The 11th of September: Moyers in Conversation

Within 36 hours of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, award-winning journalist Bill Moyers began a series of public television aired interviews with commentators from a variety of disciplines--political and artistic--including authors Andrew Delbanco, Diana Eck, and Robert Jay Lifton; Tamim Ansary, the Afghan-American author of the plea-for-tolerance "e-mail heard round the world"; choreographer Bill T. Jones and stage and film director Julie Taymor. Although the initial commentary seems somewhat anachronistic (we already know the outcome of the interviewees' speculations on the U.S. response and the possibilities of imminent terrorist attacks), The 11th of September ultimately rises above outdated specifics to explore larger issues that are just as relevant today as they were in September of last year: the human condition, with its paradoxical capacity for cruelty and hatred and compassion and goodness; America's growing religious pluralism (an estimated 6 million Muslims live in America today); and America's need to accept the fact that contemporary human beings in an advanced technological society are vulnerable, among other discussion topics. Granted, this is 121 minutes of almost straight talking heads (with the exception of a few photo montages and a poetry reading), but it's vigorously intelligent talk on matters that "we, the people" are particularly concerned with today in our post 9/11 environment. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)