The Falling Man

They say a picture says a thousand words but some pictures leave no words at all, The famous photo of a perfect fall during the midst of so much chaos. The man was never named and his body was lost to the crush of the two towers when they fell. This script covers his final thoughts as he falls and his reactions to the attacks. Told from his perspective above ground zero and with memories of his home life. Told mostly in slow motion the events of 9/11 unfold around this man who, like many others during the attacks were not found and simply disappeared to the world except their own families. He talks us through his fall much like he is narrating a documentary giving us insight into what he might have been thinking during his final moments. Everyone remembers what they were doing and where they were on the day of 9/11. None more so than the people directly influenced by it, the thousands of people killed and those who watched on in horror in New York. This fictional interview with The Falling Man, provides us a “directors commentary” of the last day of his life. Starting off with his breakfast we cut between him falling slowly to the streets below inter-cut with the streets filled with firefighters and ambulances everything that people remember from news footage of 9/11 itself. He describes the moment he jumps to us in a detail that could give people closure on why he was not alone in his choice. We are then inside the building as he mills around absent minded as anyone would be, right up until American Airlines flight 11 soars into the building at 465mph. We then hear from him what went on, on the upper floors of the building where over 2000 people were trapped for half an hour while the building burned at heats of 1800 Fahrenheit. It is then he and the group he is trapped with find that there is no way down and they make their way to a window for fresh air. This is the moment he decides to jump. We then hear how it felt and find answers to questions people may have had if they could ask him questions.