The Falling Man: an American Controversy and Obsession

The premise of Pattern Recognition is a modern society that suffers from an identity crisis due to the oversaturation of the media and the Internet. In this day in age where knowledge is available and exposed to millions at the click of a mouse, privacy has become an obsolete and unfathomable luxury. Taking this idea further, the society and culture that Gibson creates in his science fiction novel, is strung together by a phenomenon that has no real substance, but yet still creates a tantalizing curiosity—a curiosity that spreads like wildfire.

In Pattern Recognition, the protagonist, Cayce, is fixated with a series of videos that come from an unknown origin. The videos have become an “internet hit” attracting views left and right. Her determination to find the source to the mysterious clips is a clear reflection of Gibson’s view on modern society—people are fascinated by what they cannot understand—things that may not have a definite answer. In correlation to this, some might perceive that Cayce developed this insatiable curiosity after the death of her father in the September 11^th attacks.

Connecting these two major themes in the novel, we decided to research the different facets of public reaction to September 11^th, specifically the reactions to the picture of the “falling man.” The “falling man,” a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Robert Drew, captures one of the most horrific moments of the day—a man who jumped to his death from the World Trade Center. The mesmerizing and horrific quality this photograph possesses, has in some ways, etched itself into the memories of millions of people, causing many to obsess over the man’s identity.

This obsession over what we do not understand is marked by our fears of the unknown, and the realization that we as humans are not untouchable by pain. This trail of obsession throughout history usually follows phenomena that change the course of our lives. For instance, ask an adult where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, and they will most likely tell you how old they were and their exact location when they heard the news. Much like that tragedy, our generation is branded by September 11^th. No matter how old we were at the time, our memories are vivid of the emotions and thoughts that ran through our heads when the American public was informed the tragedy was a terrorist attack. It is almost as if that moment in our lives is a photograph—unchangeable and forever solitary.

While September 11, 2001 was the most photographed and videotaped day in history, the choice to print Richard Drew’s “falling man” was a bold choice by newspapers all over the world (Singer). The New York Times published the photo on the seventh page of their September 12^th edition, in the center of an article describing the horrors of that morning. The photo’s caption reads, “A person falls headfirst after jumping from the north tower of the World Trade Center. It was a horrific sight that was repeated in the moments after the planes struck the towers” (Kleinfield). The vague description of the man was deemed insensible by many and “granted distasteful, exploitative, voyeuristic” by all those who saw it (Singer).

This photo, considered one of the “twelve most iconic photos ever taken” (Swick), was also published in the Morning Call, an Allentown, Pennsylvania newspaper (Singer). The photograph, sent by Richard Drew to major newspapers all over the country, created dispute among publishers about whether or not to run the photo in their newspapers. Michael Hirsch, the business editor of the Morning Call, recalls his first experience with the controversial picture: “It was hard to look at. You feel like it’s a private moment, it feels almost obscene looking at this. You feel like you’re taking away the person’s humanity a little bit” (Singer). Hirsch was not the only one to feel this way. In Henry Singer’s documentary, 9/11: The Falling Man, two Allentown residents read their letters to the Morning Call editor, five years after their initial dismay. Bob Messinger, a small business owner in the Pennsylvania town, wrote: “To the editor: It was with utter disgust that as I read the September 12^th edition, I turned the page only to find a large photo of some poor soul plummeting a thousand feet head-first to certain death.” Likewise, Deborah Holets, a school secretary in the town, wrote: “Do not let your children read the Morning Call. The half-page color picture of a man falling out of the window was used at such poor judgment.” While these passionate, angered responses were not unfamiliar to editors across the nation, “some argued that the picture of the falling man needed to be confronted. It not only acknowledged the story of the people who’d been forced to jump, it alone gave a true sense of the horror of that day” (Singer).

This single photo—a man in a white long-sleeve t-shirt, black pants, and black high-tops was unwelcomed by many because it exposed a different side to the victims of the terrorist attacks—the elements of extreme fear and suffering. And while Americans didn’t wish to acknowledge any victim who was forced to jump to their death, Tom Junod, an award-winning writer, decided to investigate just why the jumpers had been “airbrushed” from the media and American’s minds. Junod was quoted in Singer’s documentary saying, “I felt that the idea of people jumping, I felt that the jumpers, I felt that the falling man had been sort of pushed to the side. There was an element of exclusion, that he died improperly, that we want to remember this day for its heroism, and whether we think of the jumpers as heroic or not, they should not be excluded from the consecrated ground of American soil because they died in a way that makes us uncomfortable.” In his 2003 article titled “Falling Man,” the article that Singer’s documentary was based off of, Junod revisits his journey to identify the falling man.

First identified as Norberto Hernandez, the “falling man” was later thought to be Jonathon Briley, a staff member of the Windows on the World restaurant in the World Trade Center. Although it has never been confirmed, Jonathan Briley fits the body type, the size, and the coloring of the man in the picture, not to mention that the man captured in Richard Drew’s twelve frames was wearing an orange t-shirt—a t-shirt unmistakably similar to the one Jonathan Briley’s relatives were always teasing that he wore too much. Gwendolyn Briley, Jonathan’s sister, helped identify her brother in the picture, but more notably, was able to express a greater understanding of the meaning of the photograph: “I hope we’re not trying to figure out who he is, and more figure out who we are through watching that” (Singer). This idea that the photo is universal—that is stands for a plethora of different things to different people, is proved by American’s continued fascination with “the falling man.”

Don DeLillo, in fact, wrote an entire book titled Falling Man in 2006. While DeLillo’s novel is fiction, his novel helps to further preserve the “falling man” in American history. His first chapter opens as a chaotic scene on the street—a scene of complete confusion mixed with fear. While not explicitly clear that the setting is a New York street on September 11, 2001, DeLillo’s use of words with “ll” in them, symbolizes the World Trade Centers. This creative use of diction catches the readers’ attention, causing them to stop and think about that day even before the novel delves into it. Much like this, in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, Drew’s twelve frames of the “falling man” are used at the end of his novel as a flipbook showing the “falling man” flying upwards instead of falling. This powerful image further resonates the existence of the “falling man” with Americans.

And while the identity of this graceful, brave man has never been officially concluded, Americans cannot see him only as a symbol of tragedy, but a grave of all the unfound victims. As Tom Junod poetically writes in his 2003 article, “The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame -- the Falling Man -- became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen.” In other words, while some find closure in knowing that Jonathan Briley might have been the man who fell into the minds of Americans, he is more than just a four by six color photograph—he is a man faced with an impossible choice, a choice that Americans must not only acknowledge and accept, but learn to see as heroic.

Works Cited

"12 Of The Most Iconic Photographs Ever Taken." Swick. 2009. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. .

9/11: The Falling Man. Dir. Henry Singer. Perf. Tom Junod and Steven Mackintosh. Roadshow Home Entertainment, 2006. DVD.

DeLillo, Don. "1." Falling Man: a Novel. New York City: Scribner, 2007. 3-6. Print.

Junod, Tom. "The Falling Man." Esquire Sept. 2003. Http://www.esquire.com. 08 Sept. 2009. Web. 09 Dec. 2010.

Kleinfield, N.R. "A Creeping Horror: Buildings Burn and Fall as Onlookers Search for Elusive Safety." The New York Times 12 Sept. 2001: A1+. Print.

**Also, you can watch Singer’s full documentary on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnA9FjvLSU