Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

[Stay Puft]

I liked the compound sequence. It was every bit as concerned with process as the rest of the film, and as E said, also just exceptionally crafted and tense.

Overall, I'd probably agree that it's better than The Hurt Locker, too.

[DavidSeven]

the film decides we need to frame it as yet another personal revenge mission.

Just to expand on this a bit, I think you and D'Angelo are giving that scene a specific significance that wasn't intended by the filmmakers and wasn't perceived by the audience. I also thought it was great, as Derek pointed out earlier, that the film didn't bother fleshing out hackneyed backstories (e.g. how her job affected her off-duty life) to draw out cheap emotional resonance.

[Spinal]

From an email I wrote to my dad:

"The ending is brilliant. It is simple and conclusive, yet it leaves room for so many possibilities. What is she thinking in that moment? Is it relief? Is it satisfaction? Is it a realization that she will be a target for life? Or that the death of Bin Laden is not truly an ending of the larger struggle? For me, it also contains that feeling that her success comes at a high moral cost - that even though it may be seen as a victory for the United States, it's not really a victory for humanity. Certainly no one misses Bin Laden, but the brutality required to take him out of the equation has to leave some sort of damage on the souls of those who confronted him."

[Ezee E]

From an email I wrote to my dad:

"The ending is brilliant. It is simple and conclusive, yet it leaves room for so many possibilities. What is she thinking in that moment? Is it relief? Is it satisfaction? Is it a realization that she will be a target for life? Or that the death of Bin Laden is not truly an ending of the larger struggle? For me, it also contains that feeling that her success comes at a high moral cost - that even though it may be seen as a victory for the United States, it's not really a victory for humanity. Certainly no one misses Bin Laden, but the brutality required to take him out of the equation has to leave some sort of damage on the souls of those who confronted him."

I don't know if I got that. I certainly see more of a relief that her decade of work came out to be correct, and that for the most part, people remained safe. Slight satisfaction as the end shot...

Still, certainly something I want to watch again.

[Spinal]

The important thing is not that you agree with my reaction. The important thing is that the shot is full of possibility. That's what makes it great.

[Kurosawa Fan]

The important thing is not that you agree with my reaction. The important thing is that the shot is full of possibility. That's what makes it great.

Completely agree.

[Pop Trash]

From a text I wrote to my mom:

"It's a good film but it's clear the USA tortured if the CIA account is to be believed."

Not as good as Spinal's email : /

[Boner M]

Umm I accidentally nay'd this; mods, change plz?

[Spinal]

Ban Boner now.

[Ezee E]

Hmm... It says that we can change our votes, but obviously this isn't the case.

I'll have to look into it tomorrow unless someone beats me to it.

[Boner M]

Ban Boner now.

Does the film endorse this?

[Spinal]

Reposting from temp site for archival purposes:

"Zero Dark Thirty was extraordinary. Bigelow, Boal and Chastain all deserve high praise. Amazing how they can create a Hollywood film in which Bin-Laden is killed and it doesn't feel overly celebratory. At the same time, it's not a doe-eyed pacifist shame film either. It left me haunted and full of equal parts admiration and repulsion. Best film I've seen from the past year."

[Spinal]

Does the film endorse this?

When you lie to Match Cut, I hurt you.

[Dukefrukem]

Thoughts this was OK. Definitely worth seeing. Way too long.

[dreamdead]

Slavoj Zizek on the film in a Guardian post:

Here is how, in a letter to the LA Times, Kathryn Bigelow justified Zero Dark Thirty's depicting of the torture methods used by government agents to catch and kill Osama bin Laden:

"Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time."

Really? One doesn't need to be a moralist, or naive about the urgencies of fighting terrorist attacks, to think that torturing a human being is in itself something so profoundly shattering that to depict it neutrally – ie to neutralise this shattering dimension – is already a kind of endorsement.

