‘Objects and Memory’ Airs Monday Night on PBS

What happens in the aftermath of a sudden, shocking, man-made disaster like the terrorist bombings of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, and New York City’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?

Students of the presidency know that, as a nation, all eyes turn to the president to speak the words that will bring meaning, consolation, and resolve to these events. To be sure, the president is chief of government, the leader of a political party and thus by definition a divisive political figure. But the president is also chief of state, the anthropomorphic symbol of national unity. (Think Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth II all in one.) America was sharply divided over Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at the time of the respective bombings, but in the aftermath that’s not what mattered to most people. Clinton and Bush were — just by virtue of being president — the flag incarnate.

Objects and Memory, a new documentary from the production team of Jonathan Fein and Brian Danitz that airs Monday night on most PBS stations, takes an entirely different approach to Oklahoma City and, even more, to 9/11. Clinton and Bush are neither seen nor mentioned. Instead, the documentary’s focus is on how the people of the affected communities responded. In vast numbers, they did so tangibly, bringing candles, flowers, license plates, teddy bears, photographs, toys, flags, items of clothing, paintings, drawings, sculptures, poems, and an endless variety of other objects either to the site of the tragedies or to sites they spontaneously created to commemorate the tragedies. Steve Zeitlein, the founder and director of City Lore, describes post-9/11 New York as a place where “everybody [was] making a memorial wherever they were, just making the whole city a garden of memorials.”

Objects and Memory is a marvelous program, thoughtfully conceived and wonderfully realized. You won’t regret the hour you spend watching it.