What movie did you watch last night? (10 Viewers)

[Mormon Nailer]

Spoiler

Actually in your haste to hate the film because you obviously hate the actions of the Americans you've missed what I feel is a key point that the film makes. Firstly it doesn't make the case that torture lead to the death of Osama it says that torture was involved in every single interegation between the years 2001 and 2008 so it's enevetable that some of this information attained under torture lead to his death.


Actually not the case. The film shows the guy co-operating when he is treated nicely after torture.
This question has been asked a number of times and the people involved have said torture in no way led to the information about the courier.

For the Directory/Producer to present it as otherwise a still try to present it as a work of reportage is dead wrong.

Spoiler

Secondly the one prolonged scene of torture ends with a man spouting gibberish which can't be used to stop a terrorsist attack. Which is key because it essentially says that the torture didn't work. They do get information but it's essentially by using the old cop trick "we know more than you do" and the "actionable intel" is garnered over a meal after he's been outsmarted. Not during torture. This is a small difference but an important one. The logic employed by ZDT is that if all detainees were tortured and some gave information that lead to UBLs death then that can't be left out of the film. This is very simple logic to be fair. Like on IQ tests where the question is "if all snorks are dorks and all dorks are quarks is it safe to assume that all snorks are quarks?".

That's on way of looking at it - I don't agree.
He was locked in a box and broken - not outsmarted.
If I knocked you out with a hammer and when you woke up 30 minutes later told you you've been in a coma for a year - I'd have outsmarted you?

Spoiler

Secondly in the second half of the film when there has been a change in command from Bush to Obama the main characters say quite a few times that any and all information garnered under torture is worthless, because it's out of date and Because it was never particularly useful information anyway. when Mya says near the end that the only way she could get information from a source in time for it to be usable is by torture she also says that even then by torturing him she couldn't be sure that any informations she got would be at all usable anyway.

They did everything but add a "Thanks Obama!" meme to the scene where they are listening to the announcement.
And having an intelligence officer suggest she has been deprived of the tools to extract information...that's not reporting or reality - it's torture.

Spoiler

and finally

Propaganda is according to wikipedia anyway So I'm not seeing how a film which

Depicts it's nation as controvening it's own human rights charter and then goes on to question the worth of that contraveing can be considered propaganda ? Like her or not Bigelowes statement if there is one is "this is what happened" now you can hate her all you like for not saying this is what happened and you should feel bad about it. But to her credit she doesn't take a pro or anti stand on what happened, there are no strings playing and long close ups in slow motion shots of Chastain feeling bad about what they're are carrying out so that we the audience can say "ooh they're so morally wrong what a tragedy" there isn't even a clear moral message at all. It just says here's what happened feel how you like about it. If you feel angry about it then fine but your placing your opinions and your politics into a film which really doesn't have any of it's own.


Lastly if the film was propaganda then the torturers would be proud and happy torture for uncle sam no ? The fact that they aren't pretty much shits on your whole point no ?

There is a film to be made about torture. About the CIA flailing around in the dark after 911, not knowing what do do, and in that chaos torturing people. About youngsters copying things they saw on TV (seriously) in Iraq and Afghanistan. About innocent people tortured and brutalised. About why this happened etc.

There is also a film to be made about the capture of OBL.

However....you can't do both at the same time. You can't present these as part of the same story without presenting a mistruth.

 

[washingcattle]

1.That's on way of looking at it - I don't agree.
He was locked in a box and broken - not outsmarted.
If I knocked you out with a hammer and when you woke up 30 minutes later told you you've been in a coma for a year - I'd have outsmarted you?



2. They did everything but add a "Thanks Obama!" meme to the scene where they are listening to the announcement.
And having an intelligence officer suggest she has been deprived of the tools to extract information...that's not reporting or reality - it's torture.



3. There is a film to be made about torture. About the CIA flailing around in the dark after 911, not knowing what do do, and in that chaos torturing people. About youngsters copying things they saw on TV (seriously) in Iraq and Afghanistan. About innocent people tortured and brutalised. About why this happened etc.

There is also a film to be made about the capture of OBL.

However....you can't do both at the same time. You can't present these as part of the same story without presenting a mistruth.

1. The point is that locking him in a box didn't actually get the job done. Small point but important none the less

2. I think that was the general consensus around the CIA wasn't it ? They were not happy. It would have been remiss if the film didn't speak on that subject. Torture had become so common place by then that the CIA basically didn't know how to function without it's use.

