TPM Reader MR has more in our discussion of Zero Dark Thirty and torture …
Like other responders, I’m also a produced screenwriter. In resp to the various ZD30 comments:
1) IMO, Bigelow & Boal purposely played it down the middle and captured very well the public’s ambiguous attitude toward torture, and the fog surrounding its efficacy. The fact that serious people are having serious, good faith disagreements about B+B’s intent seems proof of that.
We in America, rightly or wrongly, often assume we’re in the rearguard on issues like gay rights and marriage equality (at least in terms of federal legislation) — certainly vis a vis many European countries. Yet the reaction in this country has been relatively tepid in the face of the huge changes over the last couple years. By contrast, hundreds of thousands of opponents turned out yesterday in Paris to protest a new bill legalizing full equality in France and at the end of the rally it actually turned violent.