Some Boston-area residents seem genuinely enthusiastic about the ongoing local production of Patriots' Day, the big-budget film based on the 2013 Boston marathon bombings and the manhunt that followed.
Stories detailing the filmmakers’ casting decisions have become a staple for the local media. And when Boston Casting held an open call for extras in Allston recently, the turnout was huge.
But enthusiasm for the film isn’t universal.
“I think that it would be a disservice to everybody,” says Joanne Pomodoro, a social worker at MGH Back Bay. “It would just be a trigger for some people.”
After the blasts three years ago, Pomodoro treated runners who’d been nearby and were suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
A sober documentary about the bombings would be one thing, Pomodoro says. Instead, she’s afraid that Hollywood will sensationalize a day that her clients have tried to leave behind.
“Our bodies have this way of remembering,” Pomodoro says. “When we remember like that, the responses come back: all the hypervigilance, the flight-fight-or-freeze impulse, the anxiety, the depression, the nightmares.”
Concerns about lingering trauma have already affected Patriots' Day’s production. When filmmakers tried to recreate the Watertown shootout between the bombers and law enforcement, that community said no.
“There was a wide range of opinions,” says Steve Magoon, Watertown’s assistant town manager. “Some of those people most directly impacted though it was important to have a recreation was accurate, and involved the places where those things happened.
“There were a lot of other people still very much traumatized by events that day,” he adds. “Ultimately, the leadership of the town felt it was not in the best interest of the town to move forward.”
The co-author of the book that’s serving as the basis for Patriots' Day urges skeptics to give the project the benefit of the doubt.
“We were criticized before wrote first word of Boston Strong,” says Casey Sherman, who wrote that book with Dave Wedge. “People said it was too soon for a book on this tragedy. And I said, ‘Let us write it, and then if you still have that feeling, I understand.’”
Sherman likens Patriots' Day to the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, which recreated the Boston Globe’s investigation into sexually abusive priests.
“That was a story that really focused on the crusading journalists, the unsung heroes that exposed a dark evil within the Catholic Church,” Sherman says. “Patriots' Day is similar in the fact that it really shines a light on law enforcement, the first responders, and the survivors themselves, who banded together like at no other time in New England if not American history to conquer evil. And that’s exactly what they did.”
Spotlight didn’t actually depict clergy sex abuse on screen, however. In contrast, Patriots' Day will re-enact the bombings.
But Thomas Doherty, a historian of cinema at Brandeis University, says that’s almost inescapable—and that it can be done with restraint.
“If a filmmaker is going to treat Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust or Vietnam, or any one of a list of traumatic events in American history, they’ve got to actually show that moment,” Doherty says.
“I don’t think the director is going to have to sensationalize it at all,” he adds. “All he’s going to have to do is show those two guys with their backpacks.”
It’s worth noting, too, that some individuals whose lives were directly affected by the attacks are supporting the film’s production. Patrick Downes and Jess Kensky, who were badly injured in the attacks, are working closely with the filmmakers. The family of MIT police officer Sean Collier has cooperated, too.
Meanwhile, survivor Jeff Bauman is turning his memoir, Stronger, into a film of the same name.
As Doherty sees it, there are compelling reasons for survivors and victims’ family members to play an active role.
“One, to bear witness, and two, to prove that [the bombers] didn’t have a victory, that they didn’t crush you,” he says. “It’s a famous line from Walt Whitman: ‘I am the man, I suffered, I was there.’ And that gives you the…moral authority to address what happened.
When Hollywood treats tragedy with appropriate respect and restraint, Doherty adds, the resulting films can be powerful.
“They can have almost this cathartic effect—they become kind of almost like a Wailing Wall,” he says. “I remember when I saw Schindler’s List, people started sobbing at the credits, before anything happened.…It can become almost a ritual reenactment.”
Which means the Patriots' Day filmmakers have a remarkable opportunity, but also face intense pressure.
A source close to the production tells WGBH News they can handle it, saying: “The filmmakers spent many months meeting with survivors, first responders and victims’ families; this was a critical factor in telling the story the right way.”
Patriots' Day is slated for release this December.
