Zero Dark Thirty - Anticipation/Discussion Thread

His take on the movie itself is pretty otm, IMO.

How in hell are people cheering at the raid sequence?

I know the last shot is ambiguous and maybe I'm over reading it but it really stuck me as a pretty classic "the searchers" type of ending (ie, the hero and civilized of the frontier is also banished from it, he's "gone indian," and all that stuff.) and that maya is a sort of (clumsy) stand in for the general madness of post 9-11 America. This is an end of empire kind of thing--becoming "other" as I said above. I dunno, I just think this movie is far more pessimistic about the good ole USA than it may seem to it's detractors.

That's what I meant when I said you take out what you bring in. As someone who is anti-torture, anti-the nebulous "War on Terror", anti-infinite detention, thought the killing of UBL was meaningless and was generally a bit queasy at the WOO-HOO WE KILLED A DUDE response to the news of the raid, I saw it as a tale of moral decay and tunnel-vision to the point of obsession. The raid sequence sort of confirmed that for me with it's cold, tactical "let's watch these men work" style that had no problem showing the stomach-churning but probably real practice of shooting bullets into a corpse "just to make sure", especially with the kids right there. The killing of UBL was such a quick blurry flash that for me it felt like "well that's that then" moment as opposed to a "HOORAY". I don't see how people got excited for it but that's because I went in with the mindset I have. If you think that the endgame was worth it, you're gonna see the torture and maybe cringe but deem it necessary or you're going to think "these are bad guys fuck yeah USA" and boy wasn't it all worth it that Maya was a loose cannon obsessed with completing the mission.

i agree completely ryan. otoh 'the searchers' kind of works that way too -- i doubt many ppl in the original audience left the theater thinking 'that was a really intense study of american racism!'

UBL's death is over with so fast and it's shot in such an anticlimactic way that i have a hard time imagining anyone actually going nuts at it, it doesn't exactly give any 'this is where you cheer' cues to the audience, but i think there was pretty much no way to film that scene without getting that response.

Would John Ford have written an op ed

i do think it's fair to say the movie is perhaps confused and takes certain things for granted, and perhaps even KB isn't in total control of it, but to me that's interesting and not really a flaw as such. but that's just for me personally and not really any objective statement on it's worth.

ever since i had to stop seeing revivals of older films because of people laughing at anything that made them uncomfortable i've done my best it tune out how the rest of the audience is reacting to things.

I don't think The Searchers is all that good

well, you think the same of Frank Ocean.

it's a bad religion

Steve Coll in the new NYROB:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/feb/07/disturbing-misleading-zero-dark-thirty/?pagination=false

http://halfaballoon.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/data-points/

don't feel like arguing the facts right now but as cinema I was disappointed in how conventional it was. centering the whole story on one character, the higher-ups who are skeptical and don't believe her, the guy screaming at them and slamming his hand on the table about doing their f***ing jobs, she becomes close to this other agent who you know is about to get killed because that's what happens in the movies. I don't know why they had to fit what must be a lot of complicated and fascinating material into this narrative that's been done so many times before.

did some review of this mention The Searchers? I just got a copy of it from Netflix a few days ago and was completely surprised, I couldn't remember why in the world it was at the top of the queue

As I told my friend as we left the theatre, "Kyle Chandler's face was basically screaming 'YOU'RE A LOOSE CANNON, MAYA!' at one point."

Don't know if reviews have mentioned The Searchers, but it was mentioned here because of its ambiguous ending in regards to "heroism" and what is morally right.

Weird. I hadn't read this thread until today. I've never watched Westerns (except Leone, Corbucci of course). I have no idea what I was thinking when I bumped it up to #1 on the next DVD list.

Zero Dark Thirty didn't seem to be aiming for morally ambiguous, I thought it was a very very familiar narrative in which our heroine is doubted by everyone and has to fight her bosses and loses a close friend which is extra inspiration or something and of course she is right and persistent enough to get the bad guy in the end. And you can make it look gritty and realistic with the way it's filmed, but it still came off to me as so Hollywood and not challenging in the least! There are moments that I suppose are meant to make you think more than that, but the overall (again, super super conventional) plot had the effect of overwhelming them. I'm not too interested in Homeland for the same reasons

Well you'll certainly find a number on this thread that will agree with you. It's certainly a genre film, but I think the salience of The Searchers comparison is that it hangs its narrative on something conventional but conveys (to some, including me) something else. What better way to explore notions of heroism than by putting forth a conventional heroic narrative?

