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No worries! If anything, it's better that you didn't need that pointed out.

I've long been surprised by the campaign against this film's supposed politics, which seems to stem from the fact that some of the sources for the research Boal and Bigelow conducted were self-interested (and, we now know, demonstrably fabricating) CIA officials; however one wants to criticize the process of making the film (to say nothing of the reality of the moral depravity it depicts or the way those responsible have not been punished), the film itself never reads to me like anything less than an indictment of the effectiveness of torture.

Spoiler

Among other things:
*The main torture sequence, which begins the film, is committed to prevent an attack in Saudi Arabia, which it utterly fails to do.

*As the movie goes on, almost every attempt to prevent attacks or capture terrorists is book-ended by successful terror attacks (in London, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.).

*Then, the one piece of evidence from the torture session that leads to a connection to bin Laden is shown to be a redundant bit of information obscured for years by bureaucracy and the tidal wave of information absorbed by the intelligence agencies post-9/11.

*The film's depiction of CIA torture is so unsettling and so far from the truly pro-torture depictions of 24/Taken/etc. that it's hard to argue that it's being glamorized or excused, even if the film doesn't explicitly wag its finger at the torturers or karmically punish them in some on-the-nose way that would happen in a less ambiguous (and worse) film.

Basically, if you think the movie is advocating/apologizing torture, the most unkind reading of that advocacy appears to be: "Torture is horrific, and it doesn't prevent or protect anyone from terrorism, but it could maybe (but probably not) help find someone responsible for terrorism a whole decade after the fact, whatever that's worth." Not exactly cheerleading.

Well, it would be untruthful and dishonest to show American torturers paying any sort of even token price for committing war crimes. Torture is clearly only a violational of international law when it is done _to_ Americans (or their allies)..

"Basically, if you think the movie is advocating/apologizing torture, the most unkind reading..."

This is far from the most unkind reading. So far, in fact, that to pretend that it's the most unkind reading amounts to an apologia in its own right.

Now, unless our heads are willfully buried, we are all aware that 1) the filmmakers' choice of what to depict with regard to prisoner interrogation was made working in concert with the agency responsible for both that inhuman treatment and the (continuing) attempts to suppress and minimize it, 2) the information we do have about US torture programs still remains incomplete, and 3) the prisoner treatments depicted in ZD30 do not begin to approach the levels of depravity and violence which do know were actually visited upon prisoners.

Yes, the film "seemed aware how morally dubious such tactics were" -- to the extent that "such tactics" were even presented.

But it was valid before, and now is more pertinent than ever, to question the filmmakers' choices and much more so, their cooperation with the parties responsible.

rrot wrote:"Basically, if you think the movie is advocating/apologizing torture, the most unkind reading..."

This is far from the most unkind reading. So far, in fact, that to pretend that it's the most unkind reading amounts to an apologia in its own right.

Now, unless our heads are willfully buried, we are all aware that 1) the filmmakers' choice of what to depict with regard to prisoner interrogation was made working in concert with the agency responsible for both that inhuman treatment and the (continuing) attempts to suppress and minimize it,

Which I noted. If you want to make the case that they shouldn't have used sources within the CIA to inform their film, that's another argument. I'm talking about the film as we see it and what it depicts, not its production process (or whether it was made at all, which might be your issue with it).

rrot wrote:2) the information we do have about US torture programs still remains incomplete,

So... the filmmakers should have speculated? Not sure why that's relevant to the film, unless you're arguing it was irresponsible to make the film at all with incomplete information.

rrot wrote:and 3) the prisoner treatments depicted in ZD30 do not begin to approach the levels of depravity and violence which do know were actually visited upon prisoners.

True, though as far as we know now, certain more extreme torture techniques were used in a handful of cases, while what was shown in the film's opening sequence were far more common abuses, and therefore fairly representative of what happened. I personally didn't need Jason Clarke to throw some centipedes in the box with the detainee he tortures - or force feed him from one end or the other, or waterboard him 183 times in a month as the CIA did to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - in order to pass judgement on the inhumane and illegal treatment we did see him commit. It would have been both inaccurate and heavy-handed of the film to portray this particular individual's torture as equaling the most extreme instances of which we are currently aware.

rrot wrote:Yes, the film "seemed aware how morally dubious such tactics were" -- to the extent that "such tactics" were even presented.

But it was valid before, and now is more pertinent than ever, to question the filmmakers' choices and much more so, their cooperation with the parties responsible.

Of course, but you only seem to be questioning the latter here; I described my own read on the question of the filmmaker's choices, and it seems to me that the film either a) subtly* condemns (while attempting to accurately depict) the use of torture by the CIA after 9/11 or b) so ineptly attempts to excuse that use of torture that it inadvertently ends up making the opposite case. I may be wrong in giving ZD30 the benefit of the doubt and siding with the first interpretation, but that's where I landed.

*As I implied before, the main problem most complaints about the film seem to have is with the fact that it doesn't beat the audience over the head with the moral and practical failure of the torture it depicts, but in my opinion it would be a worse film for doing so just to make sure no one can lob the complicity/apologist accusations that have surrounded it since its release.

To be clear, I don't intend a judgment on the film as film but rather suggest that there is a moral question (and I think that to say so actually understates the case considerably!) concerning it.

DarkImbecile wrote:*As the movie goes on, almost every attempt to prevent attacks or capture terrorists is book-ended by successful terror attacks (in London, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.).

