Zero Dark Thirty

by Petrichor Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:09 am

A decent movie raising more deeper questions about torture, and the price we pay for what finally seems a meager return. Bigelow has fully used it as a puff piece for the Agency with their cooperation. I did not detect a whole lot of Obama favors - movie seemed fairly neutral in its dry recital of documentary style events. It was a bit boring for me, since I had followed the story closely. Variants of Jack Nicholson's dialogue about "And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall." rings true as a paean to the bureaucratic edifice we have built in this country in the form of the national security apparatus.

Couple of interesting moments:

1. When the CIA deputy director is briefing the Natnl Sec Advisor (?) and hitting roadblocks, he almost threatens the administration about weighing the risks of not doing something. It almost feels like the Obama administration was scared into sanctioning and pursuing the CIA lead on this one.
2. Maya the analyst (Jessica Chastain) struggles to get resources and credit and goes several layers above her paygrade when she declares to the director 'I'm the mofo that found the place, sir'

by bw Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:14 am

i just don't feel sufficiently motivated to check this movie out despite all the oohs and aahs.

by Idéfix Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:17 am

I liked the dinner scene at the Islamabad Marriott. I had a sense of foreboding about that conversation. Not because I remembered the specifics of what was to come, but there was a way of conveying that foreboding that was interesting.

I wish they had spent more time on the doctor with the polio vaccination ruse. Considering that he is still in Pakistani prison for helping eliminate what the Paki establishment agrees was a mortal threat to their own country, I was hoping they would use the opportunity to highlight his plight to American moviegoers.

by Petrichor Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:20 am

bw wrote:i just don't feel sufficiently motivated to check this movie out despite all the oohs and aahs.

If I didn't have someone that is positively breathless and gushing by the cia analyst Maya declaring, 'I was recruited straight out of high school, sir and i haven't done anything else other than hunt UBL', I probably would have waited for the small screen ad nauseum reruns, too.

by Idéfix Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:22 am

atcg wrote:
bw wrote:i just don't feel sufficiently motivated to check this movie out despite all the oohs and aahs.

If I didn't have someone that is positively breathless and gushing by the cia analyst Maya declaring, 'I was recruited straight out of high school, sir and i haven't done anything else other than hunt UBL', I probably would have waited for the small screen ad nauseum reruns, too.

That's one part of the movie I didn't understand. What was she recruited out of high school? The director asks her "do you know why" and she says "I don't think I am allowed to talk about that." What's that all about?

by Petrichor Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:26 am

panini press wrote: but there was a way of conveying that foreboding that was interesting.

I wish they had spent more time on the doctor with the polio vaccination ruse. Considering that he is still in Pakistani prison for helping eliminate what the Paki establishment agrees was a mortal threat to their own country, I was hoping they would use the opportunity to highlight his plight to American moviegoers.

I think I must have missed the director's touch with the Marriott scene - what did you notice?

As for the doctor, the matter is possibly still *sub-judice* as they say....there are some foia docs up at judicial watch on what exactly the Agency shared with Ms. Bigelow.

by Idéfix Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:31 am

atcg wrote:
panini press wrote: but there was a way of conveying that foreboding that was interesting.

I wish they had spent more time on the doctor with the polio vaccination ruse. Considering that he is still in Pakistani prison for helping eliminate what the Paki establishment agrees was a mortal threat to their own country, I was hoping they would use the opportunity to highlight his plight to American moviegoers.

I think I must have missed the director's touch with the Marriott scene - what did you notice?

As for the doctor, the matter is possibly still *sub-judice* as they say....there are some foia docs up at judicial watch on what exactly the Agency shared with Ms. Bigelow.

Both the women are tense -- almost uncharacteristically so for agents -- at the meeting. Maya is late and quite flustered, and they are missing the guy who is stuck some place else. May be I was just imagining it, but I expected something bad to happen right away.

by Obnoxious Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:40 am

I HATED Hurt Locker. No way am I going to watch this.

by truthbetold Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:03 am

I liked this docu drama. I feel larry ellison's money was put to good use.
I left the movie with the impression torture worked. The whole idea that torture is fruitless is counterfactual. People break at different levels but torture in many cases produces results. A civilized society does not torture because it is the wrong way to extract information, it can be misused against innocent people, it can be used as a weapon of terror by people in power.

