Robert Parry: The Depressing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


The Depressing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’
January 16, 2013

Exclusive: Director Kathryn Bigelow – in both Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker – presents stories of heroic Americans operating in a world of either apathetic or crazy Muslims, with little explanation of the whys behind the conflicts. This lack of context makes her films vacuous and depressing, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


When I watched the get-bin-Laden movie Zero Dark Thirty at a theater just outside Washington D.C., I was struck by how silent the audience was from beginning to end with almost no reaction to the climatic killing of the terrorist leader or to the film’s lame stabs at humor.

For instance, the screenwriters apparently thought they had crafted a funny line when the CIA officer in charge of torture says he’s returning to a desk job at CIA headquarters because he’d grown tired of seeing so many “naked men,” i.e. the detainees he’d been torturing. I heard one person in the audience emit an uncomfortable laugh.

Mostly the film played out – from its graphic scenes of torture through the plodding search for Osama bin Laden to the carefully depicted Seal Team Six assault on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan – in a silent, darkened theater.

Clearly, the strength of the movie was its documentary-style presentation of the climactic nighttime assault, though the film failed to explain how meticulously Seal Team Six had prepared for – indeed, rehearsed – the attack. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/16/the-depressing-zero-dark-thirty/

[blm]

1. Smartest review I've seen or heard on this film.

BTW - recently some here want Robert Parry viewed as a conspiracy theorist and are labeling references to his historic reporting as a 'bad source'.

[bananas]

4. This place is getting worse all the time. nt

[bananas]

5. Do you have a link to that? nt

[blm]

6. the lock on the thread was lifted after a number of us protested

here's the thread discussing the lock at meta forum
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1240&pid=206203

[xchrom]

2. du rec. nt

[kenny blankenship]

3. Here's one reviewer who LOVED the film, Mr. Parry!

https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/289974232744595456

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

7. try this one

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/review-zero-dark-thirty-kathryn-bigelow