, wrote that “Oliver Stone moves dramatically away from his recent dazzling but often self-conscious if not self-congratulatory filmmaking to direct “World Trade Center” in a somber, focused and straightforward manner that serves the material extraordinarily well”.
While Variety praised Stone for “presenting this challenging, fact-based story with admirable restraint”.
Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile, called it a “scrupulous and honourable film” even though it lamented “a fundamental lack of dramatic urgency”.