More mixed thoughts on the Fry documentary. I’m annoyed by the constant cliched use of Philip Glass music, only serving to remind the viewer that this is TV entertainment like anything else. In one of the segments about people who manage to be depressed and NOT famous, there’s a woman who can barely get through the day, who has to constantly guzzle a myriad of different pills even to keep her in this lifeless state. Fair enough, but then the Philip Glass soundtrack swells yet again to accentuate her voice-over, and we’re reminded it’s just another TV programme cut to a tried and tested formula.

That’s entertainment. Lives edited to taste. Yes, I realise that’s what documentaries are. But you’re not meant to be jarringly reminded of the fact. Someone should tell such directors that the works of Philip Glass (or if wet, Coldplay) are not the only fruit. Or even ask their own presenters for a few suggestions, given Mr Fry is a classical music buff.

Cut to a New York composer. Filmed at his piano, I shouldn’t wonder:

PHILIP GLASS (for it is he): The depression first hit me when I realised that British TV documentaries kept lazily using my music for everything from climate change to terrorism to heroin addiction. Since then I’ve just not been the same.

OMINOUS REPETITIVE MUSIC UNDERNEATH (by Mr Glass): boodoo boodoo boodoo boodoo…

This tendency is actually two decades old, starting with the 1983 movie Koyaanisqatsi. Timelapse montages of buildings against the sky, the clouds zooming past above, the traffic like fireflies below. All set to Philip Glass’s pounding arpeggios and doom-laden, but rather listenable, mathematical pulses of melody. Since then, this format has been imitated so much in portentous TV ads and documentaries, it’s become a kind of Stairway To Heaven for directors. Just as that Led Zeppelin tune is the one that guitarists can’t help playing in music shops, TV directors can’t stop themselves from saying, “Bung on a bit of Philip Glass, that’ll work well.”

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Still, it drives me to rent out ‘The Hours’ and see it for the first time since its release a couple of years ago. More depression as entertainment, certainly, but more honestly so. And this time, Philip Glass tailors his music to fit. I think this is why I ultimately prefer fiction to documentary. Fiction looks for truth in fabrication, documentary applies fabrication to truth. In Fiction, saying to yourself, “This wouldn’t happen” doesn’t matter too much, not if there’s other elements to stay for. With documentary, the set-up pieces, the contrived tableaux, the shot of the presenter arriving at someone’s house where there happens to be a camera crew already set up; it’s as fictional as fiction. I find fiction more truthful.

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So to ‘United 93’, a much-praised movie dramatisation of the fourth 9/11 flight, the one which crashed into a field. This has been hyped as a sensitive account, dedicated to the memory of those that died, and so on and so forth. Who are they kidding? It’s entertainment like anything else. We see the four terrorists viciously kill the pilots and a few passengers as they take over the plane, additionally slitting the throat of a stewardess because, “We don’t need her any more”. They might as well be in an Indiana Jones film.

This initial burst of cartoonish evil sets us up for a payback like any other thriller movie. You want the ‘Baddies’ to be defeated, but as we already know what has to happen in the end, the makers invent little victories that might have happened… but very probably didn’t. Outrageously, a German passenger (whose widow was one of the relatives not consulted by the director) is depicted pleading for appeasement, trying to stop the others revolting from their seats, and they turn on him as if he were as guilty as the terrorists. Then they viciously, brutally kill the hijackers one by one – just like in the movies – as the plane hurtles to its fate, a sea of hands grabbing for the pilot’s joystick, trying to wrest control seconds before the inevitable.

To describe a 9/11 movie as exciting and entertaining, which is what ‘United 93’ is, seems profoundly distasteful, but that’s the currency it’s trading in. It’s only distasteful in the way ‘Titanic’ is distasteful (by being a bad movie), and ‘The Queen’ isn’t (by being a good movie). Such flicks exist in a different world altogether, where dramatic arcs matter more than accuracy or even likelihood of accuracy. As a tribute to the memory of those that perished, it’s on very insincere grounds indeed. I felt the same when watching “Saving Private Ryan”, in the scenes where surrendering Germans on Omaha Beach are shot dead by Americans. Movies are movies, even the ones that call themselves memorials. They all end with the usual white text on a black background, telling us what happened in the real world afterwards. Just as ‘United 93’ does.

But then again, this is an argument which began with the TV news crews deciding what to show from that day. Was it distasteful to broadcast the footage of the planes hitting the towers over and over again? What about the people jumping from the towers? How much reality do you want? How much can you take? And so on. And this is the line taken by the movie directors. Whether you like it or not, they reason, 9/11 looked like a Hollywood movie. Or three. Or more. So they cover their consciences with the world ‘memorial’, insisting that some of the relatives of the deceased are ‘on their side’ (much like bigots who say ‘some of my best friends are…’) and promises that a percentage of the movie profits will go to, oh, some 9/11-connected charity or other. They may as well be saying “Will that do”?

My overriding response to which is a resounding “Hmmmmmph…” I realise all writers and film-makers are vultures of a kind, and I’m no different with this diary. I just try to be careful not to be obviously offensive to those who might be watching. And one way is by resorting to fiction over documentary, or fiction that claims to be documentary. Which is where we came in.

Remove the cowardly disclaimers, change the names and the event, and the film is what it is – a good thriller based on a true story, but only based. Gus Van Saint’s ‘Elephant’ is a fine example of how to translate filmic events to film. It’s obviously about Columbine, but doesn’t claim to be. As with much in life, once you start dropping names, you’re cheapening yourself.

If a memorial is about “lest we forget”, here it’s lest we forget America’s lust for vindictive, brutal payback rage, and their lust for understanding the world through simplistic but impressively entertaining movies. As if you could forget. If ‘United 93’ is Hollywood being ‘sensitive’ to recent events, one dreads the opposite.