From TPM Reader FH on the Zero Dark Thirty question …
I was unprepared and surprised by the extent torture played a part in the first part of the movie. At first I saw it as an endorsement or being posited as a viable alternative to traditional interrogation.
After deconstructing the torture scenes though, the intent of the filmmaker sand their thoughts on the efficacy of those tactics are more ambiguous.
The only bit of intel that Maya or Dan personally obtained during any of the interrogations was Omar’s confused response regarding the timeline for an upcoming attack. The detainee, Ammar, threw out one day of the week after another. It was clear he didn’t know and he was grasping at any answer that would bring the torture to an end. His answers almost had an aspect of pleading and questioning , as in “will this work?”
This reinforced what many people have said which is that prisoners will give interrogators any kind of information, truthful or invented, simply to bring the pain to an end. The only other piece of intel obtained under torture , which turned out to be incorrect, was that Ibrahim Sayeed had been killed a decade earlier. We saw this as a videotape.
In every other instance – torture lead to nothing; including the torture of Sayeed’s employer.
The two bits of intel Maya and Dan were able to obtain from detainees, in both cases information about Ibrahim Sayeed, came from conversations with the detainees in settings which was far removed from the torture chamber.
To put all this in perspective, it’s worth remembering that the final and critical piece of intel, Sayeed’s identity, didn’t come from a detainee at all. But from information in a government file that had been archived years earlier. This was information that was uncovered with nothing harsher than elbow grease.
In interviews Bigelow contended that it was part of the record and need to be portrayed.
Bigelow said she included the torture scenes because, regardless of where you stand on the issue, it was significant part of the historical record. I think that depictions of torture need to be viewed in the context of how much time and effort was devoted to the practice – which was significant in both the film and the real world , and what was gained from it – which was very little. This was also part of the historical record.