3. What's a mistruth ? This is the film about the killing of OBL (or UBL) they aren't trying to make the other film at all. It's part of the story and it can't be left out. If it was left out I'd be scathing it for being toothless liberal pro-American nonsense. Besides which those sorts of films (the Mel Gibson / Steven Spielberg preach fests) need to fucking die. I far prefer the Battle For Algeres, Bloody Sunday, United 93 style of film making which says "this as best as we can tell is what happened, make your own mind up" When someone does go and make that film about The CIA the kids on the street etc you can bet it'll be produced by Michael Stipe star Matt Damon win the top prize at Sundance and have very very little to actually say. So fuck it.


There is a film about the use of torture it's based around Abu Ghraib and it's called Standard Operating Procedure I mentioned it in the original review.

 

[hermie]

1. The point is that locking him in a box didn't actually get the job done. Small point but important none the less

2. I think that was the general consensus around the CIA wasn't it ? They were not happy. It would have been remiss if the film didn't speak on that subject. Torture had become so common place by then that the CIA basically didn't know how to function without it's use.

3. What's a mistruth ? This is the film about the killing of OBL (or UBL) they aren't trying to make the other film at all. It's part of the story and it can't be left out. If it was left out I'd be scathing it for being toothless liberal pro-American nonsense. Besides which those sorts of films (the Mel Gibson / Steven Spielberg preach fests) need to fucking die. I far prefer the Battle For Algeres, Bloody Sunday, United 93 style of film making which says "this as best as we can tell is what happened, make your own mind up" When someone does go and make that film about The CIA the kids on the street etc you can bet it'll be produced by Michael Stipe star Matt Damon win the top prize at Sundance and have very very little to actually say. So fuck it.


There is a film about the use of torture it's based around Abu Ghraib and it's called Standard Operating Procedure I mentioned it in the original review.

While I agree with you on most points you are being very generous to Bigelow by saying she presents a "this is what happened" portrait. It is tough, gritty and naturalistic and most of the action is very close to the truth but it does certainly add or leave out certain things that hint at the usefulness of torture. First of all there are no dissenting voices during all the carry on. And there were quite a few. Also there is the guy who gives information because he does not want to be tortured again. Not to mention that the movie is crucially out of step with a key statement released by a Senate Committee, namely

Spoiler

CIA did not first learn about the existence of the UBL (bin Laden) courier from detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques. ... Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program. ... The CIA detainee who provided the most significant information about the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/10/opinion/bergen-zero-dark-thirty/index.html

Bigelow needed to make a film told from the CIA perspective (they were her and Boal's sources), needed to include torture because, as you say, it was so much part of the fabric of the time. But in putting the two together had to bend the truth a bit along the way, and did so in a questionable manner.

 

[Jill Hives]

Netflix Ireland sucks.
Not only does it remind me of how many shitty movies I have already seen but it allows me to watch more out of boredom.
I'm actually embarrassed by what I have watched lately.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

3. What's a mistruth ? This is the film about the killing of OBL (or UBL) they aren't trying to make the other film at all. It's part of the story and it can't be left out. If it was left out I'd be scathing it for being toothless liberal pro-American nonsense. Besides which those sorts of films (the Mel Gibson / Steven Spielberg preach fests) need to fucking die. I far prefer the Battle For Algeres, Bloody Sunday, United 93 style of film making which says "this as best as we can tell is what happened, make your own mind up" When someone does go and make that film about The CIA the kids on the street etc you can bet it'll be produced by Michael Stipe star Matt Damon win the top prize at Sundance and have very very little to actually say. So fuck it.

Why is it important that it is OBL in the film? What not some un-named senior terrorist. And the answer that the director will give is that "well it's important to tell the truth about the hunt for OBL etc. etc. etc"

Then ask yourself "If that is the case why show torture if torture had no role in his capture?" For all the reasons you outline above I guess.

But the director is trying to have it both ways. To claim it's accurate on the on hand, but on the other show the torture because that was the background of the time. This is fundamentally dishonest - because she is not showing it as the background of the time - she shows her heroine actively torturing the person who gives the information.

Aside from the distasteful way the torture is portrayed (it may be gritty, but ultimately the discomfort of the poor little frat boy at the bad things these nasty arabs make him do to them is more important to Bigalow than the torture itself or that those tortured are anything but props in this nasty spectacle {imagine for a second a holocaust film filmed from the same perspective}) that is just not factually correct.

