9/11: MUCH DESCRIPTION, LITTLE ANALYSIS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

While TV coverage of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, redefined media presentation of disaster, reflection on its first anniversary suggested business as usual: tasteful, circumspect and, frankly, bland, taking countless looks back but few forward.

Many have been the tributes to the World Trade Center and its victims, but far fewer examinations of our challenges ahead have emerged. The most pressing question - what can be done about radical fundamentalist Muslims who hate America so much that in recent weeks they've killed Iraqis in a misguided attempt to make our country look bad? - still must wait. As we approach the second anniversary of the fall of the twin towers, filmmakers are still looking back.

This year's high-profile TV reflections on 9/11 include two films screened at 2002 film festivals while we reeled still in emotional fallout. There's also an almost too-thorough documentary about the World Trade Center and a tepid, torpid docudrama about the White House's response to the attacks.

``7 Days in September,'' premiering tonight on A&E, represents democratic filmmaking at both its finest and most indulgent. Director/producer Steven Rosenbaum gathered footage shot by amateur videographers throughout New York City during those difficult days.

At its most callow, one imagines what a drag it must have been to be an NYU film professor that semester having to slog through all the 9/11 student films; at its best, it offers fresh looks at how citizens grappled with the attack's emotional toll yet rallied to perform a myriad of inspiring acts of altruism.

``You can't wrap your head around what you're seeing, so you just film it,'' explains one contributor. If the collaborators' accomplishments and insights are sometimes prosaic, they capture an elemental honesty TV news rarely manages.

Another documentary, ``The Center of the World,'' premieres on PBS Sept. 8 and on DVD the following day. It's chapter 8 of Ric Burns' miniseries ``New York: A Documentary Film,'' which began airing in 1999, followed by more installments after the attacks. Previous episodes scarcely mentioned the World Trade Center - the companion book to Burns' documentary contains four brief references in 575 pages, once referring to the twin towers, rather unfortunately in retrospect, as ``giant tombstones.'' ``Center of the World'' offers somewhat more generous assessments: A New York Times reporter calls them ``the moonshot of structural engineering.''

At three hours, however, ``Center of the World'' feels like overcompensation for Burns' initial oversight. It includes history peripheral to the actual World Trade Center and painstakingly explicates political and engineering gymnastics required to hoist the twin towers skyward, only for them to be dismissed by architectural experts and social critics and to sit largely empty for years.

Nonetheless, ``Center of the World'' manages to make its minutiae interesting and often fascinating while offering provocative assessments that the World Trade Center assumed greater importance in its destruction, revealing that although New Yorkers welcomed peoples from around the world as neighbors, it would've also helped had they had a greater understanding of the troubled exigencies of global politics.

Things get dicier moving into the realm of docudrama. Critics got practically apoplectic in July over the fact that the liberal media allowed an avowed Republican, writer-producer Lionel Chetwynd, to make a movie about George W. Bush, ``DC 9/11: Time of Crisis,'' debuting Sunday on Showtime. He wouldn't make an ideologically balanced film, they fretted.

Indeed, Chetwynd's vision of Bush (played, ironically, by Timothy Bottoms, who previously portrayed the president as a moron on Comedy Central's ``That's My Bush!'') is of a commanding yet sensitive leader who maintains focus against unthinkable tragedy, line-edits perfect tonal tweaks into his speeches on the fly and still finds time, man's man that he is, to hit the weight room. But what matters is whether the film's any good, whether it feels authentic. Alas, Chetwynd opens the film with a glaring inaccuracy: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld making an impassioned plea for funds to combat terrorism. In fact, Rumsfeld was annoyed when Congress shifted money intended for the Star Wars missile shield to anti-terrorism programs.

More bewilderingly, director Brian Trenchard-Smith casts the proceedings in a soporific atmosphere, transforming urgent events into a series of talking heads explaining public policy like so many junior-college civics professors and debating strategy like corporate executives plotting just another hostile takeover.

``September 11,'' premiering on Trio on the two-year anniversary of the attacks, is better in concept than execution. Eleven filmmakers from around the globe offer short films reflecting on, however peripherally, the tragedy, inserting their own politics when possible. The best efforts are sprinkled throughout the project, forcing viewers to endure lesser contributions as well.

Iran's Samira Makhmalbaf opens the anthology with a droll yet sober portrait of an Iranian teacher trying to explain to her class of youngsters, not too successfully, the gravity of the event. Japan's Shohei Imamura closes by revisiting Hiroshima in the surreal tale of a man who, attempting to escape man's inhumanity, imagines himself a snake. The film concludes with the sage aphorism, ``There is no such thing as a holy war.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

7 DAYS IN SEPTEMBER - Three stars

What: 9/11 documentary composed of amateur videos of New Yorkers responding to the tragedy.

Where: A&E.

When: 9 tonight.

In a nutshell: Inspiring despite great swatches of amateurism.

DC 9/11: TIME OF CRISIS - Two stars

What: Docudrama about Washington's response to 9/11.

Where: Showtime.

When: 8 p.m. Sunday; also Sept. 11, 17 and 20.

In a nutshell: Surprisingly lacking in urgency; little more than an earnest civics lesson.

THE CENTER OF THE WORLD - Three stars

What: Part 8 of Ric Burns' epic documentary on New York City, examining the construction and destruction of the World Trade Center.

Where: KCET.

When: 9 p.m. Monday.

In a nutshell: Thorough and insightful if somewhat belated and belabored.

SEPTEMBER 11 - Two stars

What: Anthology film reflecting on 9/11 by filmmakers from around the world.

Where: Trio.

When: 9 p.m. Sept. 11; repeated at midnight.

In a nutshell: Mixed bag of styles, sentiments and politics.

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Photo:

Timothy Bottoms, who played President Bush for laughs on Comedy Central, does serious Dubya in ``DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.''