Zero Dark Thirty is a film that has had its fair share of controversy questioning its politics, blatant sexism toward director Kathryn Bigelow and whether or not the film is pro-torture. Next to add to the list, is the announcement that a Senate committee will investigate records between Bigelow and screenwriter, Mark Boal and CIA officials.
This comes on the heels of the outrage of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chairwoman over the portrayal of harsh interrogations and their effectiveness within the film. A group of Senators on December 19th, sent a letter to Sony Pictures CEO and Chairman saying that the film was "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location” of bin Laden.
In response to this letter, Sony released a statement from Bigelow and Boal saying:
We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes.
The committee will investigate whether or not Bigelow and Boal were given inappropriate access to records and if CIA personnel were responsible for hard interrogation tactics with a focus on whether or not said tactics were effective. At this time, Bigelow and Boal will not be directly contacted during the investigation.
It will be interesting to see how this effects the conversation around Zero Dark Thirty when it is released nationwide on January 11th.
Senate Panel to examine CIA contacts with "Zero Dark Thirty" filmmakers (Reuters)