 

[hermie]

Netflix Ireland sucks.
Not only does it remind me of how many shitty movies I have already seen but it allows me to watch more out of boredom.
I'm actually embarrassed by what I have watched lately.

I'm just waiting for Arrested Development then I'm out.

 

[Unicron]

Groundhog Day, there's bee na bunch of retrospective pieces floating about on it in the last few weeks because it came out 20 years ago and I don't remember thinking it was all that great when I saw it back then.

And I think I was right the first time, it's alright, hard to buy Andie McDowell in her role.

 

[hermie]

1. Why is it important that it is OBL in the film? What not some un-named senior terrorist. And the answer that the director will give is that "well it's important to tell the truth about the hunt for OBL etc. etc. etc"

2. Then ask yourself "If that is the case why show torture if torture had no role in his capture?" For all the reasons you outline above I guess.

3. But the director is trying to have it both ways. To claim it's accurate on the on hand, but on the other show the torture because that was the background of the time. This is fundamentally dishonest - because she is not showing it as the background of the time - she shows her heroine actively torturing the person who gives the information.

4. Aside from the distasteful way the torture is portrayed (it may be gritty, but ultimately the discomfort of the poor little frat boy at the bad things these nasty arabs make him do to them is more important to Bigalow than the torture itself or that those tortured are anything but props in this nasty spectacle {imagine for a second a holocaust film filmed from the same perspective}) that is just not factually correct.

1. It's the film they've chosen to make, it's the whole premise. What a strange question.

2. Most of that information is still classified. It's only best guessing to say that the role of torture is exaggerated in the movie.

3. Ridiculous statement. If they had ignored CIA interrogation methods/war crimes in a movie about the hunt for bin Laden it would have been scandalously dishonest not the other way around.

4. Well Godwin's Law has been invoked, well done. I fail to see what you are calling factually incorrect here. This one particular character seems to be your main gripe with the movie. I for one found him to be as realistic as he was disagreeable. And one more point which I probably shouldn't bother with but fuck it, seeing as you reference the Holocaust - these are not innocent Jews who are being slaughtered, they are known terrorists who are being waterboarded. Now their techniques may be as out-dated and ineffective as it is barbaric but there's still a huge difference there.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I think are confusing two different things:
Were people tortured while hunting for OBL and
Did torture in any way lead to the capture of OBL

The second question has been answered by the people involved (the people who Bogalow and Boles are constantly hinting gave them inside information) and the answer is no. However that is not the impression the film gives.

The entire marketing for the film is on the basis that it is the real, true, inside, accurate story of the hunt for OBL, but it gets this fundamental fact wrong, and the director in the various op-eds she has written is completely oblivious as to why this is an issue. She is selling this as a historical re-enactment but refuses a straight answer to a huge question over the veracity of the movie.

A lot of people are going to get as much knowledge as they are going to get about this issue, from the film. Would an uninformed viewer after viewing this be aware of the internal disagreements within the CIA over the use of torture, would they be aware that many of the people tortured were random innocents turned over to the CIA by the Northern Alliance for bounty, that torture failed and that ultimately torture was not involved in obtaining the intelligence that led to OBL? I'd say no.

But aside from all that...

I fucking hate the film. I think, like Hurt Locker, it's gritty production values are a veneer which blinds people to the nasty unquestioning mindset behind both films. Think back to the shot in the supermarket in Hurt Locker with the insane green colour balance and the florescents buzzing like jet engines, on the bizarre wrestling match in the barrack that was only missing Oliver Reed, or the corn fed, big sky special ops guys throwing ball in ZDT, like a wet dream Gorge Bush would have had if he'd gorged himself on cheese and Norman Rockwell before bed.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arc...misleading-zero-dark-thirty/?pagination=false

“The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques…were the key to finding Bin Laden,” Michael Morell, the acting CIA director, wrote to agency employees in December. “That impression is false.” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein and the two senior members of the Armed Services Committee, Democrat Carl Levin and Republican John McCain, coauthored a letter calling the movie’s version of recent counterterrorism history “grossly inaccurate.” The senators said the film’s flaws have “the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner.”

 

[washingcattle]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arc...misleading-zero-dark-thirty/?pagination=false

What's that supposed to prove exactly though ?


The last line is this

As with discourse about climate change policy, the persistence of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other forms of argument about the value of officially sanctioned torture represents a victory for those who would justify such abuse. Zero Dark Thirty has performed no public service by enlarging the acceptability of that form of debate.

