Esquire Story: The Falling Man (9/11 Essay)

This is an amazing essay about one particular image from 9/11 and the overall impact of 9/11 on our culture and national psyche.

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2003/030903_mfe_falling_1.html



Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did—who jumped—appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else—something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man's posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.

was thinking. There are so many emotions from 9/11, it's difficult to put them in perspective. Making something meaningful out of such an act, desperate or not, will take some time for all of us. I do not judge anyone's actions and reactions that day. But I've been getting pretty pissed about some who have used that day for personal advancement and advancement of questionable agendas that might not otherwise received much attention. Those who are guilty of this, if there is any justice, will get what they deserve and that day can't arrive soon enough.

But the only certainty we have is the certainty we had at the start: At fifteen seconds after 9:41 a.m., on September 11, 2001, a photographer named Richard Drew took a picture of a man falling through the sky—falling through time as well as through space. The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame—the Falling Man—became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew's photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soldiers everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.

That we have known who the Falling Man is all along.

It's amazingly well-written and very compelling. I find myself thinking back to it anytime the discussion turns to that horrible day. I feel fortunate to have some folks I can share it with.

:cry:

:cry:

New York City. Forever.

for sure. I believe that the wife of one of the WOTW workers lost that day, believes this photo is of her husband, because the man in the photo is wearing the same color shirt her husband was wearing when he left the house that morning. (I can't see the pic at work, they have the Esquire site blocked, but if I remember correctly, the shirt visible under the white chef's apparel is blue.)

The heat and smoke got unbearable very, very quickly at WOTW.

to remind us how far afield our Misleadership has taken us since that day.

I think what bothers me the most is the selective journalism, though not on the part of the journalists themselves.

Like those people that did jump are somehow scorned because they decided to go out on their own terms in a situation where they really had no terms, if that makes any sense. Like in the article it said a Mass Suicide in the middle of a Mass Murder.

Powers-that-be say that "no one jumped", yet there's footage of people hanging on to drapes & tablecloths hoping that it will parachute them down safely. Maybe those that jumped without anything came to terms with whatever higher power they might have believed in, or came to terms with themselves before making that decision.

What really bothers me is the daughter that dismissed the picture as saying "that piece of shit isn't my father", though I don't think the funeral was the right place for the reporter to show up with something like that.

History is something that shouldn't be presented with only part of the facts. Otherwise it's likely to be repeated.

9/11 shakes us so deeply because it directly contradicts the American myth that each of us is a hero deep inside. 9/11 is the story of ordinary employees, secretaries and day traders and hospitality workers and would-be vacationers being thrust into extraordinary circumstances and dying en masse. There was no Rambo to save the day, no Dorie Miller to grab the guns and strike back at the enemy, not even a Lincoln or Winston Churchill to inspire us in our darkest hour. In short, there is no heroic narrative to go with 9/11. We tried to manufacture one, with the stories of firefighters and first responders, but those stories are also the stories of the victims. We tried to deal with 9/11 by covering it with a patriotic gauze, even to kitsch-ify it with talk of angles and insipid country songs, but those things have no real power in the face of horrifying reality: anyone, anywhere can die at any time without the ability to fight back or stage a last stand, even an American.

I'm reminded of a poem about 9/11. I can't remember the author, but in three lines, the poet hit the nail on the head:

His suit hanging in the closet
Her empty shoes next to the bed;
Never coming home.