Zero Dark de Triomphe
Posted by Thomas Nephew on December 14th, 2012
Roy Edroso takes on Glenn Greenwald’s recent piece on the upcoming “Zero Dark Thirty” movie, and rightly identifies several passages undermining Greenwald’s claim as “disingenuous” that his piece is all about critical reactions, and not about the movie itself. Personally I feel like “so what?” I think Greenwald’s basic point remains valid: many critics essentially said both “whoa, whutta movie! must see!” and “but ya know, it glorifies torture.” And that is indeed another data point for cultural Nate Silvers to add to their estimate of where our national handbasket is headed.
But yeah, maybe Greenwald jumped the gun a bit by foolishly taking many reviewers at their word instead of waiting to see the movie for himself. So did I, maybe: I set up a “Boycott Zero Dark Thirty” Facebook page before learning that Spencer Ackerman — a reporter for Wired who has seemed like a straight shooter over the years — argues the movie says that torture wasn’t the “silver bullet” but “the ignorant alternative” to the kind of detective work that actually did find Bin Laden.
But this is the part of Roy’s piece I want to discuss:
“This is still more proof — as if more were needed — that you shouldn’t bring your political obsessions to the temple of art. It is both more personally edifying and more pleasing to the Muses to approach a work of art as a work of art, however obnoxious it may be to you on other grounds, than to approach it as a political phenomenon.”
Honestly, Roy, I’m sorry: baloney. I don’t have to see Zero Dark Thirty to know — OK, very, very strongly suspect — that it’s “art” the way the Roman Colosseum is art, or the Arc de Triomphe is art, or “Triumph of the Will” is art.
That is to say, OK, sure, it’s a kind of art — but it’s a kind serving to glorify the victories and rulers of the day and validate their people’s faith in them, and it’s fully intended to do so. Such art, unlike, say, “Little Miss Sunshine,” is therefore a political phenomenon too, and is completely fair game for political discussion. For that matter, so is a hell of a lot of the rest of the uplifting artstuff hanging on museum walls or flickering on screens for that matter: it’s what those who are good at saying well-compensated uplifting stuff say or have the power to say.
What is it Bigelow and Boal have the well-compensated power to say? E.g., how do Bigelow and Boal know what they think they know, how does it get that authentic, documentarian feel cinematic art consumers today crave? Not just “the illusion of real time” in exciting night time raids but the ‘ripped from the headlines’ “faithful[ness] to the material’’? Oh, right: they got it spoon fed to them — back when the prospective opening date was apparently advertised as October 12, not December 14. Do the math.
Greenwald (and I for that matter) may have swung early and missed as far as ZD30 goes, but I’m betting there’s plenty there to hit. One way or the other, we’re on the cusp of our “pass the popcorn” phase of our national dialogue, such as it is, on torture. Not every story at the intersection of art and politics is “Piss Christ” revisited, or about whether government should pay for controversial art or monitor its content. Bigelow and ZD30 chose the kitchen, they can’t complain about the heat. As long as the word “disingenuous” is floating around, it also seems a little disingenuous to claim the most highly anticipated political snuff movie ever is in the “temple of art,” so leave it aloooooone.
On the other hand, though, I’m not sure about boycotting the thing any more. It’s probably best to go ahead and see it if you’ve got to scratch that itch, or just to judge what, if anything, is wrong with it exactly. I guess I do hope many, many Americans don’t enjoy it.
Screening the rushes for Zero Dark Thirty (and making sure there was a group photo).
Category: Post. Tags: art, movie, propaganda, torture|abuse.
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December 14th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Well, I won’t be going. But you couldn’t exactly call it a boycott; I’m trying to remember the last movie I went to see in its entirety (not counting the many ten-minute excerpts I’ve seen while on break from working at the drive-in concession).
Pretty sure the last such movie was Up…
Good post, thanks. Spencer Ackerman’s piece made me feel like throwing up.