Zero Dark Thirty

o-dark-thirty said:

Military time designating an unspecified time after midnight but before sunrise. Normally used in reference to either the time one goes to sleep, wakes up, or has to be on-the-job. Usually quite a while before sunrise, i.e.: well before 0500 hours

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O-dark-thirty, haze grey & underway, the middle watch, you're gonna be in a hurt locker: these were common expressions around my house growing up. Slang expressions, of course, but ones that made you feel like part of the club. You knew the language. Important things were happening, and you were privy to them.

Following her work on The Hurt Locker the sublimely talented Kathyrn Bigelow has appended Zero Dark Thirty to her film about the manhunt for (and eventual death of) Osama bin-Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The movie is bound to generate an avalanche of criticism/scrutiny/whatever, but the early trailers provide a very tense first look at the picture.

Teaser trailer

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The first full-length trailer has a good look at the ensemble cast, as well as the many, many parts that went into bringing the SEAL Team Six raid to fruition. I don't get a impression of where the movie was actually filmed, but the locations appear as authentic as the Jordanian ones were in The Hurt Locker.

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For those of you new to military and international studies, Martin van Crevald is a name you should know. In this case, The Culture of War is a book well worth reading.

Martin van Crevald said:

In theory, war is simply a means to an end, a rational, if very brutal, activity intended to serve the interests of one group of people by killing, wounding, or otherwise incapacitating those who oppose that group. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Even economists now agree that human beings, warriors and soldiers included, are not just machines out for gain. Facts beyond number prove that war exercises a powerful fascination in its own right — one that has its greatest impact on participants but is by no means limited to them. Fighting itself can be a source of joy, perhaps even the greatest joy of all. Out of this fascination grew an entire culture that surrounds it and in which, in fact, it is immersed. Like any other culture, the one associated with war consists largely of “useless” play, decoration, and affectations of every sort; on occasion, affectations, decoration, and play are even carried to counterproductive lengths. So it has always been, and so, presumably, it will always be.

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Excerpt from The Culture of War available here.

The first teaser poster has been released. Not bad at all.

Bigelow?s comment at the New York Film Critics Award ceremony:

?I thankfully want to say that I?m standing in a room of people who understand that depiction is not endorsement.?

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Interesting in light of other threads near and dear here...

This looks like nothing more than a propaganda film. Is Bin Laden portrayed to get younger-looking as the movie goes on?

Gear said:

This looks like nothing more than a propaganda film. Is Bin Laden portrayed to get younger-looking as the movie goes on?

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Propaganda for what or for whom?

It's a good story.

Not one of Tom Clancy's best, but still good.

I admit to looking forward to Zero Dark Thirty because of Hurt Locker. Hurt Locker initially didn't make a big impression on me (other than to leave me with respect for Bigelow as a crafty/manipulative story-teller). The film, however, has lingered and clanged around in the back of mind, which is evidence of a good film -- so I was hoping for something special with Zero Dark Thirty. Instead, I just got good enough. It's no Best Picure, I'll tell you that.

- The film lacked exposition. I'm familiar with the hunt for OBL and the Raid and I think more information could/should have been conveyed to the audience.
- The Raid scene was adequate, not transcendent. It didn't glorify the military action or dramatically enhance the raid (like the Irene scene in Black Hawk Down). Those Seals put themselves in harm's way and for the most part I was in the moment with them.
- However, the lousy James Bond-ish music for the Raid sequence was really distracting.
- Jessica Chaisten was good but I'll have to watch it again to see if the performance was award worthy. Some of the tough girl dialogue was a little contrived.
- James Gandolfini is no Leon Panetta.
- The torture scenes were nothing special.
- It's a shame the President at the White House Correspondents Dinner couldn't have been worked into the film. The President's behavior and the audacity of the content at that dinner has got to be the most sublime thing I've ever seen in my lifetime.