make a wish: April 2013

-The film presents one family's denial that their family member may have jumped, and also the acceptance of a husband that his wife may have jumped. Why do you think there is such a difference in these two points of view?

I think there's such a difference because to the husband of the wife that might have jumped it was closure to him and he could accept that she had the option to chose her fate, and instead of being possibly trapped in a room full of flames, she took matters into her own hands because she knew death was inevitable and she jumped. But to the family, the possibility of their father and husband jumping went against everything they believed in. Jumping, to them, was giving up and meant he had no hope in getting out so he took his own life.

-Is it important that we know the identity of the jumper?

I think it is and it isn't importnat because if we figure out who the jumper is we can uncover who he was and what his life was like before 9/11 and possibly give closure to a family of a loved one who died in 9/11 and tell them how they died. On the other hand, it isn't important because we will never know what went on in their mind before they jumped and we will also never know exactly why they chose to jump so in a way it's a mystery why and it's a mystery who it was.

-Is showing the photo exploitation?

No, because 9/11 was a horrible occurrence that happened in our country and there are people who want to mask the reality of what happened to the people inside the building, but pictures like "The Falling Man" show the reality people had to face and it captures how horrific that day was.

-“I hope we’re not trying to figure out who he is, but rather who we are through watching that.” What does Gwendolyn Briley (the sister of the man identified in the photo) mean by this?

I think she wants people to have an understanding and feel something by the picture instead of know who "The Falling Man" was and forget about it.

-How do you feel about the analogy being made that it is the tomb of the unknown soldier for that day?

I get it because in a way he is a mystery because we don't know (for sure) who he is, and we will never know why he chose to jump or what went on before he jumped. No matter how much we figure out about "The Falling Man" he will always be a slight mystery.

-“We can’t hope to understand these incredible times, unless we bear witness to these images.” What does this mean to you?

We can't truly process what happened unless we accept the fact that people faced horrendous choices in occurrences like this, and by seeing pictures of what truly happened to people we are able to better understand and almost accept what happened.