Imagine a documentary that depicted the Holocaust in a cool, disinterested way as a big industrial-logistic operation, focusing on the technical problems involved (transport, disposal of the bodies, preventing panic among the prisoners to be gassed). Such a film would either embody a deeply immoral fascination with its topic, or it would count on the obscene neutrality of its style to engender dismay and horror in spectators. Where is Bigelow here?

Without a shadow of a doubt, she is on the side of the normalisation of torture. When Maya, the film's heroine, first witnesses waterboarding, she is a little shocked, but she quickly learns the ropes; later in the film she coldly blackmails a high-level Arab prisoner with, "If you don't talk to us, we will deliver you to Israel". Her fanatical pursuit of Bin Laden helps to neutralise ordinary moral qualms. Much more ominous is her partner, a young, bearded CIA agent who masters perfectly the art of passing glibly from torture to friendliness once the victim is broken (lighting his cigarette and sharing jokes). There is something deeply disturbing in how, later, he changes from a torturer in jeans to a well-dressed Washington bureaucrat. This is normalisation at its purest and most efficient – there is a little unease, more about the hurt sensitivity than about ethics, but the job has to be done. This awareness of the torturer's hurt sensitivity as the (main) human cost of torture ensures that the film is not cheap rightwing propaganda: the psychological complexity is depicted so that liberals can enjoy the film without feeling guilty. This is why Zero Dark Thirty is much worse than 24, where at least Jack Bauer breaks down at the series finale.

The debate about whether waterboarding is torture or not should be dropped as an obvious nonsense: why, if not by causing pain and fear of death, does waterboarding make hardened terrorist-suspects talk? The replacement of the word "torture" with "enhanced interrogation technique" is an extension of politically correct logic: brutal violence practised by the state is made publicly acceptable when language is changed.

The most obscene defence of the film is the claim that Bigelow rejects cheap moralism and soberly presents the reality of the anti-terrorist struggle, raising difficult questions and thus compelling us to think (plus, some critics add, she "deconstructs" feminine cliches – Maya displays no sentimentality, she is tough and dedicated to her task like men). But with torture, one should not "think". A parallel with rape imposes itself here: what if a film were to show a brutal rape in the same neutral way, claiming that one should avoid cheap moralism and start to think about rape in all its complexity? Our guts tell us that there is something terribly wrong here; I would like to live in a society where rape is simply considered unacceptable, so that anyone who argues for it appears an eccentric idiot, not in a society where one has to argue against it. The same goes for torture: a sign of ethical progress is the fact that torture is "dogmatically" rejected as repulsive, without any need for argument.

So what about the "realist" argument: torture has always existed, so is it not better to at least talk publicly about it? This, exactly, is the problem. If torture was always going on, why are those in power now telling us openly about it? There is only one answer: to normalise it, to lower our ethical standards.

Torture saves lives? Maybe, but for sure it loses souls – and its most obscene justification is to claim that a true hero is ready to forsake his or her soul to save the lives of his or her countrymen. The normalisation of torture in Zero Dark Thirty is a sign of the moral vacuum we are gradually approaching. If there is any doubt about this, try to imagine a major Hollywood film depicting torture in a similar way 20 years ago. It is unthinkable.

I want to come back to this and think about it later...

[number8]

Seriously, what the shit are all these people talking about? The film is unambiguously anti-torture. I don't understand. Am I taking crazy pills? The first 10 minutes of the movie is pretty cut and dry on how fucking horrible and useless torture is. Did all these critics walk into the movie late? What the fuck is going on?!

[ledfloyd]

Seriously, what the shit are all these people talking about? The film is unambiguously anti-torture. I don't understand. Am I taking crazy pills? The first 10 minutes of the movie is pretty cut and dry on how fucking horrible and useless torture is. Did all these critics walk into the movie late? What the fuck is going on?!

This sounds incredibly arrogant, but I can't help but notice the majority of the people speaking out agains the portrayal of torture in the film aren't film critics which makes me question their understanding of form.

[dreamdead]

This sounds incredibly arrogant, but I can't help but notice the majority of the people speaking out agains the portrayal of torture in the film aren't film critics which makes me question their understanding of form.