I mean I guess she could have made an anti-genre film a la Haywire or Killing them Softly or Not Fade Away, but then people would probably dismiss it out of hand as they did those films.

Though I should add I don't think KB intended to make an anti-CIA film, but I think she intended to throw up ambiguity by presenting it as "objectively" as possible.

Though as we all know, artistic intention is irrelevant.

I don't think The Searchers is all that good

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 16, 2013 9:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's ok if you remove every scene that's indoors

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e189/RollTideTA/teo.gif

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2028103/teo_medium.gif

http://i.imgur.com/w2AC9.png

http://i.imgur.com/Gpuj2.png

ahhh shit... wrong thread

sorry every1... ha ha

lmao

centering the whole story on manti te'o, the higher-ups who are skeptical and don't believe him, the website screaming at them and slamming its hand on the table about doing their f***ing jobs, he becomes close to this other football player who you know is making up a fake woman for him to date because that's what happens in the movies.

I've never watched Westerns (except Leone, Corbucci of course).

OF COURSE grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Zero Dark Thirty didn't seem to be aiming for morally ambiguous, I thought it was a very very familiar narrative in which our heroine is doubted by everyone and has to fight her bosses and loses a close friend which is extra inspiration or something and of course she is right and persistent enough to get the bad guy in the end. And you can make it look gritty and realistic with the way it's filmed, but it still came off to me as so Hollywood and not challenging in the least! There are moments that I suppose are meant to make you think more than that, but the overall (again, super super conventional) plot had the effect of overwhelming them. I'm not too interested in Homeland for the same reasons

― seriously, THIS GUY (daria-g), Thursday, January 17, 2013 3:34 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i guess when you put it like that, it brings to mind Hurt Locker and the disparity between the sophistication of the filmmaking and the primitive screenplay. i think ZDT takes that to the next level, one thing i - I dont know if i admired, but i at least found notable was how consistent the aesthetic in ZDT is. the camera for the most part doesnt 'break character' to underline things clumsily. as JD noted, the film doesnt provide cues, which is why it's amazing to me that people were applauding it

people don't need cues to applaud the death of bin laden

imagining this movie just them going after some unexplained guy in central asia or where ever

people don't need cues to applaud the death of bin laden

― da croupier, Thursday, January 17, 2013 12:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

but which precise part do you applaud at? as soon as you realize its him? when you see a flash o' white beard? the film never creates a space for it, his killing is presented, cinematically, as a mundanity - no more important than any of the other guys getting plugged. there's no moment of triumph, so the audience i guess arbitrarily settled on one of their own

you clap when the seal says i killed the third floor guy

Chastain's Jon Stewart appearance makes someone nervous.

a simply extraordinary actress, by the way

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/zero-dark-thirty-twitter-touts-our-specialized

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr01/2013/1/17/11/enhanced-buzz-315-1358441396-7.jpg

a simply extraordinary actress, by the way

lol hormones

That's a quote from Sullivan, whose hormones swing the other way.

well the gays have a whole other weird thing goin on with her, which i was apparently inoculated from.

ive been waiting to be blown away by her and it hasnt happened yet. i thought she was solid in this, though unconvincing in that scene where she's supposed to rage at kyle chandler and threaten to stuff congress in his butthole or whatever she said

She was fine in her trio of 2011 films but she looks like a blank lead.

i kinda like actors who are basically interesting faces-- i think she has one (if also a conventionally pretty one).

trio? wasn't it more like seven? xp

best so far in the Michael Shannon-crazy-or-not thriller for me.

yeah she was fantastic in that

Yeah, easily her best.

fyi the Milius Red Dawn is on TV now if you want to know what a movie that wants you to cheer on the violence looks like.

well we're starting from a higher baseline here, i thought

since Bigelow declared herself "a lifelong pacifist"?

I forgot about Coriolanus – forgettable in that one.

fyi the Milius Red Dawn is on TV now if you want to know what a movie that wants you to cheer on the violence looks like

that's the thing - just because ZDT isnt over-the-top bad propaganda doesn't mean it isn't propaganda