Zero Dark Thirty Film - Research Paper Example

?Zero Dark Thirty Film: An Analysis INTRODUCTION Cinema, since the time of its initiation, has been inspired from the contemporary lifestyle. During the war stricken world, Hollywood never stepped aside to depict the gruesome and horrified war-time situations across the world, particularly in America. Based on the stories of wars, master pieces with cinematic excellence were produced time and again. However, most of the war films echoed a sense of a pride and chivalry; while others, focused on the feeling of nationalism being tittered time after time. Nevertheless, it is also true that the violent and horrifying aspects of war were also being projected through the film produced during and after the First and Second World Wars. After the gloomy and dark clouds of the world wars were removed from the skyline of America, a new chapter in the history of violence started pervading the ambience. The most striking event which Americans, in particular and the world witnessed was the 9/11 attack on America. The initial reaction of the 9/11 attacks on the minds and hearts of the eye witnesses and the people who were indirectly associated with the event was so awful that people were left mum and out-of-words. However, at the same time, it was also very evident that the war-wounds in the minds of Americans evolved out most spontaneously through its popular culture and consequentially, cinema became the most potent matrix upon which the foundation stone of anti-terrorism discourse was laid. THESIS STATEMENT Violence opened a new avenue in the post traumatic situation and aftermath of 9/11 attacks in cinemas. With the increasing grudge against particular races and ethnicity, the torture to trace down the actual culprit behind the national disaster almost took a rage. This post-traumatic situation got seminal space within the work of the cinema directors during the post 9/11 attacks in the American society. The essay therefore intends to delineate and form a discourse upon the issue of incorporation and presentation of violence in the form of torture in the American cinemas, keeping ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ at the centre of the paper. ZERO DARK THIRTY: A PROJECTION OF VIOLENCE UNDER A NEW LIGHT During the post 9/11 aftermath, cinematic perspectives related with horror and foreboding of the mishaps took dual dimensions or discourses. The first dimension was set on an account that the shock and trauma, which the eye-witnesses of 9/11 attacks viewed, was not less than a Hollywood thriller itself. The major contention of the posthumous phase of the incident was regarding a dilemma that whether Hollywood should, at all, attempt at making a cinema that would firstly match the crudity of the real incident of 9/11. And if, the directors are successful in matching the expectations of the audiences with that of the real thrill, whether the audiences would reciprocate to such kind of a presentation wholeheartedly and spontaneously. The reason behind such dilemma was natural and evident as the scar of the 9/11 attacks on America was deep-rooted in the minds of the people, to remain un-faded forever. The second school of thought or the discourse related to post 9/11 attacks on America started emerging as soon as the traumatic situation of the 9/11 attacks began effacing. Hence, a new perspective of violence started emerging in the Media and Television industry of America and as a result, the post 9/11 torture inflicted to trace down the conspirer of the 9/11 attacks suddenly became a staple theme for Media. The US television started broadcasting a series of daily soaps and dramas that pondered upon the presentation of torture. The effect of such presentation on national media was so stark that exciting video games captivating elaborate and proliferated scenes of torture started making comfortable space in the US market. This was the exact moment when Hollywood was able to perceive the mindsets of the audiences and began to make films on post 9/11 tortures inflicted by various internal security agencies upon the suspicious persons. These films contained elaborate and graphically manifested torture scenes that almost started taking an exotic stance upon the silver screen. The reason for such mass and wholehearted acceptance of torture in films during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks draws its roots in the news reports presented during the 9/11 attacks. In the similar context, it was very worthily mentioned in the book, “Reframing 9/11: Film Popular Culture and the “War on Terror” about the reasons why American audiences were readily accepting the barbarism associated with the torture inflicted upon the suspects during the post 9/11 phase. As quoted in the book, “The emphasis of the coverage of 9/11 was on the commonality of the victims rather than the cause or the rationale for the attacks. The popular refrain was that all Americans were victimised by the attacks, and like the “potential victims” of crime featured in a decades of crime reports about the crime problem, all citizens should support efforts to attack the source of fear” (Birkenstein, Froula and Randell 16). It was in this period that director Kathryn Bigelow made a film that appeared before its audiences in the year 2012 and changed the ideas and perceptions of torture on silver screen. The film centred round the world’s most phenomenal manhunt for tracing down and making, the most dangerous man of the century, Osama Bin Laden, the leader of the fanatic terrorist clan Al Qaeda, grounded. The film focuses on the decade long hunt for the man and initiates the plot keeping in backdrop the event of September 11, 2001. Followed by the eventual tracing of a compound belonging to Osama in Pakistan and gradual raid of one of the world’s most secretive and dangerous intrusions, the film ends documenting military rages on the compound in May 2011 leading to Osama’s eventual death. The film was written by Mark Boal and stars Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke and Joel Edgerton along with other talented supporting actors. The reception for the film at the juncture when America’s once thought greatest threat is killed, was quite sound and it was nominated for five Oscars and won one. The film earned four Golden Globe Awards and was critically acclaimed as well. The film, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ won most of its acclaims for its detailed and elaborate graphic portrayal of torture. It is worthy to mention at this point that the film generated most of its controversies from the graphically detailed scene of the torture mostly. The critics soon started forming diverse school of criticisms. Some thought that the pro-torture propaganda of the US Media, which was at its best form after the incident of the 9/11, has gained effective ground through the graphic presentation of the torture on screen. This school pondered upon the accuracy regarding the infliction of the crude and gruesome interrogative tortures to trace down the most