There was a NYTimes Carpetbagger interview with a CIA employee who disparaged the film, arguing against it along the lines of "bin Laden was found as part of a consolidated effort, not from the efforts of one woman," which was fairly risible in tone. Nonetheless, Zizek's reasoning here is strange, which is perplexing since he's usually more astute in his film analysis. Depiction of events certainly does not mean authorization of events. Nonetheless, don't Maya and Dan secure some information from the first torture? My memory of the film's opening tells me something of the kind happened there. And is there any way that admitting that some level of information, however meager when weighed against the onslaught of useless sputtering, isn't an endorsement of the most extreme processes...?

I do admit to thinking that Maya's tears at the end record some kind of simultaneous if not ambivalent acceptance and criticism of the protocol that led to bin Laden.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Isn't the argument that the heroine quickly acclimatizes herself to torture, has no problem getting subordinates to beat detainees for information, gains vital information by threatening a renewal of the torture program to the prisoner at the lunch, and finds evidence from years before gained during torture sessions? I think the confusion comes from the fact that torture does seem to supply evidence, and some people weigh that utilitarian function (torturing one to save many) against the film's noisome depiction of torture. Bigelow presents the material dispassionately enough that pro-torture people could see it as a tacit endorsement (we got 'im! oo-rah!), while anti-torture people could see it as a depiction of torture's limitations and general awfulness.

[Kurosawa Fan]

It's also worth noting that key evidence comes after the torture program has been eradicated from a man who is perfectly willing to talk to them when interrogated. I found that scene to be a pretty strong anti-torture message, especially since no information of value came from interrogations in which torture was shown explicitly.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Though I will say I think the film refrains from making a declarative statement in regards to the effectiveness and necessity of torture in these types of scenarios, which is something I appreciated.

[Dead & Messed Up]

It's also worth noting that key evidence comes after the torture program has been eradicated from a man who is perfectly willing to talk to them when interrogated. I found that scene to be a pretty strong anti-torture message, especially since no information of value came from interrogations in which torture was shown explicitly.

This was my favorite part of the movie. Eight years of sticking Arabs in boxes gets you a courier's fake name. One night of bribing a dude with cars gets you a phone number, a location, a compound, and Osama.

[Robby P]

This entire torture debate is so asinine. I wish people would stop using this movie to push their political agendas.

[DavidSeven]

I wonder which BP nominated producer "encouraged" him to write the piece?

/cynic

But seriously, even if you could tie the earlier torture scenes directly to bin Laden's death, you can't convince me that the film firmly takes the position that killing bin Laden really accomplished anything of tangible societal benefit. It leaves that open as it does with several other questions it encourages the audience to ask itself. If you're not asking yourself something along the lines of "well, where did all this really get us?" then you're not doing it right.

Edit: Robby puts it more succinctly and just as accurately.

[number8]

Nonetheless, don't Maya and Dan secure some information from the first torture? My memory of the film's opening tells me something of the kind happened there.

They didn't, which I think is the point of the sequence. Ammar al-Baluchi is the first guy they interrogated, and he almost slipped, by revealing the name of a day in a state of deliriousness, but then he steeled himself and started reciting names of days of a week. The sequence is weirdly sympathetic to him, and almost paints Chastain as a villain. They only found out about Abu Ahmed after they took Ammar out to lunch and tricked him into revealing the name of an old friend, not by force. Every essential information that led to Bin Laden in the third act were all procured after the change to the Obama administration, and they were through bribes and research.

I really think it's a case of people applying an action-thriller narrative (and perhaps Bigelow is somewhat complicit in making the film's tone that way) to the story that makes them forget or don't notice that most of the movie show the CIA having nothing, just following the same trail and reacting to any meager information that comes in.

This was my favorite part of the movie. Eight years of sticking Arabs in boxes gets you a courier's fake name. One night of bribing a dude with cars gets you a phone number, a location, a compound, and Osama.

Basically this.