You can't imagine NBC buying footage from CBS or CNN for a show, but HBO's documentary film producers can — and did.

        The result is HBO's 65-minute film about the World Trade Center attacks called In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01 (9 p.m. today, HBO).

        HBO has assembled images from 115 videographers and photographers, and from 16 news organizations, for the most comprehensive look at the New York tragedy. More than 60 percent of the film has never been televised before, says HBO's Sheila Nevins, who produced the film.

This photo has come to define the the 9-11 recovery effort. The HBO special shows the video of the firefighters erecting the flag. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

        The premium cable channel also has extensive interviews with former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his top administrators. But you'll remember these pictures, not the words:

        • Two views of the second plane roaring into the south tower, in addition to Jules Naudet's famous footage of the first plane crash broadcast by CBS in March.

        • Scenes of the flaming towers — and their collapse — shot from more than a dozen vantage points around the city.

        • A snowstorm of white office paper falling over the city, and people running in panic from a huge black cloud rolling down the street after the buildings fell.

        • A man trapped in Tower 1, above the fire, signaling for help with a white towel.

        • The shock and disbelief as people leap to their death from the towering inferno.

        You'll also see New York Police Department video of the Brooklyn firefighters erecting the American flag over the rubble, which became the signature still photograph of the recovery effort.

        In all, HBO received more than 1,000 hours of film and video shot by professionals, teachers, accountants and other amateurs.

        Ms. Nevins had told TV critics in January she planned to make the film one hour and 41 minutes long, the time between the first crash and the collapse of the second building. But the concept changed after looking at the footage.

        “There were only little gems in it, little pieces of film that told a big story. We could never make it longer, and never tried to. It was not appropriate to drag out certain sequences,” Ms. Nevins says.

Video-shooting generation

        Ms. Nevin, who has worked with independent filmmakers for years, wasn't surprised so much film and video were shot that day.

        “I see it on the streets, a lot of people with video cameras,” she says. “This is the video-recording generation.”

        One of the rare gems is the NYPD flag-raising video. She tracked it down through a co-worker who knew somebody at a gym that worked in the police video department.

        “I had been led to believe that no one covered it. None of the networks were down there. It was an impromptu thing. The firemen just did it. But at the end of the reel, there it was,” Ms. Nevins says.

        She made the discovery, she says, after paying “quite a fair penny” for the famous still photo. HBO also paid $26,000 for Mr. Naudet's 10-second clip of American Flight 11 crashing into Tower 1.
       

Difficult to watch

        The most disturbing images of In Memoriam are of people leaping to their deaths. (The film opens with a warning: “Some of the material might be difficult for some viewers.”)

        After much internal debate, In Memoriam producers decided to include video of four jumpers, plus still photos of three more. It also shows a bloody body splattered on the ground.

        Ms. Nevins, a lifelong New Yorker, says she couldn't ignore the jumpers: “The jumping was something every New Yorker was talking about it, and to deprive the film wouldn't be right.”

        Producers muted the impact by converting the color still photos to black-and-white. They also chose not to air video of body parts in the street, and of three people jumping together from Tower No. 1.

        “We couldn't watch it ourselves,” she says. “There was a lot of footage we didn't use. We had close-ups of people in windows in which you could see the people's faces. You could identify them.”
       

Too much Rudy

        HBO began making the film after being promised unlimited access to Mr. Giuliani and his staff. That proves to be both a blessing and the film's downfall.

        Half-way through the film, In Memoriam strays too far from Ground Zero. The film documents the mayor's press conferences that day, and his remarks days later at police and fire funerals. Clips from more than a dozen memorial services derail the end of the film.

        Of course, Mr. Giuliani emerges as the hero of the day, urging New Yorkers not to panic. But the most powerful comments come from Beth Petrone, Mr. Giuliani's executive assistant, who lost her husband, Fire Capt. Terry Hatton, that day.

        “When I saw the building come down, I knew that he had no chance ... I felt a complete disconnection. It was like everything was ripped out of my chest,” she says.

        “I thought that Terry just incinerated. I was grabbing dust from the ground, thinking he was in the dust,” says Ms. Petrone, who learned she was pregnant with their first child days after the tragedy. She had a baby girl on May 15.

        For Ms. Nevins, In Memoriam is a way of contributing to the healing of her beloved hometown. She and a group from HBO had tried to give blood immediately after the tragedy, but they were turned away, told it wasn't needed.

        “We're not a nightly news organization, so there was nothing we could do,” she says.

        Then she realized that HBO could do something a broadcast network couldn't do.

        “I thought we could make some contribution to the event by recording it in some historically accurate way ... to summarize grief, and document the day, and not be exploitative,” she says.

        “It was like giving blood — the blood they wouldn't take from me.”

       Contact John Kiesewetter by phone: 768-8519; e-mail: jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.
       
       On the air

        What: In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01

        When: 9 p.m. today, HBO).

        Repeats: 10 p.m. Wednesday, HBO.

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