Zero Dark Thirty Essay
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty
"Zero Dark Thirty" arrives in theaters already surrounded by controversy. Three U.S. senators (John McCain, Carl Levin and Dianne Feinstein) have called the film "grossly inaccurate and misleading" for its suggestion that the CIA's use of torture led to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have countered that their movie does not favor torture but does accurately portray the events as related by CIA sources.
A movie review is no place to evaluate these conflicting claims, except to say that the film does seem to indicate that torture led the CIA to bin Laden, and in that way could be called "pro-torture." …show more content…
The eye hovers, takes in every detail and expects the worst. Bigelow has an ability that few filmmakers have, one that Hitchcock had, the ability to make an audience nervous even when nothing bad is happening.
In the case of Bigelow, the dread that is committed to celluloid and transferred to the audience is that of the security professional, who sees the outer world as a thin facade covering an abyss of conspiracy, corruption and looming doom. This is the mental landscape of the CIA agent, so that even though most of "Zero Dark Thirty" takes place in offices, with people examining information and debating its meaning, this sense of urgency, this weird jumpiness, pervades - and it energizes every moment.
Jessica Chastain stands at the center of "Zero Dark Thirty," starring in a way that few people ever do in movies, with no real co-stars. As Maya, a CIA analyst, she is a woman in a highly butch profession, surrounded by men, as alone as Bigelow herself must have sometimes felt. Maya is young and focused, and she becomes increasingly driven as the film wears on, convinced that she and only she knows how to catch bin Laden: First find the courier, and the courier will lead right to his
Mick LaSalle
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Zero Dark Thirty
"Zero Dark Thirty" arrives in theaters already surrounded by controversy. Three U.S. senators (John McCain, Carl Levin and Dianne Feinstein) have called the film "grossly inaccurate and misleading" for its suggestion that the CIA's use of torture led to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have countered that their movie does not favor torture but does accurately portray the events as related by CIA sources.
A movie review is no place to evaluate these conflicting claims, except to say that the film does seem to indicate that torture led the CIA to bin Laden, and in that way could be called "pro-torture." …show more content…
The eye hovers, takes in every detail and expects the worst. Bigelow has an ability that few filmmakers have, one that Hitchcock had, the ability to make an audience nervous even when nothing bad is happening.
In the case of Bigelow, the dread that is committed to celluloid and transferred to the audience is that of the security professional, who sees the outer world as a thin facade covering an abyss of conspiracy, corruption and looming doom. This is the mental landscape of the CIA agent, so that even though most of "Zero Dark Thirty" takes place in offices, with people examining information and debating its meaning, this sense of urgency, this weird jumpiness, pervades - and it energizes every moment.
Jessica Chastain stands at the center of "Zero Dark Thirty," starring in a way that few people ever do in movies, with no real co-stars. As Maya, a CIA analyst, she is a woman in a highly butch profession, surrounded by men, as alone as Bigelow herself must have sometimes felt. Maya is young and focused, and she becomes increasingly driven as the film wears on, convinced that she and only she knows how to catch bin Laden: First find the courier, and the courier will lead right to his