In a cinematic entertainment, this movie would not get too many stars but it is great as a political account of recent history.

Leon panetta was known for flowery language. 'Mofo' by maya was for dramatic introduction to grab attention.

by bw Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:56 pm

bigelow's defense of the indefensible

Bigelow now finds herself in the unenviable position of claiming that
her film, which clearly offers a justification for torture and other war
crimes, does not advocate torture. One can only conclude from her
ludicrous and incoherent LA Times piece that Bigelow was unprepared for criticism and protest.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/18/bige-j18.html

here's her defense:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-0116-bigelow-zero-dark-thirty-20130116,0,5937785.story

by bw Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:15 pm

Silk Smitha wrote:I HATED Hurt Locker. No way am I going to watch this.

another movie i have never been tempted to borrow from the library so far.

by Guest Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:09 pm

movie is good, even if you realize some scenes were purely for the dramatic effects, it still portrays how much must have gone behind the real story.

by Petrichor Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:20 am

bw wrote:bigelow's defense of the indefensible

Bigelow now finds herself in the unenviable position of claiming that
her film, which clearly offers a justification for torture and other war
crimes, does not advocate torture. One can only conclude from her
ludicrous and incoherent LA Times piece that Bigelow was unprepared for criticism and protest.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/18/bige-j18.html

here's her defense:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-0116-bigelow-zero-dark-thirty-20130116,0,5937785.story

Yes, it was a puff piece and no it was not a defense of torture. The style was more documentary and neutral. Bigelow leaves it to the audience to draw conclusions. If the socialist website (wsws dot org) jumps to the conclusion that she is a quasi-fascist, it is simply polemical.

by bw Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:41 am

atcg wrote:
bw wrote:bigelow's defense of the indefensible

Bigelow now finds herself in the unenviable position of claiming that
her film, which clearly offers a justification for torture and other war
crimes, does not advocate torture. One can only conclude from her
ludicrous and incoherent LA Times piece that Bigelow was unprepared for criticism and protest.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/18/bige-j18.html

here's her defense:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-0116-bigelow-zero-dark-thirty-20130116,0,5937785.story

Yes, it was a puff piece and no it was not a defense of torture. The style was more documentary and neutral. Bigelow leaves it to the audience to draw conclusions. If the socialist website (wsws dot org) jumps to the conclusion that she is a quasi-fascist, it is simply polemical.

from more "respectable" reviewers...

Some wrote in and said that all Bigelow was doing was telling an
"objective" story and leaving it to us to sort it out. That's bullshit.
All storytelling is a series of editorial decisions. You decide what to
leave in, what to leave out. In doing so you reveal a point of view.
They kept to a very narrow storyline that ended in the triumphant
capture of bin Laden. The posters don't say, "WE SOLD OUR SOULS TO GET
HIM," they read, "THE GREATEST MANHUNT IN HISTORY." There's no Das Boot-style shock-bummer ending where Maya steps off her transport plane and gets blown to hell.
My last comment is going to be this: To all the people defending the
movie, what do you think Dick Cheney's review is going to be? Isn't it
just a crazy coincidence that he's probably going to love it?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/zero-dark-thirty-is-osama-bin-ladens-last-victory-over-america-20130116

