Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty

I don't particularly care what she writes in a newspaper editorial. If I want to know what I think about a movie, I watch the movie. Which I did. I'm not concerned with anything else.

I also don't put a lot of stock in after-the-fact comments from a director about how smart and insightful and important their movie is. Bigelow isn't the first movie director to have an inflated sense of the importance of her body of work.

Reading comprehension fail. Much of the information received from torture was dubious. That's not an opinion, either. That's a fact.

She gave you a conception (not necessarily her complete conception) of what the process was in extremely condensed scenes for a movie to largely fictional characters. Every single thing shown in that scene happened to at least one prisoner at one time or another. Just because she didn't choose to show extraordinary rendition, death or someone getting a Prince Albert doesn't mean she's saying that didn't happen. That's your assumption, but one that you're projecting and it's neither a reasonable nor a valid assumption.

IMO (this is an opinion), any attempt to make the torture scenes longer, more brutal or attempting not to omit anything would do nothing but detract from the movie. All anyone would focus on is the torture, which isn't the primary story. It'd also be about a 10 hour movie.

I dunno. This seems another instance of bringing your own baggage to the film. Torture wasn't awesome in this movie. I watched this movie and was ashamed of my country time and time again. I watched this movie, and saw the scant info they obtained via torture or the latent threat of torture was trumped by info obtained from other sources. I watched this movie and saw that despite all the torture, time and time again, it proved ineffective to prevent further terror attacks. I watched this film, and alongside some fleeting elation when they bagged UBL, found myself leaving the theater thinking that his death wasn't remotely worth the cost of our principles.

Her complete conception is what's on the screen. I don't judge Hemingway by what he was thinking about putting on the page. Also, I'm actually baffled why you brought up the fact that his happens to fictional characters; are you saying that she "condensed" a lot of torture into one detainee?

That she chooses to ignore extraordinary rendition or Prince Alberts or what-have-you is not an assumption on my part, it is literally not present in the film. Do you think that she was unaware of these things that she was filming? That somehow it escaped her notice? I'm not assuming anything other than that she made a conscious choice not to include those aspects in her movie about the war on terror. I'm not going to stand in judgment over her on it, but I am going to point out that the movie reflects her perspective and she is in control of what she put in. She chose not to. That's picking a side, regardless of what else you might think about it.

The point is that none of those things have a place in the film. Why is that so hard to comprehend?

So we shouldn't seriously criticize a movie that's being positioned publicly as serious by the people who made it, the press promoting it, viewers who watch it, and the critics reviewing it because all serious people know it isn't a serious movie?

That's a strawman.

The movie isn't a platonic ideal that flowed through Katherine Bigelow onto celluloid.

That's correct. You should criticize it as though it's a serious movie if you watched it and thought it was serious. I didn't. There's no point taking other peoples' reactions to it into account when forming your own opinion.

So it's a well-made thriller that has no bearing on the real world. That's my opinion of it.

o.O

So we should judge Birth of a Nation only on its technical and artistic merits as a piece of drama?

I think ya'll have some sort of stick up your ass because Bigelow didn't waste hours of your life point-blank telling you that torture is bad. Personally, I go to be entertained rather than being lectured, but I guess some people need that kind of thing from their movies.

And if someone thinks Bigelow is actually endorsing torture? Well, that just makes them a fucking moron, because the movie says no such thing. Of course, that's just my opinion. As Dennis Miller would say, I could be wrong. But I'm not.

Basically, Tom Chick's popcorn movie dodge has legs. And it just goes in cycles from there. The serious aspects are the only reasons anyone saw the movie, but they can't be taken as serious when assessing its quality because it's not a serious movie. You are insufficiently ironic and detached and yet insufficiently passionate about the pure moviegoing experience!

I mean, for chrissakes, mono and Blackadar and extarbags all liked it and yet clearly got completely different movies when they walked through the door. Blackadar's barely had torture, and mono's made him ashamed of torture and the US, and extarbags was watching a grindhouse movie do Muslimploitation in good fun. It is not for mere mortals to judge the essence of this chimera.

