8:59 pm - 01/12/2013
HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — The critics agree “Zero Dark Thirty” — a film depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden — is gritty and moving.
The movie is also filled with scenes of disturbing and graphic torture and has many people upset. But not about the images and what they depict — what the images suggest.
The film has garnered five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. But it’s also beset with controversy and criticism.
CBS2 and KCAL9 Political Reporter Dave Bryan went to a theater in Hollywood Friday evening and spoke to a group of people who say the movie glorifies torture.
While the film has been playing in Los Angeles since mid-December, it opened nationwide Friday.
A small group — protesting with hoods over their heads — stood outside the theater with signs denouncing torture, drones and indefinite detention.
The signs prominently listed that group’s website as worldcantwait.net.
Another group, the interfaith United For Justice and Peace, say that two Hollywood stars — namely Martin Sheen and Ed Asner — have issued an appeal to other actors to vote their conscience on whether to reward the movie with a win on Oscar night.
Bryan also reports three prominent Senators — Dianne Feinstein, John McCain and Carl Levin — have also written a letter of protest to the film’s studio.
Critics of the movie say the torture scenes suggest the United States would never have captured or killed bin Laden without torturing detainees.
Protester Luis Rivas said, “It directly and implicitly says that torture works and that the United States has successfully carried out its agenda using torture.”
Bryan reports that some current and former CIA personnel have stated that “enhanced interrogation techniques” did lead to vital information in the manhunt.
Phil Mudd, a former CIA deputy director, said “The information I saw derived from the detainees we had in CIA facilities — and that includes detainees where they used enhanced techniques — was invaluable. I would call it crucial.”
Jessica Chastain, Oscar-nominated star of the movie, even admits she grappled with torture taking center stage in the film. “I had trouble sleeping to be honest,” she said. “I had a lot of anxiety about whether we were telling the right story … there are some very difficult scenes in this movie. We show very intense interrogations.”
Director Kathryn Bigelow told “CBS This Morning”, “I thought it was important we told a true story. And it’s part of the history. It’s controversial but it’s part of the history.”
Bryan said the Hollywood protest was not well-received by everyone who walked by. Said one man, “The movie was brilliant. I suggest everyone go see it. I mean, the movie doesn’t celebrate torture. It obviously doesn’t. The movie is about something more deep than that.”
Said protester Rivas, “No one wants to see this movie banned. That’s the last thing we want. People should see this movie. In my opinion. But torture should be put in context and this movie glorifies it.”
Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, wrote in a statement, “‘Zero Dark Thirty’ does not advocate torture. To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and [writer] Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie. We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda. This film should be judged free of partisanship. To punish an artist’s right of expression is abhorrent.”
I also found this on Youtube:
Oscar-Nominated ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Picketed By People Who Say Movie Advocates Torture
HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — The critics agree “Zero Dark Thirty” — a film depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden — is gritty and moving.
The movie is also filled with scenes of disturbing and graphic torture and has many people upset. But not about the images and what they depict — what the images suggest.
The film has garnered five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. But it’s also beset with controversy and criticism.
CBS2 and KCAL9 Political Reporter Dave Bryan went to a theater in Hollywood Friday evening and spoke to a group of people who say the movie glorifies torture.
While the film has been playing in Los Angeles since mid-December, it opened nationwide Friday.
A small group — protesting with hoods over their heads — stood outside the theater with signs denouncing torture, drones and indefinite detention.
The signs prominently listed that group’s website as worldcantwait.net.
Another group, the interfaith United For Justice and Peace, say that two Hollywood stars — namely Martin Sheen and Ed Asner — have issued an appeal to other actors to vote their conscience on whether to reward the movie with a win on Oscar night.
Bryan also reports three prominent Senators — Dianne Feinstein, John McCain and Carl Levin — have also written a letter of protest to the film’s studio.
Critics of the movie say the torture scenes suggest the United States would never have captured or killed bin Laden without torturing detainees.
Protester Luis Rivas said, “It directly and implicitly says that torture works and that the United States has successfully carried out its agenda using torture.”
