Kathryn Bigelow: Zero Dark Thirty

Sunday afternoon January 20^th I find myself sitting, stunned in a dark movie theatre. The credits roll as the score plays for one of the most powerful films I have seen in many years. There’s a lot to digest here and I haven’t been this shaken and awed by a film since Francis Ford Coppola’s  “Apocalypse Now.” I remain motionless. “Directed by Kathryn Bigelow” flows from the darkness and reveals itself onto the screen then fades away. After a time I have to leave the theatre; this brilliant, unusual production piece, “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Bigelow has created nothing short of a masterpiece. It will be viewed and studied for years to come. It is already being dissected and analyzed. It is also already an intense controversy. This is the stuff that makes legends; makes the world think. Torture is nothing short of the most vile, hideous and least human of acts that human beings perform on each other. There is no connection to the heroic in it’s execution and Americans need to see themselves as heroes. The depiction of the torture of the detainees in a CIA Black Site is so realistic and brutal that I almost left the theatre at one point, to watch it is to somehow comply with it.  I sat through the scenes that went on for at least 20 minutes (an eternity in film time) and it is to the great credit of the film maker that she was able to bring me back into her vision. It was the scene with the monkeys that brought me back.  

“Zero Dark Thirty” is military slang for thirty minutes past midnight (Oh Dark Thirty) or an arbitrary time between midnight and dawn. It is very late night or very early morning depending on your point of view. The film too is very much left to the viewer’s perspective. This is good for events that are so critical to the national psyche and are actual events in the nation’s history. The bringing to justice of Osama Bin Laden was important and it was not pretty. There is no real glorification or “Hollywood” clichés involved. The film opens to a total black screen with archive recordings of the attack of the World Trade Center. Our imaginations and memories are already put to work. It cuts directly to the torture of an “Enemy Combatant” who strangely comes to remind me of Jesus. What follows is without a single moment of detachment for the viewer.

 

 

Bigelow’s vision of the events following Nine Eleven is impressive, provocative and to the credit of all her team of collaorators and crew. Bigelow takes her place now among the great artist/film-makers with this dedicated piece. I can only think that there are greater works still from her to come.

The Imperalist

It was not a good night by anyone’s standard unless you were perhaps someone that thought war was a good thing. The debates had gone on for months and in some ways years. “Saddam Hussein had to be taken out; we will have to deal with him eventually, it might as well be now. He has those monstrous weapons of mass destruction and he will use them….” On that March night in 2003 the second George W. Bush War Campaign would begin with a little something called”Shock and Awe.” We would have the pleasure of seeing it televised safely at home. A kind of macabre, historic, media event that was “Must See TV.” As I waited for the event I began a painted.

George Bush had been convinced by members of his administration principally Donald Rumsfeld and Paul   Wolfowitz that because of the collapse of the Soviet Union we were without a compelling rival and thus unbeatable. The war on terror made it convenient and seemingly necessary to bomb Bagdad. It was time to extend the empire; America’s time for sole world domination was here. As the “Bush Doctrine” took effect I continued to paint. The painting I worked on during the premiere night continued to develop and I now called it “The Imperalist”.

Since that initial night which turned out to be neither especially shocking nor awesome we have moved on to other things along with the Bush administration (and Saddam). The wars have not.  We now have a new administration; that isn’t exactly new anymore and with his book that is new Bob Woodward has dubbed Iraq and Afghanistan;  “Obama’s Wars”. 

Woodward wrote four books during Bush’s years and this is his first during Obama’s tenure. Woodward is becoming the principal presidential scribe of the twenty-first century. His is a true insider and highly respected.

The job description of the American Presidency though seemingly the same changes with each president. Things are inherited and new events change what is asked of each man while in office. Aside from “The Party Agenda”; personal policies and personality determine what we expect from each man in the oval office.  Health care, the economy and the wars are defining Obama. The first drafts of his presidential histories are being written.  Obama continues, health care, the economy and the wars continue; Bob Woodward continues. I continue to paint though I may change the title of “The Imperalist “to “The Inheritance”.