I think I'm done here. I honestly don't even know how else to tell you you've missed my point completely.

Everyone is a victim of their own experience. Seen worse. Done worse.

Plus, I've avidly read (and watched vids) about our "enhanced interrogation techniques" for the past few years, so I'm well aware of what really happened. In fact, I just completed The Reluctant Spy prior to going to see this. Nothing that Bigelow showed me was shocking in the least. Don't think for one second I approve of such techniques though.

You've done worse than the "enhanced interrogation" in the movie?

Oh, I know what your point is. But it's just more than a little bit presumptuous to assume that Bigelow's "complete conception" (your words!) of torture is what is onscreen. If you think that, then it follows that you think that Bigelow is some sort of mouth-breathing moron with no idea what's going on (at best) or an apologist and advocate for torture (at worst). Either way there is little room to be had for any rational discussion. A more reasonable person would think about things like the story, the medium, audience expectations, profit, editing and the hundred other things that would easily explain why someone would choose not to focus their movie on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Frankly, I applaud it for it's unflinching portrayal of the final battle, where people don't hesitate to pull the trigger. The portrayal of that battle is far more accurate of such an action than I've ever seen in any other movie.

I'm not sure what that has to do with assessing the particular distortions being criticized. I haven't seen the argument presented as the torture was or was not vile enough in itself. I heard all the build up of the torture in the movie and the scenes didn't leave me squeamish and I'm a pretty squeamish guy.

That is not a subject for discussion.

Don't be obtuse. You should form your own opinions of things, including Birth of a Nation if you like, and I'm sure you're perfectly capable of evaluating it on both its craft and its message without merely talking endlessly about what third parties have thought of it.

So does the movie apologize and advocate for torture without the galaxy-sized benefit of the doubt you give her or not? Because it sounds like you're confused about that.

What, exactly, is novel about this? What is it that people flinch at? Applauding craftsmanship is one thing, but lauding American filmmakers for not batting an eye at gritty violence is not much of an endorsement.

But hey, I'm seeing it tomorrow more than likely, and since I have gone on many nighttime raids maybe I'll enjoy that part.

It doesn't count if you pay someone to do it to you.

Don't be ridiculous. Of course Bigelow can't directly translate her thoughts on torture from her brain to mine, but what she decides to put in a movie she's directing is generally pretty fucking telling. The rest of the assumptions and projections you make following this assumption are choking off any rational discussion. I don't think she's a moron and I don't think she's an advocate for torture. I do think she is taking on the role of a "Serious Director" to cloak her view of torture. This is why people come out of the movie saying "it was well handled," because lies of omission aren't readily apparent.

As for your last sentence, I'm vaguely confused what any of that has to about anything. Does the gritty realism of "Saving Private Ryan" somehow mean it was not a paean to the Greatest Generation?

So where did all that "build up" come from and is it her fault because you didn't get squeamish?

Seriously folks, would the movie been better if we watched the prisoner get waterboarded for 15 minutes, watched him repeatedly retch? Did anyone want to see him choke on his vomit? Would watching someone get their face wrapped in reynolds wrap, have a hole poked in the middle of it and then waterboarded (this is far more effective than just the rag technique) be enjoyable? Would it be good screen-time to try to depict the hallucinations derived from sleep deprivation? Watch someone scream in agony from joint pain after being put in various stress positions for hours on end? For fuck's sake, is this really what people think should have been depicted in the movie?

Isn't Tom the guy who called it "an important document of the war on terror?"

For what it's worth, I saw it because my wife wanted to see it. She wanted to see it because she had heard it was a good thriller. Neither one of us saw it because we were jonesing for a gritty, insightful, and hyper-realistic look at the war on terror, and that's good news because that's not what we got.