Why the fuck should a film perform a public service ? It's a film, it's service is to be entertaining. I like so many others on this planet can tell the difference between a historical document and a piece of entertainment.


Anyway it's not a film about torture, Standard Operating Procedure is a film about torture. ZDT is a detective film about a man hunt ? which features torture. That torture is part of historical record. That's what I've been saying all along.

So although I do accept that this bit is interesting

Some viewers might regard Ammar’s final confession in the midst of warm hospitality as an example of torture that did not work, or worked only partially. In fact, this sequence of the film depicts precisely how the CIA’s coercive interrogation regime was constructed to break prisoners, according to Jose Rodriguez Jr., a former leader of the CIA Clandestine Service, who has described and defended the interrogation regime in a memoir, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.2 For if a CIA detainee initially refused to cooperate, interrogators applied “enhanced” techniques in an escalating sequence until the prisoner reached what Rodriguez calls “the compliant stage.” Once the detainee “became compliant and agreed to cooperate,” the harsh methods stopped, Rodriguez wrote, and the prisoner might be fed and coddled in reward for confessions he had not previously made.

Makes sense I suppose, however, no one has ever really continued to torture anyone after they have become "compliant" that would be ludicrous.

The question is whether the film depicts a man become compliant because he has been tricked or because he has been tortured. See the above doesn't offer an opinion on that question. He just cites that quote and moves on. But it's up to the viewer to read the film

But then there's this

We later see Maya review videotaped interrogations of half a dozen other prisoners who provide information about al-Kuwaiti. It is not clear in the film whether these detainees are in CIA custody or in the custody of friendly Arab or other governments. We see the videotapes over Maya’s shoulder. The images are dark and menacing. Many of the prisoners appear to be in the process of being tortured or to have recently been tortured.

But not actually torturing them no ? Right so the film suggests that everyone might have been tortured. Well if everyone was tortured then really it's not saying torture worked it's saying torture happened. I mean seriously does anyone believe that anyone who might have known anything about Al Queda and was dumb enough to get caught wasn't tortured ? I believe they were torturing the fuck out of people who didn't know what fucking year it was and why were they torturing people ? because they could. And why does ZDT depict torture ? because it fucking happened.

Ultimately this article is a piece about holding a feature film up to the standards of journalism

Soufan also describes an argument he had with a CIA interrogator about whether torture can produce reliable information from hardened ideologues. When the agency interrogator declared that he would make an al-Qaeda prisoner “fully compliant,” Soufan replied, as he recalls it:

These things won’t work on people committed to dying for their cause…. People like [him] are prepared to be tortured and severely beaten. They expect to be sodomized and to have family members raped in front of them! Do you really think stripping him naked and taking away his chair will make him cooperate?

None of this sort of argument is available to viewers of Zero Dark Thirty. It would hardly have undermined the film’s drama to have included such strong dissents, even in passing, in the interest of journalism that was more complete.

It's already 2 and half fucking hours long man how much more do you want in there Obamas fucking inorgeration, The entire war in afghanistan ? Lets get this straight mr Steve Coll - You want the film to include scenes of torture where the end result was nothing more than the detainee not giving up any information? You want more fucking torture in the film ? you think this will make it more even handed ? more torture ?

And finally there's these lines.

invites the viewer into judgment about the film’s reliability.

Zero Dark Thirty ultimately fails as journalism

Its faults as journalism matter because they may well affect the unresolved public debate about torture, to which the film makes a distorted contribution.

But it isn't journalism. It's fiction.

For me feature films based on true stories do not have the burden of journalistic merit ingrained in it the way documentaries do. That's a very simple fact. This whole piece then is holding ZDT - a work of fiction based on fact - up to the standards of journalism which deals exclusively in fact and as such this is a completely pointless endevour. This would be like a historian using Braveheart as evidence of the actions of William Wallace.

This is a feature film. It's not fact. It is a detective story and as such it manages to depict torture rather than report on it. For me the film includes torture but never takes amoral stance on it. It depicts an attitude within the CIA which more than likely existed without ever moralising over it. Americans in general are not used to films which do not tell them what to think. See Lincoln if you don't know what I mean. ZDT has no moral core. There is no message. As troubling as that is for many. If it's glib towards the use of torture and that bothers you well then good it probably should bother you. If you are American by all means Protest, write a letter get someone impeached. Point the finger where it should be pointed, at history and at the participants. Not at film makers who depict aspects of history. Films about history should not say "this is what to think" that day has to pass. There is no benefit to anyone in them.