dangerous man of the decade and America’s greatest threat ever. A kind of feeling, though very morbid, nihilistic and sadistic in nature yet it took the turn of a national rage and kept on justifying the inhuman activities of American security agencies. The other school of criticism tried to present the detailed scene of torture as an anti-torture move and thus, tired to justify the exposure of torture involved in interrogation as a plunge against torture. However, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Michael Morell effectively commented negating the intensity of torture depicted within the film. In his words, “The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques…were the key to finding Bin Laden. That impression is false" (Coll, “‘Disturbing’ & ‘Misleading’”). Nevertheless, the film, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, very categorically points out towards pro-torture propaganda or an anti-torture agenda which remains a subject of bafflement. Director Bigelow has subtly done that through a particular scene in the film where the three officers from CIA stop talking among themselves and look at the screen of the television where Barack Obama is giving an interview to the correspondent on a program named “60 Minutes”. Mr, Obama asserts, “America doesn’t tortures” and the officers on screen look at the television screen with awe. Meanwhile, the expressionistic camera work of Bigelow cuts a close shot to the Maya’s face, the analyst played by Jessica Chastain in the film which derives a blank expression from the character. Moreover, Mr. Obama continues regarding his stance for the torture as “an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.” The blank face of Maya tells many things through her silence and the essay, “Zero Dark Thirty: By Any Means Necessary” by Manohla Dargis takes the right cue of the discussion, “That vacant face partly explains, I suspect, why “ Zero Dark Thirty” has stirred up so much controversy before hitting theatres” (The New York Times 1-50). Now, if the contention of the writer Mark Bowden is assessed thoroughly, one can find some truth about his philosophy which dissociates effectively the story line and cinematic purview from argumentative paradigm. On this note, Bowden comments, “Pure storytelling is not always about making an argument, no matter how worthy. It can be simply about telling the truth" (Bowden, “'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Not Pro-Torture”). However, no one would be able to undermine the fact that amid the American audiences, the rage of the film, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ was huge. There can be many reasons for it. One of the potent reasons can be the elaborate and most contemporary use of technology into the film. Also, the intelligence techniques, the actions, thrills and adventures associated with the film made it attractive. In the year 2013, in an interview on ‘The Colbert Report’, Bigelow herself commented that the film effectively displayed the methodology used by the intelligence to accumulate information about Bin Laden. The film used the technological intricacies like the effective use of the surveillance camera, the interface of the troops at the ground level and the most interesting and phenomenal, “good, old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground sleuthing” (Comedy Partners, “The Colbert Report”). Apart from the aesthetic and thrilling details of the film, there is a definite fascination for torture amid the American audience for which people did not avert from viewing the torturous scenes presented within the film. It can be argued in this regard that the torture to trace down the most wanted man of the decade was in turn an effort to establish the lost stature and valour of America in the world. It can be also argued that it is a part of the mechanism involved in the manhunt process merely and it tittered the nationalistic feeling for the survivors of 9/11 attacks. Nevertheless, the dehumanised features of civilization came out very nakedly and with optimum crudity through the film, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’. The Dadaism inflicted by America in the form of military dictatorship in Latin and Central America, the tryst of the Vietnam War or the implantation of the death squad in the Gulf have attracted the attention of Hollywood before. But, the US policies pertaining to torture and excessive retentions started gaining firm grounds after the 9/11 attacks and the acceptance of the fact and policy amid the American people were also noticed increasing at a large scale. This was the time when the commercial perspective of the cinema longed for capturing the behavioural pattern of the consumer towards pro-torture propaganda and tried to manifest it through the cinema. Zero Dark Thirty, as an intelligent cinema, also followed the same pattern of the consumer behaviour and marketing strategy but with a twist of ambiguity. As an intelligent and pro-active along with intellectual film maker, the sensitive aspect of the film making was not marred by director Bigelow. Contrarily, an exposure to the silence portrayal of detailed torture and tyranny inflicted upon people to trace down Bin Laden, justified by the anarchy shown during the predicament of the doomed day of 9/11, made the film ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ dwindle between a pro-torture and an anti-torture regime. CONCLUSION The fact that cinema evolves from life cannot be neglected. Also, reel life is always complemented by the real life. The torture and the crudity within a film like ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ are like an open wound that reminds of the accident and trauma which caused it. But then, it is also very true that had the film not shown the elaborate graphics of torture inflicted upon the suspects, it would not have been possible for the crew and the director of the film to take an anti-torture stand, if the film is actually projecting it on the matrix of humanitarian cinema forgetting the barriers of borders, nation and national sentiment. Whatever fact or truth is associated with the scripting and making of the film, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ on the issue of torture and its elaboration presented through the film, shall continue to raise controversies forever. And, this petty thing indicates that no conscience or national agenda permits the brutal infliction of violence or torture upon a fellow global citizen wholeheartedly. Works Cited Birkenstein, Jeff. Anna Froula and Karen Randell. Reframing 9/11: Film, Popular Culture and the “War on Terror”. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010. Print. Bowden, Mark. Zero Dark Thirty' Is Not Pro-Torture. Entertainment, 2013. Web. 12 Jun. 2013. . Coll, Steve. ‘Disturbing’ & ‘Misleading’. Articles, 2013. Web. 12 Jun. 2013. . “The Colbert Report.” Home. Comedy Partners, 2013. Web. 12 Jun. 2013. . The New York Times. The 2013 Academy Awards - Nominees and Winners. New York: VOOK, 2013. Print. Read More