FWIW, I think the clearest statement of how I ultimately felt about ZDT is my comparison to 24. The torture element is, imo, omnipresent and massively in favor, and also nothing short of ludicrous in terms of its importance and effectiveness. So it takes place in a fictional universe very like the one that 24 takes place in, the main similarity to the real one being that both have at one time had a villain named Osama Bin Laden. The other characters are fictional, the events are largely fictional except for the very broad strokes, and given all that I can set aside how distasteful real-life torture is and enjoy the movie for what it is. I like a lot of movies that have a lot of things in them that are even more despicable than torture, and ZDT isn't particularly any closer to reality than any of those are, which I don't have much trouble sussing out. I don't like the torture scenes, but they don't ruin my enjoyment of the rest of the movie. Others may feel otherwise and that's fine too of course.

Also, are there any bonafide Muslimsploitation movies? If not, there should be.

At this point I can't tell if you're talking about the movie or writing your own. But suffice to say, no. While Matt Taibbi hyperbolically suggested as much in keeping with the film's propaganda, what people were saying was a serious consideration of the contextual weighting of the use of torture. As in, "is this deeper than 24" and apparently the answer is "no", "what torture?", or "this film should be called All Quiet In Guantanamo Bay, cause torture got served".

No.

Is that what you think I'm saying? Because it's at least not what I'm intending to say, nor was that part of my narrative critique earlier. Anyway, it's time I think for..

No, don't back up. You said that was her complete conception of torture. Those are your words. Obviously then it follows she's either ignorant or an apologist. I'll let you choose which brush to paint her with.

I'll take the more reasonable and less judgemental route. What she put in the movie was what was necessary to tell the story, nothing more, nothing less. It wasn't a movie about torture. It was a movie about the hunt for OBL, of which enhanced interrogation techniques were a very small part. To go even further, it was about the experiences of one CIA analyst's hunt for OBL. The analyst in question wasn't a main interrogator. As a result, expecting a profound statement from the movie regarding such techniques is quite unreasonable.

Now if the movie was focused around the specific intelligence from one tortured prisoner or one of the main interrogators, then perhaps you should expect some sort of profound statement regarding enhanced interrogation techniques. I have a feeling that we will see that movie sometime in the future. But this was not that movie.

I like Jack Nicholson too, though I much prefer About Schmidt. It's just not a story I'm willing to tell at this juncture. Suffice it to say that war sucks.

That is what you guys are saying, at least in part - because Bigelow didn't depict the enhanced interrogation techniques in the worst possible light, somehow she's now implicitly approving torture.

You said it yourself, repeatedly in your first post:

Now there's no doubt we did get some actionable intelligence through enhanced interrogation techniques (torture). We got a boatload of shit, too and both are mentioned in the movie.

So in a movie about the hunt for OBL, there are 4 choices as it relates to torture. Don't show it at all (whitewash). Show it in a very positive light - and I'm going to disagree that showing someone getting waterboarded and shitting on themselves is in a positive light. Show it in a neutral way in order to further the story (which is exactly what was done). Or show it in all its true horror, which I described above. You guys don't like the first three options. So do you really want to see onscreen what I described? Do you know what that even fucking looks like? Do you know that even the sounds of that give you nightmares for years to come? You don't want to see that. The American public doesn't want to see that. The average American simply is not ready or capable of dealing with that. At some point the US public will need to come to terms with it, but I don't think this is the right time to do it. Platoon was made about 20 years after the setting of the movie and 15 years after the Vietnam war. This country needs a few more years to absorb what happened to it and what it did in response before being able to fully reconcile with it.

That you think I was backing up speaks more to your sense of confrontation and competitiveness than I ever could.

Then we'll call that move That is Not a Subject for Discussion.

Yep, quoting people their exact words is now "being disturbed or arguing in extraordinary bad faith". Gotcha. Or maybe people just didn't realize the bullshit you were spouting and now that it's coming back to them, they have no idea what to do with it. MorMolecule certainly doesn't, given his inability to explain his own words.

