A group of relatives of 9/11 victims are hitting back at politicians and critics who say Kathryn Bigelow's new film Zero Dark Thirty simultaneously distorts and condones the use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. "We are greatly concerned that a few pundits, 'film critics' and elected officials are badmouthing this movie because of the water boarding scenes and because this film directly confronts the enduring terrorist threat," the families wrote in a statement sent out today. "We feel this is history—like it or not—and no effort should be made to rewrite or censor it for political correctness. Certainly there should be no organized boycott or suppression of films based on political differences. The word for that is 'censorship.' "
The criticism of Zero Dark Thirty's torture sequences began before the film was even released. Writers such as Jane Mayer at The New Yorker were deeply troubled by the movie's assertion that torture directly led to a breakthrough in the hunt for bin Laden. "Bigelow has portrayed herself as a reluctant truth-teller," Mayer writes. "She recently described the film’s torture scenes as 'difficult to shoot.' She said, 'I wish it was not part of our history. But it was.' " Mayer continues:
Yet what is so unsettling about “Zero Dark Thirty” is not that it tells this difficult history but, rather, that it distorts it. In addition to excising the moral debate that raged over the interrogation program during the Bush years, the film also seems to accept almost without question that the C.I.A.’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” played a key role in enabling the agency to identify the courier who unwittingly led them to bin Laden. But this claim has been debunked, repeatedly, by reliable sources with access to the facts.
As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent first reported, shortly after bin Laden was killed, Leon Panetta, then the director of the C.I.A., sent a letter to Arizona Senator John McCain, clearly stating that “we first learned about ‘the facilitator / courier’s nom de guerre’ from a detainee not in the C.I.A.’s custody.” Panetta wrote that “no detainee in C.I.A. custody revealed the facilitator / courier’s full true name or specific whereabouts.”
The Senators Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have undermined the film’s version of events further still. “The original lead information had no connection to C.I.A. detainees,” they wrote in their own letter, revealed by the Post last year. Feinstein and Levin noted that a third detainee in C.I.A. custody did provide information on the courier, but, importantly, they stressed that “he did so the day before he was interrogated by the C.I.A. using their coercive interrogation techniques.”
Feinstein, along with McCain and Senator Carl Levin, have demanded Sony Pictures add a disclaimer clearly classifying the film as fiction that is merely "based" on a true story. In its current form, a title card at the beginning of the film explains it is "based on first-hand accounts of actual events." This is followed by harrowing audio recordings from people trapped in the Twin Towers on 9/11, which segues directly into a torture sequence. Feinstein also ordered the CIA to reveal whether the agency shared classified material or gave "misleading" information to the filmmakers.
Others have called for a boycott of the film, and some in Hollywood have urged Academy Award voters not to honor the picture with an Oscar. Earlier this month character actor David Clennon (he played Miles on thirtysomething) joined former president of the Screen Actor's Guild Ed Asner to call on academy members to snub Zero Dark Thirty. "One of the brightest female directors in the business is in danger of becoming part of the system," Asner said, while Clennon wrote on Truthout:
Everyone who contributes skill and energy to a motion picture - including actors - shares responsibility for the impressions the picture makes and the ideas it expresses. If I had played the role that was offered to me on Fox's 24 (Season 7), I would have been guilty of promoting torture, and I couldn't have evaded my own responsibility by blaming the writers and directors. So Jessica Chastain won't get my vote for Best Actress. With her beauty and her tough-but-vulnerable posturing, she almost succeeds in making extreme brutality look weirdly heroic.
Sony Pictures hit back with a statement saying the company was "outraged that any responsible member of the academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda." And Martin Sheen, who was previously linked to the film's boycott, had distanced himself from the debate, telling the Times he had agreed to a statement about the film without fully understanding that it would condemn the movie, rather than simply condemning torture.
Today we spoke with retired firefighter Jim Riches, who lost his son Jimmy, also a firefighter, on 9/11. "I don't condone torture," Riches said. "And I can see why John MCCain does not. But the movie created a dialogue about torture. And for them to say it should be changed is wrong. People will draw their own conclusions. It seems like these Senators want to go back to the era of McCarthyism. Or when Giuliani was the mayor and he wanted to pull funding from the Brooklyn Museum because of the elephant dung painting of the Virgin Mary. I don't agree with that type of art, but they have a right to make it."
When we expressed doubt that the senators were calling for the film to be censored, Riches replied, "Look, they can't even pass laws for hurricane relief and gun control, and they're wasting time on this? They're saying torture didn't lead to [bin Laden's] courier. But it's a movie, they can do whatever they want in a movie. When politicians who can't even do their jobs start critiquing movies we're in real trouble."
We asked if Riches was troubled by the film's counterfactual presentation of torture as a key to catching bin Laden, and he told us, "They were telling a story. Look, 3,000 people were murdered on 9/11 and my son was one of them. I picked up the body parts down at Ground Zero every day until May 2002. They told the story their way. What do you want, a documentary? It was a well-done movie. It was an emotional movie for me, to see them catch the guy who killed our loved ones. And it was a disgrace for these politicians to get involved."
