Just read Tom Junod's piece, The Falling Man, in the August 03 Esquire. This essay about the people who jumped to their deaths from the World Trade Center buildings references a series of photos taken on site by Richard Drew. In telling the story of the efforts to identify the man in the photo, and to acknowledge the possibly hundreds of people who jumped--or were forced out, as the Port Authority says--Junod writes a graceful and powerful essay about human life in the face of death, and how survivors mourn and remember.
The piece isn't (yet) available online, but I urge you to pick it up--it is excellent.
ADVERTISEMENT
just screened for the first time in Australia was the doco - 9/11 Falling man - just few weeks before the memorial, just to get us thinking and talking again about the 9/11.
much has happened in the world since that event however that single image does say more than a google of keystrokes and million tonnes of landfill newsprint.
It is the most interesting and disturbing image ever, in my view. Tom Junods thoughts on the unknown versus the known skirt the real issue of what death defines.
nearly five years on and the west is going thru the largest state and self sanctioned censorship in history - in this age of info every where but no where. Images like the falling man are more important than ever.
what do we really see when we look and think, bravery is being scared but having the courage to face it and do something about it.
I wonder if we will see the falling man in ten days?