The answers given by Bigelow and Boal to justify the normalizing of torture in Zero Dark Thirty
have been vain, wheedling, and dodgy. They are a clever pair of
filmmakers, without political or moral depth, but here, perhaps more
than they realized, they were playing with fire. Zero Dark Thirty
integrates torture into the war on terror. It arranges our view of the
success of torture in a way that aborts thought. It omits all evidence
that after September 11 there were courageous Americans with a
conscience who worked against terrorism even as they protested against
torture. The filmmakers have said that their approach is "journalistic,"
and by that they seem to mean that the film imitates what journalism
has become. Unfortunately this is true. In fact, the film resembles much
of the journalism of the war on terror: cool, wised-up, sure that there
are many points of view out there, but "embedded" with American troops
because what choice do we have? The film betrays a weak control of its
historical materials, but it loves Americans for what we suffered twelve
years ago. That will be enough for many. But the deadpan narrative of
extrajudicial killings is not going to be experienced in the same way
everywhere. It will play differently in Pakistan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/torture-zero-dark-thirty_b_2512767.html

by Petrichor Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:16 am

bw wrote:

from more "respectable" reviewers...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/zero-dark-thirty-is-osama-bin-ladens-last-victory-over-america-20130116

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/torture-zero-dark-thirty_b_2512767.html

I happen to/choose to believe the narrative here - http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/movies/jessica-chastain-in-zero-dark-thirty.html

"But it is an article of faith in “Zero Dark Thirty” that viewers are capable of filling in the blanks, managing narrative complexity and confronting their complicity. This is unusual territory for American moviegoers habituated to an industry that preaches simplified morality even as it turns torture into entertainment."

"This juxtaposition of the abuse and the massacre suggests, in cinematic terms, that torture does not save lives. It is only later, when Dan and Maya lie to Ammar, sit across from him at a table, talk to him like a human being and give him food and a cigarette, that he offers them a potential lead."

"In reality there were those who objected to the way that detainees were handled. But this isn’t a movie about those who protested. This is about those who did not protest, who went along and who — while searching for a needle in a haystack — interrogated detainees deemed “enemy combatants” in what the former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld described as “a war like none other our nation has faced.” The movie shows the dark side of that war. It shows the unspeakable and lets us decide if the death of Bin Laden was worth the price we paid."

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:52 am

Why do liberals fight the fact tortureproduces results in some cases. do they feel adsitting to such a fact support torture?

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Jan 20, 2013 10:04 am

truthbetold wrote:Why do liberals fight the fact tortureproduces results in some cases. do they feel adsitting to such a fact support torture?

perhaps because there is a strong opposing view coming from within the community of former spies.

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:26 pm

Max,
If the spies claim is torture produces results in some cases, it is true.

It is not wise for liberals to deny facts of torture to push an agenda. The fight against torture is a question of sovietal use of human pain as a means to secure information or evidence . West always claimed societal maturity and advancement on their side when they criticized others on the morals.of torture. When the pain hit home both liberals and conservatives hide under need to save lives to allow usage of torture.

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:41 pm

truthbetold wrote:Max,
If the spies claim is torture produces results in some cases, it is true.

It is not wise for liberals to deny facts of torture to push an agenda. The fight against torture is a question of sovietal use of human pain as a means to secure information or evidence . West always claimed societal maturity and advancement on their side when they criticized others on the morals.of torture. When the pain hit home both liberals and conservatives hide under need to save lives to allow usage of torture.

but does it work?

by Idéfix Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:47 pm

The issue with the portrayal of torture in Zero Dark Thirty is the suggestion that the movie makes that information obtained through torture was useful in locating OBL. This suggestion runs counter to the claims of people involved in that manhunt. Bigelow can claim that she was portraying the attitudes of the CIA which was engaged in torture, not just the facts as they are known. But in her decision to portray those views without mentioning the dispute about the usefulness of the information extracted through torture leaves the film open to criticism.

by Hellsangel Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:59 pm

Enhanced interrogation techniques probably worked; no one wants to officially admit it.

What needs to play out in Pakistan is the fact that Bin Laden was comfortably living close to the Capital, while ISI and other government agencies looked the other way.