Well I read this entirely different. We see the unpleasantness of torture by Americans, but then each time afterwards we are reminded that these folks are connected to the AL Q terror network which is still dangerous, still attacking and killing Westerners and others around the world. The on-going threats, the killings of innocents, seems designed to reinforce the necessity of torture to try to prevent more terrorism. Sure there's moral ambiguity, but there also seems a reasonable chance that another major attack might happen any day (and we are reminded of the failed attack by the shoebomber and the Time Square car bomb).

Otherwise I wasn't terribly impressed with the film's message that torturers are also (psychological) victims of torture. It's a valid point but just seemed to be handled rather weakly, and seemed to minimize the harm to the actual (physical) victims, while shedding no real insight on the matter. But of course the film is more concerned with the American characters, and even during the tense raid to kill bin Laden we get reaction shots of Jessica Chastain waiting at her computer. I thought the centrality of Castain's character to the story/quest is good in the first half of the film to guide and navigate us into this world, but then becomes rather forced and unnecessary.

My other problem with the film is that it's really hard to know what the hell is going on during the final raid. I couldn't work out where the two groups were in relation to the main house or to each other. Maybe they purposely went for a fog-of-war pov, but if so, it didn't work for me. I did like the moment where the one team says they are going to blow the main gate and a member of the other team says that he's nearby inside and will simply open the gate for them.

I also thought it odd/interesting that they chose not to show a dead bin Laden. We see vague glimpses of the corpse, but never see his face in full. I was wondering why they chose to film it that way.

Lemmy Caution wrote:

DarkImbecile wrote:*As the movie goes on, almost every attempt to prevent attacks or capture terrorists is book-ended by successful terror attacks (in London, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.).

Well I read this entirely different. We see the unpleasantness of torture by Americans, but then each time afterwards we are reminded that these folks are connected to the AL Q terror network which is still dangerous, still attacking and killing Westerners and others around the world. The on-going threats, the killings of innocents, seems designed to reinforce the necessity of torture to try to prevent more terrorism. Sure there's moral ambiguity, but there also seems a reasonable chance that another major attack might happen any day (and we are reminded of the failed attack by the shoebomber and the Time Square car bomb).

I agree that there's enough ambiguity in those juxtapositions to allow for differing interpretations, but I think acknowledging that there is an actual, ongoing threat from Al Qaeda-related militancy doesn't undermine a depiction of the ineffective and immoral way we as a nation chose to confront it.

Lemmy Caution wrote:Otherwise I wasn't terribly impressed with the film's message that torturers are also (psychological) victims of torture. It's a valid point but just seemed to be handled rather weakly, and seemed to minimize the harm to the actual (physical) victims, while shedding no real insight on the matter.

I didn't really see a major emphasis on that message; Jason Clarke (the film's primary active torturer) certainly doesn't seem particularly remorseful or show much self-doubt, unless I'm forgetting something. Chastain shows some of the wear of her decade of obsession, but I read her emotional release in the final shot as less of a sign of psychological damage from what she'd done and more of a dual questioning of a) whether the body in the bag was worth everything that had come before and b) what mattered in her life now...

Lemmy Caution wrote:My other problem with the film is that it's really hard to know what the hell is going on during the final raid. I couldn't work out where the two groups were in relation to the main house or to each other. Maybe they purposely went for a fog-of-war pov, but if so, it didn't work for me.

Because I admittedly spent far too much of my life between 2001 and 2012 somewhat obsessive-compulsively studying and learning about our various foreign policy (mis)adventures (and being impacted by them personally to various degrees), I thought that scene was easy to follow, but I'm sure that's not a generally representative opinion.

Actually, a big part of my subjective response to the movie came from the cathartic experience of watching a series of events I'd spent years following closely depicted as accurately as they probably ever would be. This movie probably provided me with more closure on a personally and nationally traumatic period than any real-world event, which made much of the vitriolic response to its release and what I saw as the misguided smears against it even more disconcerting than they would have been otherwise.

In the wake of the Senate Terror Report, a couple of articles concerning the real Maya (well, she was a composite apparently but this woman is said to be one of the key models).
The Unidentified Queen of Torture
Bin Laden Expert Accused of Shaping CIA Deception on 'Torture' Program

These articles detail some of the mistakes the female CIA op made, including torturing false info out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, based on a misreading of statements form another detainee. And a German Muslim who was picked up on vacation in Macedonia, flown to Afghanistan where he was tortured for months, until he was let go, because they realized it was a mistake and he wasn't part of AL Q at all.
Pretty harsh.
There was also another case of mistaken identity who died in custody from torture, being doused with water and left in a freezing cell.

From Vice media-
Tequila, Painted Pearls, and Prada — How the CIA Helped Produce 'Zero Dark Thirty'

......was included in more than 100 pages of internal CIA documents obtained exclusively by VICE News in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. The documents contain the most detailed information to date about the controversial role the CIA played in the production of Zero Dark Thirty (ZDT).
.....
The ethics report contains remarkable details about how Bigelow and Boal gave CIA officers gifts and bought them meals at hotels and restaurants in Los Angeles and Washington, DC — much of which initially went unreported by the CIA officers — how they won unprecedented access to secret details about the bin Laden operation, and how they got agency officers and officials to review and critique the ZDT script.

That's not really a surprise - even the Reagan administration wined and dined Russian officials when they visited Washington.

Furthermore, the article's statement that the film "strongly suggested that the use of torture led the agency to bin Laden" is highly dubious, an argument that's been debated everywhere.

Screenshot comparisons (made by someone else), set to 300 nits.

I can see the improvement in the UHD, but it's subtle enough that I think I'm actually fine with the Blu-ray.