Article archive / October 1, 2016
Originally published: . Volume 7, No. 10. Source pages: 10.
by Alvin G. Burstein USAir Flight 1549 was airborne only six minutes before crash landing in the Hudson River January 15th, 2009. The film, Sully, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Tom Hanks is also short, about an hour and a half. It is a biopic about Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot of the plane who was central to the astonishing survival of the one hundred and fifty-five persons aboard.
The film is remarkable in a number of ways. In it, Hanks confirms his virtuosity in portraying a particular kind of protagonist. Rather than hero of Greek tragedies, a great man brought down by a flaw in his character, or an epic hero whose virtues inspire us, he gives us a Sully worried about making ends meet and scrupulous about routine, but whose rule– bound commitment to professionalism becomes a virtue.
Hanna Arendt, writing about Eichmann's trial for his actions during the Holocaust, coined the phrase "banality of evil." She was referring to the capacity for enormous wrong–doing that might be a consequence of a bureaucratic commitment to following orders or rules.
What Sully illustrates is that remarkable achievement may ensue from a similar source, perhaps a sort of banality of virtue. Sully describes his behavior, and that of his crew, as "just doing their jobs." While he was piloting the plane in its descent into the Hudson, his co-pilot was, as Sully ordered, thumbing through the book of procedures kept in every cockpit, and following the stipulated procedures. Perhaps this kind of banality is a positive one that could be understood as involved in what we understand by the term “professionalism.”
Another striking aspect of the film is its ability to generate suspenseful tension about the outcome of the six–minute ordeal, despite the successful outcome being well-known, indeed, celebrated.
The director, Clint Eastwood skillfully accomplishes the feat by interleaving bits of Sully's early life, and, more importantly, pieces of the activity at the air traffic control center and on the rescue crafts, as they struggle to put together a response to Flight 1549's loss of engine power. Further, and perhaps more powerfully, Eastwood portrays Sully as having to deal with crises beyond that of piloting a powerless plane over a heavily populated area. Sully must later struggle with nightmares and feelings of self-doubt, elements which are now pathologized as Post Traumatic Stress disorder.
In the film, he must also struggle against an effort by the National Transportation Safety Board to conclude that he erred in ditching the expensive plane, needlessly imposing the risks of a water crash landing on the passengers and crew, that he could have taken the plane to a safer airport landing.
Sully, in his autobiographical account, does describe some of the mental distress with which he had to cope in the aftermath of the event. One might wonder if what he describes benefits from being pathologized in our medical culture as opposed to being understood as part of the psychological process of emotional assimilation of painful material.
On the other hand, there is no evidence in Sully's account, or in other accounts that I have found, of a "grilling" of Sully by the NTSB beyond the normal review that would ensue after the crash landing any commercial plane. I assume that Eastwood's invention of these activities is intended to introduce another level of suspense, and to increase Sully's heroism. The pilot becomes not just a very proficient professional, but a David routing the Goliath of bureaucracy and commercialism.
Good movie making, but one that obscures the interesting possibility of deepening the meaning of professionalism.
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