‘Frontline’s’ Episode On Torture Makes A Case That ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Was Government Propaganda

When Zero Dark Thirty hit theaters in December 2012, less than two years after the death of Osama bin Laden in March 2011, critics and audiences were torn apart by a political debate of its historical accuracy and its moral ambiguity. People on all sides of the political spectrum were critical of the film, with some arguing that the film advocated the CIA’s use of torture in the hunt for bin Laden. Others questioned the filmmakers’ (the Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Boal) access to classified CIA documents. Though the movie did not win top honors at that year’s Academy Awards (it won just one of the five awards for which it was nominated: Best Sound Editing), critics heralded Zero Dark Thirty as one of the year’s best. More impressively, it was a box-office smash, earning $138.8 million.

Years later, the film is still controversial — especially given the 6,000-page senate report detailing the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” during the War on Terror that took place during the Bush administration from 2001 to 2006. That report, which revealed many disturbing facts about the extensive use of torture on CIA detainees, also indicates that none of the information received through torture led the CIA to the capture of Osama bin Laden.

Last night, six months after the Senate committee released a truncated, 525-page excerpt of the complete report (much of which remains classified), PBS’ Frontline devoted an hour to how the CIA managed to legally clear the EIT program, how many of its architects still defend the torture practices, and how the organization influenced the depiction of its practices in Zero Dark Thirty.

The episode, titled “Secrets, Politics and Torture,” interviews several talking heads on both sides of the debate, including former Colorado senator Mark Udall and California senator Dianne Feinstein (both of whom served on the committee that looked into the CIA’s interrogation practices) and former CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin and former CIA Acting General Counsel John A. Rizzo. While Udall and Feinstein remain firm on their criticisms of the agency, McLaughlin and Rizzo are as equally stagnant in their support for the torture practices — even though, in hindsight, recent history has proven that the information gathered through those practices did not prove useful either in saving American lives or capturing our enemies.

Rizzo, in particular, was responsible for searching for the legal loopholes that would allow for EITs. When asked about the morality of the practices, he seems to stumble over his words — and offers a very lawyer-y response. “Honestly, my main focus was to attempt to ascertain — to clarify, with certainty — whether or not that any or all of these techniques crossed that legal line into torture,” he admits. “The morality of it? Sure, I had views about that. But I did not view that as my primary role.” McLaughlin, on the other hand, poses a philosophical question in response to the moral ambiguity of torture. “Wouldn’t it be equally immoral if we failed to get this information and thousands of Americans died?”

The point is, though, that there were no results that warranted the torture. The Senate report shows this, but Zero Dark Thirty doesn’t necessarily accomplish this.

I admit that I really enjoyed Zero Dark Thirty when I first saw it. I even watched it again a few months ago after arguing with friends about it, and I wouldn’t suggest that it promoted anything other than the already existing moral ambiguity of wartime strategies — both on a grand scale and a more intimate one. I argued this in the context of American Sniper, which is not a very good movie but one that, I suggested, shouldn’t be labeled as “propaganda” as it only solidifies what a viewer already feels about the War on Terror. Here’s what I wrote about that in film in January:

Zero Dark Thirty, on the other hand, was billed as non-fiction — an act of cinematic journalism. It’s a film that the Frontline report argues is representative of the CIA’s version of events, especially considering that the source material was a collection of CIA-provided documents. Senator Feinstein admits in the Frontline report that she walked out of the film after twenty minutes, calling it “so false.” Former senator Udall openly calls it propaganda, especially since he and other senators had access to CIA documents that provided alternate realities.

The thing about the film, though, is that it also doesn’t state explicitly that the torture we see in the first half of the film led the CIA to finding bin Laden; the torture, I’ve always believed, was depicted as a harsh truth, and not a forgivable offense. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t do a great job at making this clear. Even on my second viewing a few months ago, it was hard to decipher how the fictionalized CIA analysts found bin Laden, as the torture seen on screen is so rampant that it’s a natural conclusion that it was vital to the mission. It wasn’t, of course — it was just happening at the same time. But the film is perhaps too confusing for the average filmgoer (including myself) to piece all of that together.

Michael Isikoff, co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, criticizes Bigelow’s film in the Frontline report, saying, “Movies like Zero Dark Thirty have a huge impact. More people see them and more people get their impressions about what happened from a movie like that than they do from countless news stories or TV spots.” And that’s entirely true, and the crux of the debate surrounding the film. Its filmmakers may argue that Zero Dark Thirty is a piece of journalism, but that’s dubious considering their limited sources (and the basic fact that people do not go to a multiplex for solid journalism). It’s a piece of art, and art is subjective; Zero Dark Thirty, then, is as morally ambiguous as the torture it displays on screen.

The subject of this debate is not whether torture is bad, but rather if the torture committed by CIA operatives was worth the immorality that comes along with it. History proves it wasn’t justified, and Zero Dark Thirty gives the impression that it was. If Zero Dark Thirty, then, offers the CIA’s version of the facts to a large audience, the accounts of recent history are uncomfortably misleading — which only proves worrisome for future generations who deserve an unmuddled understanding of the truth.

Watch the Frontline episode “Secrets, Politics and Torture” on PBS.org and on iTunes. Find where to stream Zero Dark Thirty here.

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