Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born 27 November 1951) is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and television director. Her films The Hurt Locker (2008) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

Zero Dark Thirty
Glenn Greenwald comments on Zero Dark Thirty, and suggests that it is tantamount to CIA propaganda:
 * This film presents torture as its CIA proponents and administrators see it: as a dirty, ugly business that is necessary to protect America. There is zero doubt, as so many reviewers have said, that the standard viewer will get the message loud and clear: we found and killed bin Laden because we tortured The Terrorists. No matter how you slice it, no matter how upset it makes progressive commentators to watch people being waterboarded, that - whether intended or not - is the film's glorification of torture. CIA propaganda beyond torture As it turns out, the most pernicious propagandistic aspect of this film is not its pro-torture message. It is its overarching, suffocating jingoism. This film has only one perspective of the world - the CIA's - and it uncritically presents it for its entire 2 1/2 hour duration. All agents of the US government - especially in its intelligence and military agencies - are heroic, noble, self-sacrificing crusaders devoted to stopping The Terrorists; their only sin is all-consuming, sometimes excessive devotion to this task. Almost every Muslim and Arab in the film is a villainous, one-dimensional cartoon figure: dark, seedy, violent, shadowy, menacing, and part of a Terrorist network (the sole exception being a high-level Muslim CIA official, who takes a break from praying to authorize the use of funds to bribe a Kuwaiti official for information; the only good Muslim is found at the CIA).

Jim DiEugenio comments:
 * Almost immediately after bin Laden’s death was announced by President Barack Obama, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow announced their intent to make a film about the manhunt and the Seals mission. That July, just two months after the raid, a high-level Pentagon intelligence officer named Mike Vickers told Boal and Bigelow they would allow a Seal involved in the planning of Neptune Spear to provide them information for Boal’s script. According to declassified documents of the meeting, Boal and Bigelow were overjoyed at this opportunity. (Josh Gerstein, Politico, May 23, 2012) Boal said, “That’s dynamite!” With equal elation, Bigelow chimed in with “That’s incredible.” Boal was also welcomed at CIA headquarters where he was allowed access to a mock-up of bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. Boal was even invited to a CIA ceremony honoring the Seals involved.  (New York Times, Aug. 6, 2011) And Boal met with two members of the staff of the National Security Council: Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Adviser on Counterterrorism John Brennan. But an e-mail from Marie Harf of the CIA revealed that the Agency was trying to keep Boal’s visits to Langley quiet. (Politico, May 23, 2012) This privileged access to secret information is troubling. As many have noted, it is ironic that Boal should be allowed this access by the same administration that has made a habit of threatening with indictments anyone who divulges national security secrets.

Hurt Locker: Pro-war
Jack Smith comments:
 * The Hurt Locker war is no longer a matter of U.S. foreign policy, military power, and the quest for geopolitical advantage and hegemony over the world’s largest petroleum reserves. It’s simply a matter of how three American guys in a very dangerous military occupation respond emotionally to the extraordinary pressure they are under. The Hurt Locker is a movie of pro-war propaganda. Had this powerful war film instead told the truth about America’s ongoing imperial adventure in Iraq, even as it continued to focus mainly on the dilemmas confronting the bomb disposal team, it never would have been nominated for, much less become the recipient of, the most prestigious award in world filmmaking.

Jasmin Ramsey comments:
 * That a film that does not include a single Iraqi perspective is being hailed as an accurate portrayal of the situation in Iraq is either indicative of the blatant bias and possibly hidden intentions of the film’s creators and reviewers, or representative of the flawed view that continues to resonate within people’s minds about the war in Iraq. These views, are, in case they need repeating: that this war was waged with good intentions, that the continued U.S. presence is actually beneficial to the Iraqis, that Iraqis are either idiots or savages, and that the American presence there is composed of lost or lonely soldiers who are just trying to live another day. This after a reported 1 million Iraqis are now dead, and after we have seen such atrocities committed by U.S. troops as the torture at Abu Gharib, the Al-Mahmudiyah killings and the Haditha slayings.