Bryan reports that some current and former CIA personnel have stated that “enhanced interrogation techniques” did lead to vital information in the manhunt.
Phil Mudd, a former CIA deputy director, said “The information I saw derived from the detainees we had in CIA facilities — and that includes detainees where they used enhanced techniques — was invaluable. I would call it crucial.”
Jessica Chastain, Oscar-nominated star of the movie, even admits she grappled with torture taking center stage in the film. “I had trouble sleeping to be honest,” she said. “I had a lot of anxiety about whether we were telling the right story … there are some very difficult scenes in this movie. We show very intense interrogations.”
Director Kathryn Bigelow told “CBS This Morning”, “I thought it was important we told a true story. And it’s part of the history. It’s controversial but it’s part of the history.”
Bryan said the Hollywood protest was not well-received by everyone who walked by. Said one man, “The movie was brilliant. I suggest everyone go see it. I mean, the movie doesn’t celebrate torture. It obviously doesn’t. The movie is about something more deep than that.”
Said protester Rivas, “No one wants to see this movie banned. That’s the last thing we want. People should see this movie. In my opinion. But torture should be put in context and this movie glorifies it.”
Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, wrote in a statement, “‘Zero Dark Thirty’ does not advocate torture. To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and [writer] Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie. We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda. This film should be judged free of partisanship. To punish an artist’s right of expression is abhorrent.”
I can't embed the accompanying vid but you can find it at the Source.
I also found this on Youtube:
There's no insistence or special emphasis on it, imo
It's p much Oscar campaign politics at work, at this stage
which is kind of a back handed endorsement of the method. also its not at all accurate
some people need to learn about reading between the lines.
you're asking wayyyy too much
Fine words, those: Depiction is not endorsement. To which I respond, “Yes — and no.”
It depends on the context, doesn’t it? The torture in Zero Dark Thirty does not take place in a vacuum. For the umpteenth time, it is only through waterboarding, sleep deprivation, etc. (as well as a bit of trickery made possible by torture), that the CIA operatives learn of Bin Laden’s courier’s existence — the first mention of the name underscored with portentous low strings to suggest the stirrings of something big. There are still two hours to go in Zero Dark Thirty, but it all leads from that moment.
I’ve read that the CIA knew about the courier before that particular interrogation even took place. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But in terms of the movie’s narrative, there’s no ambiguity here, folks. None whatsoever. “Enhanced interrogation” got results.
And the filmmakers present President Obama only from their characters’ point of view. He’s not the executive who made the hunt for Bin Laden a priority once more, after George W. Bush said he no longer gave much thought to the man. He’s the guy who shut down the black sites where much of the valuable intel was being gathered. Omitted, of course, are the many CIA employees who vigorously argued against torture on the grounds that it didn’t work. Omitted are any depictions of the maimed, the dead — or the innocent.
What’s that, you say? Bigelow makes the torture horrible, sickening, soul-killing? No argument. But that’s not inconsistent with the view of torture’s strongest proponent in the last executive branch. Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney, didn’t say the coming conflict with al Qaeda would be rockets-red-glare-bombs-bursting-in-air stuff. He said that to win, we would have “to go to the dark side.” It’s no libel on the filmmakers to say that Zero Dark Thirty is a Cheney-ite movie.
But are Bigelow and Boal true Cheney-ites, neocons? I’d be surprised if they voted for Bush. It’s quite possible that while working quickly to assemble Zero Dark Thirty, they didn’t fully understand the message they were sending. It’s even possible — as Dan Froomkin suggests — that they simply made a traditional Hollywood narrative choice: The film’s grueling first act needed a good pay-off, and having Maya (Jessica Chastain) and Dan (Jason Clarke) use torture as a means of tricking a captured terrorist into revealing the existence of the courier is a damn good one."
http://www.vulture.com/2013/01/zero-dar
It's more complex than ppl are making it out to be
But between Life of Pi and Lincoln, #Team Life of Pi
Lincoln will snatch everything obv
DING DING DING
legit words spoken by a person i almost had sex with.
Um, wow. yikes.
I actually had to put my had over my mouth from bursting out into laughter at his cameo.