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CNN Live Today

Interview With Firefighters Turned Film Makers Lou, Amy Angeli

Aired May 30, 2002 - 14:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN: Lou and Amy Angeli join us now live from New York. You guys, that video you saw was from your new documentary, right, on ground zero, called "Bound by Courage?" It's going to be coming out in September, is that right?

LOU ANGELI, "BOUND BY COURAGE": Yes, it is.

LIN: It's fantastic, because it's a front line view of the grittiness of what happened in just the hours and the days right after that attack. I'm wondering, your experience both as firefighters and now as documentary film makers -- I mean, have you been able to sort of process your own experience in those days and months afterward?

AMY ANGELI, "BOUND BY COURAGE": It's been difficult, but we've been fortunate in the fact that we do have the ability to write, so a lot of the feelings and the emotions that we carry on the regular basis we put down in journals. Lou works on the computer; I write by hand. And it helps us gain a perspective and a release, so in that area, we are real fortunate.

LIN: You know, Amy, you are one of the actually few women who has been directly involved in the recovery and the clean-up operation. Do you think in making this film, because you're a woman it made it easier for some of these guys to share their stories with you?

A. ANGELI: I had the opportunity to speak with many firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, sanitation workers, steel workers. They seem to kind of pick me out as I come off the pile, and they were very open with their comments. They were not afraid to show emotion. And in a way, I think just being a female and being there, it's that maternal thing that most show in my eyes, because they were open with me, and it gave them an opportunity to kind of let go of some of the things they were feeling and what they were dealing with.

LIN: Yeah, and it clearly showed in a lot of that footage.

Lou, Amy, I'd like you to stay right there. We're going to take a quick break, but I want to continue this conversation afterward, and talk about the recovery process, both personally as well as what should be at that World Trade Center site. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: Thanks for joining us again today. As you probably know by now, at 10:29, bells rang out to honor the fallen firefighters, so many of them, who went in risking their lives, sacrificing their lives, to try to save others.

We have some veteran firefighters joining us today. They've become film makers as well, Lou and Amy Angeli.

Lou, you were nodding vigorously when Amy was just talking about the need for some of these tough guys to express their emotions and their feelings and their sense of loss. How did you throughout this process of making this film, deal with your own feelings about what was going on around you?

L. ANGELI: This was quite difficult, because certainly this is an incident that none of us had ever anticipated. This was not the job that was to happen. And as far as I can remember the most number of firefighters we had ever lost were the six in Worcester, Massachusetts, and that was tough enough on the fire service. And I'm not just about the Worcester fire service, but the firefighters nationwide.

And this is an event, an incident that has effected fir service nationwide.

LIN: Is it helpful to have these kinds of ceremonial markings and anniversaries, or does it really serve only to cause more pain?

L. ANGELI: Well, the fire service is tradition-bound. We have very deep-seeded tradition. It starts way back with Ben Franklin in Philadelphia. This particular remembrance, though, is difficult, because keeping in mind that still about half the firefighters were never recovered, and we're trained never to leave anyone behind, whether it's a civilian or a firefighter and in this case, obviously, we have.

LIN: And so doesn't it bring up also some feelings about, well, what happens next there? And you know, the risk in this process is the debate, if not the arguments and the acrimony that can come out, you know, whether it should be a memorial, whether they should rebuild the towers. What do you guys think?

A. ANGELI: Obviously, this is -- we have to be realistic in the fact that this is prime real estate in Manhattan. They will rebuild, I'm sure, but thy need to incorporate a memorial into whatever they choose to rebuild. It's important for the families who never got any kind of confirmation of their family members that were lost to have a place to go. It's important for the firefighters to have a place to go, I think, because they have been deeply hurt and deeply injured by this entire incident.

LIN: You'd get over something like this, especially after, you know, losing your brothers and your colleagues, risking your own life and taking those risks?

L. ANGELI: The fire service here in the United States will never be the same, never be the same. The Fire service in New York will never be the same. We've already noticed, just in the demeanor of the firefighters that we saw down there today -- it's -- they still have that very distant look about them that we saw on September 11. And we've visited a lot of fire stations in the past six months; we've researched this thing, you know, almost exclusively for the past six months, and it's just been an incredible event that will always affect firefighters.

LIN: Now, you two used to make training videos. Does the training now for firefighters change? Is there a different method as you enter the service?

A. ANGELI: The training for firefighters has to change now, because this was a response that was geared toward an act of war. We are not -- though we are paramilitary in the way that we're set up, we are not a military organization. And if this is the kind of thing that we're going to start being prepared for to respond to, than we have to be trained in terrorism and acts of mass destruction. There is no way around it.

There was no way for our dear friend, Ray Downey, to have handled this situation any better than he did, any differently than he did. And my heart goes out to all the families, all the firefighters, because we did what we were trained to do. Unfortunately, this was something that was totally un-anticipated.

LIN: True American heroes. We're still looking at some of the footage that we'll look forward to seeing more of in September when your documentary comes out, "Bound by Courage." Thank you very much, Lou and Amy Angeli.

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