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Disinformation presents

9/11 Press For Truth (2006)

"To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11: Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you."- Richard Clarke

Stars: Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, Sally Regenhard, Paul Thompson, Gail Sheehey
Director: Ray Nowosielski

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (nothing objectionable)
Run Time: 01h:24m:28s
Release Date: 2006-09-26
Genre: documentary

Style
Grade
Substance
Grade
Image Transfer
Grade
Audio Transfer
Grade
Extras
Grade
B B+A-B+ B

 

DVD Review

9/11: Press for Truth, brought to us by the fine people at Disinformation, first takes us into the lives of five women who lost family members on September 11, 2001, and the triumphs and disappointments they share with other family members who, in the years following the attacks, found themselves in the position of very publicly calling on the administration to investigate the events and take steps to prevent further attacks. The documentary is a bit scattershot in moving from topic to topic, but it's a much needed reminder that the 9/11 Commission was never inevitable, and that many, many questions still remain.

The "Jersey Girls," as the five widows came to be known, were able to get media attention by playing up their status as widows. They were perfect fodder for the type of human interest pieces that the media was so hungry for in the months after the attacks. This was their in: by getting the press to cover them as victims, they were able to begin pressing the type of questions they had been developing: what exactly brought the buildings in New York down? Was there any warning? Who was involved? Their most important question, though, and the main subject of the film is: Why had there been no investigation? Remember, it was over a year after the attacks before President Bush, under intense media pressure, would relent and allow for the empowering of an independent investigation. The Jersey Girls and the families of other victims were tireless in keeping the issue in the forefront. The 9/11 Commission was born, but it was hobbled from the beginning. The initial budget was $3-million dollars (compared to, as the narrator reminds us, over $100-million for the Monica Lewinsky investigation), less time was given than was requested, confidential documents were kept from review, and the commission was to be headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whose close ties with the Bush administration, and business ties with Saudi oil and the bin Laden family in general, left him a controversial choice who was eventually replaced.

The Commission was stonewalled from the beginning. Documents were withheld, and top administration officials initially refused to testify. It wasn't until the testimony of former White House Terrorism 'Tsar' Richard Clarke testified that, the Jersey Girls note, anyone had taken any responsibility whatsoever for the failures of intelligence leading to the attacks. The bipartisan accolades accorded the final 9/11 Commission Report belie the many, many outstanding questions it left with the victim's families.

About mid-way through, the doc switches gears a bit and discusses the work of Paul Thompson, who put together The Complete 9/11 Timeline, an exhaustive and thoroughly researched and sourced chronology of the events leading up to the attacks. Thompson scoured major media sources and publicly available documents to put facts together in ways that the newspapers and cable news channels haven't done. Most interesting, and chilling, is his cataloging of threats from the months before the attacks. According to Thompson (backed here by newspaper clippings and news footage pre-9/11), at least 14 nations and a variety of other sources provided the US with surprisingly specific warnings: almost all mentioned al-Qaeda, and most included variations on a planes as weapons/hijacking/Word Trade Center theme, and it appears in hindsight that government officials were aware of these threats and taking specific precautions. From there we travel to the border regions of Afghanistan, and the offices of Pakistani intelligence, and are also left to wonder why so fewmajor al-Qaeda figures have been captured in these five years. If it sounds like there's a whiff of conspiracy to the proceedings, well, there is, but it's all laid out rather credibly, and it's difficult to know exactly what conclusions we are meant to draw—I say this to the credit of the filmmakers. At the very least, Press for Truth paints a portrait of stunning and tragic incompetence, and the will to conceal. There's too much that just still does not make sense.

Rating for Style: B
Rating for Substance: B+

 

Image Transfer

 One
Aspect Ratio1.78:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratioyes
Anamorphicyes


Image Transfer Review: It's all talking heads and news clips, but the new footage at least looks quite sharp. The old stuff is of varying quality, as you'd expect, and the CNN and network news bits are often moved up or down on the screen to shove various logos and scrolls out of the picture. That's a minor complaint, though.

Image Transfer Grade: A-
 

Audio Transfer

 LanguageRemote Access
DS 2.0yes


Audio Transfer Review: The audio track is well-balanced and effective. Nothing fancy, but appropriate for this doc.

Audio Transfer Grade: B+ 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 12 cues and remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extra Extras:
  1. Congressional Testimonies: One Year Later
Extras Review: There's a trailer for the main doc, along with about a half-hour total of extended congressional testimony from Loris Van Auker, one of the "Jersey Girls," and Paul Thompson.

Extras Grade: B
 

Final Comments

Though it jumps around a bit, Press for Truth does a great job of first documenting the lengths to which the families of 9/11 victims were forced to go in order to secure any sort of investigation into the events of that day, and then begins to connect dots in ways that suggest motivations for those who weren't interested in digging too deeply. In fact, it feels like two documentaries, and as a production I wish it had a little more focus, or maybe just a little more time. Still, it offers a lot to chew on. There's plenty of grist for conspiracy theorists here, but the doc thankfully doesn't draw many conclusions. It's a generally credible reminder to keep asking questions.

Ross Johnson 2006-09-25