Let me put it like this If John Wayne made a film about the crew of the Enola Gay Then they are all heroes at the end.

If Oliver Stone made the same film then by the end he'd probably be calling everyone involved a war criminal (or maybe not I'm just using him as an example)

If Katherine Bigelow made the same film the crew flies over drops the bomb and comes home. When they get home people celebrate because the war is over . Now, at this point. If you need to moralise about it then fine go right ahead. But her film will probably not do it for you and more power to her I say.

 

[washingcattle]

I think are confusing two different things:
Were people tortured while hunting for OBL and
Did torture in any way lead to the capture of OBL

Yes they were and who knows ?

The second question has been answered by the people involved (the people who Bogalow and Boles are constantly hinting gave them inside information) and the answer is no. However that is not the impression the film gives.

I'd like to see this impericle evidence that torture played absolutely no part in the eventual capture of OBL. Or is it just an opinion ?

The entire marketing for the film is on the basis that it is the real, true, inside, accurate story of the hunt for OBL, but it gets this fundamental fact wrong, and the director in the various op-eds she has written is completely oblivious as to why this is an issue. She is selling this as a historical re-enactment but refuses a straight answer to a huge question over the veracity of the movie.

The marketing campaign is designed to get arses into cinema seats. Veracity has no part and never has had any part in any marketing for anything ever in the history of time. She would tell you that this film cured AIDS if it would get you to watch the fucking thing, this is all part of the game. And again none of this is actually in the fucking film. I could make a film where a man stares at a cat for 90 minutes and claim it's about the coming of jesus christ but it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to people because all they will see is a man staring at a fucking cat.

The words based on true events does not mean "This is the absolute truth". Surely no one in there right mind believes that do they ?

A lot of people are going to get as much knowledge as they are going to get about this issue, from the film. Would an uninformed viewer after viewing this be aware of the internal disagreements within the CIA over the use of torture, would they be aware that many of the people tortured were random innocents turned over to the CIA by the Northern Alliance for bounty, that torture failed and that ultimately torture was not involved in obtaining the intelligence that led to OBL? I'd say no.

These people are idiots. This is the equivalent of saying that you "know about maths because you saw Good Will Hunting." ITS A FUCKING MOVIE!!!!!!!

But aside from all that...

I fucking hate the film. I think, like Hurt Locker, it's gritty production values are a veneer which blinds people to the nasty unquestioning mindset behind both films. Think back to the shot in the supermarket in Hurt Locker with the insane green colour balance and the florescents buzzing like jet engines, on the bizarre wrestling match in the barrack that was only missing Oliver Reed, or the corn fed, big sky special ops guys throwing ball in ZDT, like a wet dream Gorge Bush would have had if he'd gorged himself on cheese and Norman Rockwell before bed.

What the hell are you on about ? American GIs act like weird testosterone fueled nincompoops so therefore it's what ? Propaganda ? have you ever met lads from the army ? I have, they're fucking mental. And what exactly the green sheen symbolised what exactly ? the need to stablise the region for the good of the American people ? The escalating price of oil ? Did I miss something ?

And if you hated The Hurt Locker so much why did you torture yourself with 2 and a half hours of this ? Is that it ? do you like torture ? was there not enough torture ? Should we get you some nipple clamps and a car battery ?

 

[hermie]

Hmm, I agree with Mormon on this point. If the filmmakers state that they adopted a journalistic approach and that it's a "reported film" (the movie starts with actual audio from the twin towers), they have to be held to account for a certain amount of journalistic integrity. You can't have it both ways.

Spoiler

However, it was always going to be a condensed version of events, that required a proper narrative to propel it along - composite characters, a shortening of certain threads of the story. The main real-life detainee on whom the character Ammar is based was tortured but had given up the vital information (the courier) prior to the "enhanced interrogation" treatment, by all accounts. To tell it straight is to disrupt the flow of the story, to do as they have done is, admittedly, playing with fire but I doubt they had a specific agenda.

And I do think the debate that all this has provoked will most likely leave people far better informed than they would have been. I know I certainly am.

 

[washingcattle]

Hmm, I agree with Mormon on this point. If the filmmakers state that they adopted a journalistic approach and that it's a "reported film" (the movie starts with actual audio from the twin towers), they have to be held to account for a certain amount of journalistic integrity. You can't have it both ways.

