Zero Dark Thirty Torture Commentary

"Dark" Debate

By: Kameron McBride

Clearly “Zero Dark Thirty” was going to be controversial upon release. One does not simply make a film about the manhunt for Osama Bin Laden without attracting at least a little scrutiny. The sort of criticism tossed at the film for its use of torture, however, seems to contain more venom than maybe the film deserves.

(Side Note: there are a few spoilers here)

From what I understand, some critics of the film point out that the story shows “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) working to far greater effect than they did than in the actual hunt for Usama Bin Laden while other suggest that the film actually endorses the use of torture.

The first group even counts a few senators—including John McCaine—who sent a letter to the CEO of Sony expressing their disappointment at the inaccuracy of the depiction of torture in the film.

This is silly.

I think the film is depicting torture occurring as a step in the search for Bin Laden without really taking a side. There aren’t didactic explanations of whether the torture is effective but there also aren’t scenes where we clearly see torture working. In fact the film goes to lengths to show that torture is not working well at all.

For instance, another bombing occurs while they are torturing the first detainee they capture, meaning the torture wasn’t effective enough to help stop that bombing in time.

The torture also exclusively occurs for about the first forty–five minutes of the film. The one name they manage to extract through torture—“Abu Ahmed,” one of Bin Laden’s couriers—gets them nowhere for several years in the film until they discover his real name in a stack of papers. Most of the information they discover, in fact, occurs during the torture–free second and third acts. I think it’s safe to assume the film believes torture is not the best method for extracting information.

So to this first argument I would say that the film doesn’t depict torture as an effective method and condenses a detail to get the plot moving. I don’t think this is morally suspect or a disservice to the people working on the case, in the end we see it’s through hard investigation that Bin Laden was ultimately killed.

The other big criticism suggests that the film itself endorses torture. Very smart people such as Marjorie Cohn of the Huffington Post or Stuart Klawans of The Nation posit that the film invites the viewer to see torture as an acceptable method and even the film sets up torture as a vicarious experience for the viewer.

This isn’t just silly; it’s plain wrong.

First of all a film showing the brutal acts of torture in such a visceral manner would not be endorsing using torture. The torture scenes don’t give us any sort of vindication form the torture, there’s no thrill to be experienced. Rather, as an audience we’re clearly supposed to be repulsed. Why would a film endorsing torture invite us to be repulsed by it? Simply, it wouldn’t.

It’s also important to note how these scenes are filmed—in particular the very first one. Clearly we are expected to see the detainee as helpless and we sympathize with him. Dan (Jason Clarke)—the agent torturing this man—is filmed as a violent oppressor, we aren’t invited to sympathize with him whatsoever during these scenes.

It’s also not as though there are any scenes where the detainees finally break down crying and plead not to be tortured anymore and they surrender key information. No, there is nogood–triumphing–over–evil in these scenes, just more confusion.  Even towards the end Dan says the information they get from the “enhanced interrogation” yields only a “soft sixty percent” chance that they will find Bin Laden, making him the most pessimistic person in the room.

How these critics extracted a pro–torture slant from these scenes is beyond me because I just don’t see it.

Finally, I think the important point is this: enhanced interrogation was used while looking for Bin Laden and “Zero Dark Thirty” depicts this happening. Does it come out and denounce torture? No, but it also doesn’t show torture clearly working and shows other methods as more effective. Is this too subtle way of depicting torture as ineffective? I don’t think so; it’s just showing that torture happened, which it unquestionably did.

Ultimately “Zero Dark Thirty” is a great, important and thought–provoking film. The effectiveness of torture is one of many issues embedded in the film and it shouldn’t be the one to overshadow all others.