A Guide to the 'Zero Dark Thirty' Torture Debate

Kathryn Bigelow's movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden isn't even out yet, and already people are sparring over?Zero Dark Thirty. Many critics (including our own Richard Lawson) have praised the film for its realism, but certain columnists are now insisting that it glorifies torture, and the critics are fighting back. The voices in this debate can be roughly divided into two camps: 1) the cinephiles who say that portraying torture cinematically isn't the same thing as endorsing it, and 2) the civil libertarians who say that Hollywood shouldn't be portraying the "good guys" engaged in acts of torture. Here's how everyone got so angry so fast, and how to talk about what everyone's talking about:

Phase 1: Critics got all effusive.

NY Film Critics Circle names Zero Dark Thirty as Best Film

? Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) December 3, 2012

Boston Society of Film Critics vote "Zero Dark Thirty" best film of 2012. #BSFC

? Ty Burr (@tyburr) December 9, 2012

'Zero Dark Thirty' Named Best Film By National Board of Review bit.ly/VE7N37

? Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 5, 2012

Apparently everyone who gets paid to size up movies loved this movie. Film critic organizations from the New York Film Critics Circle to the Boston Society of Film Critics to the National Board of Review have all placed?Zero Dark Thirty at the top of their 2012 lists. Early reviews admit that the torture scenes are brutal, but they argue that the film remains politically neutral on the subject.?"Zero Dark Thirty?is so pared to essentials that even politics are eliminated," writes The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy.?"There's essentially no?Bush?or?Cheney, no Iraq War, no?Obama?announcing the success of the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Laden's in-plain-sight Pakistani compound." And Bigelow and her screenwriting partner Mark Boal have been praised for their meticulous researched into the story behind the bin Laden raid. In a New York article out today, Mark Harris called the duo "probably our most prominent and least sentimental cultural custodians of the post-9/11 war era."

Phase 2: Columnists got all righteous.

If your film "doesn't have an agenda" and is "journalistic," it shouldn't manufacture a torture narrative: motherjones.com/mixed-media/20?

? Tim Murphy (@timothypmurphy) December 10, 2012

WTF is Kathryn Bigelow doing inserting torture into her film, Zero Dark Thirty, if it wasn't used to get Bin Laden? nyr.kr/VLqoho

? Jay Rosen(@jayrosen_nyu) December 10, 2012

Zero Dark Thirty: Can a movie that relies on fabrications to generate support for war crimes still be considered great? is.gd/ny4RLL

? Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2012

What's that we hear? Amidst all the thundering applause comes the sound of booing. Frank Bruni launched the backlash, writing that Dick Cheney would feel vindicated by?Zero Dark Thirty's take on torture.?Taking issue with Bigelow's claim in a?New Yorker?profile that she's bringing "almost a journalistic approach to film,"?Mother Jones'?Adam Serwer writes:?

The critical acclaim?Zero Dark Thirty?is already receiving suggests that it may do what Karl Rove could not have done with all the money in the world: embed in the popular imagination the efficacy, even the necessity, of torture, despite available evidence to the contrary.

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have found that the bin Laden mission did not hinge on any information obtained from C.I.A. detainees, meaning that torture may not have played any role in the lead-up to his?assassination?after all. So why is it such a central part of Bigelow's film, asks the?irascible?Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald:

What this film does, then, is uncritically presents as fact the highly self-serving, and factually false, claims by the CIA that its torture techniques were crucial in finding bin Laden. Put another way, it propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the US government, based on pure falsehoods.

Phase 3: Critics fired back .

ZERO DARK THIRTY does not include scenes of torture to glorify torture. It includes scenes of torture because the U.S. tortured people.

? Matt Singer (@mattsinger) December 10, 2012

ZERO DARK THIRTY: Torture is a thing. Columnists: This movie's pro-torture!

? Scott Tobias (@scott_tobias) December 10, 2012

I'm sorry, Glenn Greenwald, but I don't think this is a piece it's responsible to write until you've seen the film: guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/?

? Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) December 10, 2012

Then came the inevitable backlash-to-the-backlash phase. In his retort to Greenwald's rage, Mark Harris made a good point: you haven't even seen this film yet.?Zero Dark Thirty?is still over a week away from limited release, and last time we checked political pundits aren't usually invited to press screenings. Saying a film glorifies violence is always a subjective judgement, and it's even more subjective when you're going off second-hand reports. Here's?New York's film critic David Edelstein responding to Greenwald's criticism of his review:?

I've always admired Greenwald, but his characterization of my review as "gush" is ridiculous. And one should never pronounce on a movie--let alone liken it to Nazi propaganda--without seeing it ... the filmmakers are very careful. They hedge a lot. They don't come close to 24 in their depiction of ticking time bombs and ACLU lawyers ready to sweep down and liberate mass murderers.

Phase 4: So what happens next??

Everyone will still go see?Zero Dark Thirty, it will most likely still win a few Oscars, and debates about the political implications of violence in film will continue to flare up from time to time. You know, like they always do.

RELATED: 'Zero Dark Thirty' for Best Picture Hype Is Real: The Atlantic Wire Golden Tally

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/guide-zero-dark-thirty-torture-debate-202212045.html

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