Spoiler

However, it was always going to be a condensed version of events, that required a proper narrative to propel it along - composite characters, a shortening of certain threads of the story. The main real-life detainee on whom the character Ammar is based was tortured but had given up the vital information (the courier) prior to the "enhanced interrogation" treatment, by all accounts. To tell it straight is to disrupt the flow of the story, to do as they have done is, admittedly, playing with fire but I doubt they had a specific agenda.

And I do think the debate that all this has provoked will most likely leave people far better informed than they would have been. I know I certainly am.

Obviously i don't. Big Lebowski has actual footage of George Bush giving a speech about the Iraq war Good night and Good Luck has actual footage of Senator McCarthy giving it loads in front of congress it doesn't make them real, and the film makers statements don't matter because they have no baring on the film. A film should be judged on it's own merits.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

But it isn't journalism. It's fiction.

Not according to the director or the writer.

Which is the point of the two questions I asked above.

Q: If it's a wide angle look at the things that happened after 911 then why must it be OBL as the target?
A: Because it's a work of journalism written with the help of the people involved
Q: So then why show the torture, if the people involved say torture didn't lead to the capture of OBL, and why do you strongly suggest it did?
A: Because it's a wide angle look at the things that happened after 911

Repeat until dizzy!

 

[hermie]

But it's not a wide angle look at events post-911. It's simply about the hunt for UBL. But it was the largest manhunt in history by some distance. You can't tell the whole story in less than 3 hrs.

And I agree for the most part that a movie should be judged on it's own merits. That's why I've been telling everybody to go and see it.

But that doesn't exclude the filmmakers from castigation because of how they've represented it in the media.

 

[washingcattle]

But it's not a wide angle look at events post-911. It's simply about the hunt for UBL. But it was the largest manhunt in history by some distance. You can't tell the whole story in less than 3 hrs.

And I agree for the most part that a movie should be judged on it's own merits. That's why I've been telling everybody to go and see it.

But that doesn't exclude the filmmakers from castigation because of how they've represented it in the media.

Not according to the director or the writer.

Which is the point of the two questions I asked above.

Q: If it's a wide angle look at the things that happened after 911 then why must it be OBL as the target?
A: Because it's a work of journalism written with the help of the people involved
Q: So then why show the torture, if the people involved say torture didn't lead to the capture of OBL, and why do you strongly suggest it did?
A: Because it's a wide angle look at the things that happened after 911

Repeat until dizzy!

It doesn't matter what anyone says about a film. Michael Bay probably thinks that Transformers is a realistic look at how social outsiders struggle for acceptance. It does not fucking matter.
All that matters is what happens between the time the film starts and ends.

Repeat until dizzy.

ZDT is not journalism no matter how many times someone, even it's creator points at it and says it is, it still isn't. It's still fiction.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

The Comedy. Tim Heidecker plays an ageing, alcoholic, over privileged hipster who's sole purpose in life is to make people feel uncomfortable. His friends played by Eric Warheim and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem are equally appalling. I found this pretty unsettling. Kind of reminded me of Larry Clark's Kids 15 or 20 years on. The improvised scenes made it feel uncomfortably real. Well acted, impressive but quite depressing.

 

[hermie]

Obviously i don't. Big Lebowski has actual footage of George Bush giving a speech about the Iraq war Good night and Good Luck has actual footage of Senator McCarthy giving it loads in front of congress it doesn't make them real, and the film makers statements don't matter because they have no baring on the film. A film should be judged on it's own merits.

The Big Lebowski? Salient comparison. I'm not saying that any film that uses actual footage purports to a certain amount of true-to-life gravitas. I'm saying that through all their pre-release press and by putting that found audio at the start of the movie they laid out their stall i.e. indicating what follows "is what happened" as you put it yourself.

I agree with you that the film should be judged on its own merits, that's been my stance all along. But at the same time I think some of the criticism directed at Bigelow and Boal is justified.

 

[washingcattle]

The Big Lebowski? Salient comparison. I'm not saying that any film that uses actual footage purports to a certain amount of true-to-life gravitas. I'm saying that through all their pre-release press and by putting that found audio at the start of the movie they laid out their stall i.e. indicating what follows "is what happened" as you put it yourself.

I agree with you that the film should be judged on its own merits, that's been my stance all along. But at the same time I think some of the criticism directed at Bigelow and Boal is justified.

Of course it's salient you can't pick and choose which films are criticised by what set of standards (except documentaries) I hold them all up to the same standards and ZDT is fiction. secondly I couldn't give two fucks about the film makers criticise them all you want Mel Gibson is a racist anti semite but Apocolypto isn't a bad film because of that.