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:09 pm

panini press wrote:The issue with the portrayal of torture in Zero Dark Thirty is the suggestion that the movie makes that information obtained through torture was useful in locating OBL. This suggestion runs counter to the claims of people involved in that manhunt. Bigelow can claim that she was portraying the attitudes of the CIA which was engaged in torture, not just the facts as they are known. But in her decision to portray those views without mentioning the dispute about the usefulness of the information extracted through torture leaves the film open to criticism.

pp,
people involved in manhunt is an openended term. What does it mean? Is it one or two people associated with those activities? Is it a review team of cia? Is it a bunch obama leaning politicos who want to push their agenda?
there were prople who said useful information was provided by enhanced interrogation. They may be professionals or peole of other political persuation. Movie showed it worked. Vauge counters will fail to pursuade anyone.
The fact is torture works. Librrals should shoulder the responsibility to oppose torture despite possible information unearthed frkm it.

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:16 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
truthbetold wrote:Max,
If the spies claim is torture produces results in some cases, it is true.

It is not wise for liberals to deny facts of torture to push an agenda. The fight against torture is a question of sovietal use of human pain as a means to secure information or evidence . West always claimed societal maturity and advancement on their side when they criticized others on the morals.of torture. When the pain hit home both liberals and conservatives hide under need to save lives to allow usage of torture.

but does it work?

torture can influence some individuals to give out valuable information to authorities. Torture used with psychological tools bresks most people. Even hardened terrorists. Third world countries that depend on torture alone may not succeed but a well investigated organization that uses torture and psychology has much higher chance of success. Especially in manhunt cases. In operational cases, the other side changes tactics when operative get caught. So torture may or may not provide sufgivient information.

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:18 pm

truthbetold wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
truthbetold wrote:Max,
If the spies claim is torture produces results in some cases, it is true.

It is not wise for liberals to deny facts of torture to push an agenda. The fight against torture is a question of sovietal use of human pain as a means to secure information or evidence . West always claimed societal maturity and advancement on their side when they criticized others on the morals.of torture. When the pain hit home both liberals and conservatives hide under need to save lives to allow usage of torture.

but does it work?
torture can influence some individuals to give out valuable information to authorities. Torture used with psychological tools bresks most people. Even hardened terrorists. Third world countries that depend on torture alone may not succeed but a well investigated organization that uses torture and psychology has much higher chance of success. Especially in manhunt cases. In operational cases, the other side changes tactics when operative get caught. So torture may or may not provide sufgivient information.

people undergoing enormous pain and stress could also give out false information, information they really don't have just to get out of that situation. why this simple logic escapes pro-torture folks is baffling.

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:28 pm

Pp and max,
torture must be opposed on the principle that state cannot use physical pain to e xtract information from suspects. The dangers are: 1. Enemy can use toryure against our citizens. 2. Torture regimes generally degenerate into abuse by authorities. History of world is replete with stories of such abuse. No state so far has fpund the magic formula of using torture only against bad guys only. 3. Many despotic regimes have used torture both legal and illegal forms to extract confessions.from innocents.
West and us failed uphold their own stated principle of rule of law by allowing torture in many ways. Just like principles of secularism, west is opporttunistic in its application of human rights. It is easy to preach but difficult to follow.

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:30 pm

truthbetold wrote:Pp and max,
torture must be opposed on the principle that state cannot use physical pain to e xtract information from suspects. The dangers are: 1. Enemy can use toryure against our citizens. 2. Torture regimes generally degenerate into abuse by authorities. History of world is replete with stories of such abuse. No state so far has fpund the magic formula of using torture only against bad guys only. 3. Many despotic regimes have used torture both legal and illegal forms to extract confessions.from innocents.
West and us failed uphold their own stated principle of rule of law by allowing torture in many ways. Just like principles of secularism, west is opporttunistic in its application of human rights. It is easy to preach but difficult to follow.

moral arguments are fine, but how about information extracted under duress being unreliable or just plain wrong?

check this out:
http://www.wbur.org/2011/12/07/worcester-coerced-confession-i

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:32 pm

Max,
It is also possible that people tortured have no information or the methods can kill innocent individuals. That is a good reason to oppose torture. But it still does not negate the fact torture produces information in some cases.

by truthbetold Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:38 pm

Max,
The item 3 on my dangers list touches the point of confessions.

by Sponsored content

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty

Re: Zero Dark Thirty