I got a review copy of World Trade Center today, and I’ve only had time to check out a few of the extras, but — given my interest in Bible movies and the like — I thought it was worth noting that the featurette ‘Closing the Wounds’ pays special attention to the brief scene in which Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) sees Jesus.
The featurette begins with this statement from Oliver Stone, which I can’t quite figure out because I’m not sure what “it” refers to:
It’s been bulleted as an interesting, interesting document, and there’s been many re-interpretations of it, and variations on it, and it’s really important. So, certainly they deal with end states, extreme states. Some people have, in fact, died and come back, and have talked about, in similar terms as the Buddhists, about the colors, things that are seen at the end.
Then there is some discussion about the hours that John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) spent in the dark all by myself. After that, the featurette turns to Jimeno, and Stone says:
And with Michael, his visions, death visions, are based on the truth of Will’s story about seeing Jesus, which becomes a big issue for him and kept him going, ’cause he was drifting off, and he was about to die, and the vision of Jesus really gave him re-inspiration.
And then there is some talk about the lighting and the costume design for the Jesus footage. After that, Stone says:
The idea works because that’s the way Will saw it, you see. And as long as you’re faithful to the truth, that’s what matters to me. I mean, I’m sure there’s gonna be cynics, who’ll say, you know, “Blah, blah, blah,” who make fun of faith, and these things. The metaphysical is what kept them alive. I think we don’t give it enough– its– we don’t give it its due in American films.
The film comes out on DVD on Tuesday, December 12.
DEC 8 UPDATE: Just finished listening to the commentary track where Jimeno himself discusses this scene. In his own words:
This is the part that I get questioned about. I don’t know. I was born Catholic, you know, I believe in God and Jesus, and yes, I did see Jesus. I want to let everybody know, because at that point, like I said, I was just drained. I was drained, and this vision that I had, actually happened. I mean, you know, it took a lot of courage for Oliver to put this in, because I guess people can criticize him for being religious or whatever. But you know what? I’m just a guy. I’m Catholic, that’s what I believe in. I don’t care if you believe– what you believe in, I feel that at the moment of you’re about to die, you’ve got to believe in your faith or believe in something, and the water bottle actually happened, because we were caked in concrete, and I said to God, I said, “When I may get to Heaven” — I think where we all were going — “I’m thirsty, will you give me something to drink.” And I see this vision of Jesus, and you’re going to see later, when I woke up, I mean, I was rejuvenated. It gave me the strength to fight. And I think that the only thing I could give you as a human being is that when you’re in a position of death and you have a choice of giving up, don’t. Because you owe it to yourself and your family and all those around you to keep fighting. If you’re gonna die, at least go out fighting. And I came very close to just giving up. I really did.
I haven’t listened to the Oliver Stone commentary in its entirety yet, but I checked it at this point, and he doesn’t comment on the spiritual content of this in any particularly meaningful way; he basically just summarizes what Jimeno already said.
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