ABSTRACT
In an unspecified year at the close of the twentieth century, enormous clouds of fire and smoke appear in the sky above America. As the clouds drift toward Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and New York City, respectively, they reveal gigantic saucer-shaped spacecraft. Despite its stereotypical characterization, questionable plot turns, and undisguised jingoism, Roland Emmerich’s heavily marketed Independence Day became the highest-grossing film of the year 1996. Five years later, on September 11, 2001, the familiar images were on many people’s minds as they observed the unprecedented damage caused by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Numerous eyewitness statements indicate that even among those who were immediately present on the scene, some appear to have experienced the event through a cinematic prism. In early accounts of 9/11, references to cinema were so remarkably frequent that they almost immediately prompted comments by journalists and academics.