So you're "going to see the movie tomorrow", yet on the very first post of this thread you say that the movie advocates torture. So do you have no clue what you're talking about since you haven't seen it? Or are you going to reward a movie that advocates torture by seeing it multiple times? Either way, that's some might odd and not just a little hypocritical behavior.

That you presume that the movie shows everything Bigelow knows or understands about enhanced interrogation techniques speaks more to your lack of common sense.


As for the other part of your post and those of LK? To put it succinctly, if defending you and yours makes me subject to your ridicule, then fuck both of you.

I think - aside from the added temperature added by arguing about people's imputations about one another and so on - that the anti-Bigelow perspective has a lot to do with thinking that an effectively psuedo-realistic filmmaker who also trades professionally on the perception of her films as realism has created an extra onus for herself to be realistic and even representative - the latter part being where some of this disagreement about how accurately contextualized the depiction of torture ought to be is coming from - which she never really intended to live up to because she doesn't agree she created any such onus.

Hence the annoyance at someone who's having their cake and eating it too, pseudorealism wise. And, it's pretty clear by this point who agrees and disagrees that Bigelow has created such an onus/image/reputation complex, and will therefore fundamentally disagree about all the other judgements that flow from that one.

My views on all that are mostly coming from THL, although obviously in that case reputation/image going into it wasn't a big factor and there wasn't this whole side-question of plot fictionalization, which I don't really have a strong opinion on either way but object to a bit on aesthetic grounds.

I tend to agree with this, Jason. I don't hold that a filmmakers' reputation or image should cloud the interpretation of the film. A film is what it is. For example, Oliver Stone is probably the most controversial filmmakers in my lifetime with a massive conspiracy and liberal bias, yet World Trade Center has absolutely zero bias in it. The film is what it is and if someone thinks that there's a liberal or conspiracy bias in WTC, then that's their bias showing and not one that's actually in the film or intended by the maker. If someone thinks that Bigelow does "realism" films and therefore any depiction of torture in her movie must be what she thinks it realistic, then that's their misunderstanding and misconception of what the film is about or intends to say. In short, it's not Bigelow's fault that some people are projecting their feelings on to the film...especially those who haven't even seen it!

Well, LK's going to see it, I'll probably catch it somewhere for free/cheap later, and in both cases I think it's partly a reflection of a negative judgement on the filmmaker which can be added to fairly objective descriptions about the film in a way that isn't unfair or prejudiced (but, obviously, seeing it allows one to judge certain things properly.)

There's also a side issue of whether or not (and/or how, and/or how much) one judges a filmmaker/artist as a part of judging the film/art. I think from various QT3/BF conversations in the past there're posters holding to both perspectives and both are arguably valid. I tend to think in practice one's judgement of the artist matters even if one'd prefer to judge the work entirely on its own terms

That's right, he called it "a chronicle of one of this country's most important decades".

I didn't think he thought of it as a popcorn movie either.

I'm betting it's a dual description designed to fit either definition, which is exactly the line he ended up walking last time. But that's all secondary now that we've got our "Bigelow's pretense to authenticity is coming out of your crazy heads" guy crossed with some kind of "you can't handle the truth" bullshit. Tom's shitposting is obsolete.

"She made a movie about the final stages of the USSR's invasion of Germany, of which mass rape is a minor part."

So to review:

1) Torture actually wasn't necessary to capture bin Laden.
2) The movie pretends it was.

So yeah, implicitly advocates torture. That it was scripted out before the actual capture doesn't change this. How serious the movie intends to be doesn't change this. Don't advocate torture or drowning kittens. This is not hard. Also, if you're making a "realistic" film you are extra-obliged to not misinform your audience. We're not talking Behind Enemy Lines here.

One one hand, it's pretty exasperating how only entertainers catch shit for whitewashing what government officials got away with. On the other, go fuck yourself, Bigelow.

Is this me?