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Zero Dark Thirty Scandal Files
by Joe Giambrone
“Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
Mainstream Hollywood tends to make me nauseous for what it puts up on screen and for what the public accepts as normal, as “entertainment.” I’ve rejected the usual mainstream studio version of war and what torture means for quite a while, but it keeps finding its way back into even supposedly children’s fairy tales.
For all I know the Hansel and Gretel story was originally designed to scare the crap out of kids and to keep them from wandering off. That much does translate to the new film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. I was dragged to the thing by family, and it was either that or Spielberg’s Lincoln, which I certainly wasn’t in the mood for; in retrospect this was in all likelihood a mistake.
Now the issue with stories, the power of the story is what it does to the protagonist(s), or more to the point what the protagonists choose to do. How they respond is how we are to respond to external events. They are a template, a guide to lead the viewer through challenges, as one might find in the real world. Whether fantasy, science fiction or horror the responses and reactions of the protagonists are to be considered by the audience and accepted as logical, justified and rational given whatever extreme situations confront them. In this way stories teach, prompt and alert. They acclimate the viewer to new and extreme possibilities such as war, combat… interrogation of captured prisoners?
Here is where the word “entertainment” gets employed by “the industry” as a shield of armor. They love this word and all it implies, freedom from moral considerations, freedom from scrutiny, freedom from accountability or responsibility for the things they show and tell millions of strangers. It’s all just entertainment, you see, and you are supposed to repeat the mantra too, as you unquestionably accept their culture. “Entertainment” is the first refuge of intellectual cowards.
Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and his sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are mercenaries now, guns for hire. That’s a “new take” already. Mercenary protagonists? Hired killers with a long track record of killing witches, only in this film the witches are very powerful, fast, violent and ugly, so it’s okay. Well, the main antagonist, the “Grand Witch” Muriel can be pretty attractive when she wants to be, but she always transforms to a hideous makeup effect when it’s time for evildoing.
The Hansel mercenary character has an odd American sensibility about him, as the movie is supposedly set in old Europe. It’s obviously not intended to be taken seriously but to pander to provincial American audiences. And pander it does. Dialogue is peppered with contemporary one-liners, like a Die Hard film.
So that’s the stage. When one of the townsfolk returns to the tavern with a message from the witches he then explodes in a volcano of guts and gore. One of the young fan boys who’s obsessed with the two witch hunters proclaims, “That was cool!” Still covered in the intestines of the exploded man, what kind of twisted thinking is going on here? The extreme gore and sadism is normalized, even in a peaceful tavern where one of their own has just exploded in a most disgusting fashion, the walls splattered with his blood. This wasn’t even a witch but a local tracker whose splattered spleen has landed in the ale. Whatever?
Even that scene wasn’t what set me off against this thing. It was the capture and interrogation of one of the witches. The torture issue is where Hollywood boasts a stained, repugnant record that stretches way back but is particularly egregious after the attacks of September 11tt 2001. What stands out about the Hansel torture scene is the casual, unthinking normalcy of it all. Jeremy Renner has his own spikey brass knuckles ready, and probably blood-encrusted, which he automatically grabs and begins beating an actress across the face with. It’s never a question, never an issue by anyone. It’s simply a normal, everyday part of the War on Witch Terror, a deliberate parallel that is flagged later for us in no uncertain terms. And of course the torture also works! The witch remains defiant in demeanor, but swiftly spills her guts about the big witch plan. Zero Dark Thirty meets Disney, who could ask for more?
So torturing and killing the evildoers is perfectly fine, business as usual, literally. See, there’s never any question about their guilt. With witches, if Hansel fails them in his inspection it’s burning time. He is judge, jury and executioner.
A moral issue is established in the opening scene over witches, the death penalty, mob justice, hysteria, etcetera, before Hansel and Gretel show up in the town. An attractive young woman is presented and demonized by a bully of a sheriff, while the mayor appeals to justice and evidence. The ignorant mob is swayed this way and that, eventually fear mongered into siding with the sheriff and ready to kill the pretty woman. That’s the cue for Hansel and Gretel to take charge, display superior firepower and belligerence, and to humiliate the sheriff.
As the pretty woman is saved by the two newcomers we are led to wonder if these two are on the side of justice. They seek evidence about the woman, and really it’s just the expert myth that counts here. Hansel has the status, the experience, the expertise to decide if the pretty woman should live or die. Thus Hansel is supreme authority, supreme military force and “the decider” now. As he reveals later, all witches will be burned, and that is his business model. There is never any possibility of peace through any other means. It is war, only war, and the enemy is beyond negotiation. This is the tired formula, the cliché of course. It’s expected, and it’s beyond question.
Like all good propaganda – and bad movies – the antagonists don’t have any legitimate grievances. Witches aren’t retaliating for any wrongs done to them. Townsfolk aren’t stealing the witch’s oil or propping up corrupt dictators over them, secretly torturing them in black sites or the like.
The witches just seek to steal the innocent town children, and for what? For some McGuffin of a ritual; again who cares? They’re evil. Kill ‘em all, and do it in the goriest, blood splattered manner possible, much like modern weapons of war actually do to real human beings today. In fact some of the weaponry, jaw-droppingly “blessed” with holy water by a “white witch” later on in the movie, are modern automatic machine guns and pistols. The holy artillery is wielded by the mercenaries and their new side kick, the fan boy.
It is the essence of glory to kill ugly women, seems to be the theme of this thing. The witches do take beating after beating and get torn apart in expected fashion at the climax. The grand witch Muriel even begs for mercy, back in her attractive actress form, as Hansel is about to kill her. There is no mercy for the evildoer, baby. Mercy this.
And so that old adage about not becoming the monsters we seek to defeat was left on the cutting room floor. Kill, kill, kill and live to kill another day. As the witch hunters press on into infamy across the barren landscape (Afghanistan?), Hansel reads a voice over apparently prepared by the US Department of Defense. You can’t run and you can’t hide. We’re coming for you, evildoers, no matter where you go. For we are Ameri-witch hunters, yeah witch hunters. The world is our mission, and we won’t quit until it’s accomplished. The white man’s burden is transferred to the next generation by way of special effect stuffed fairy tales.
Oh yeah, it’s just entertainment.
And they cheered, some small group of young people across the aisle. It was a light turnout, second run, cheap seats, mostly empty.
I’m considering a study of the use of torture by protagonists, by supposedly “good guys” in Hollywood “entertainment product.” This was, and is, actually a theme that runs through Hell of a Deal, my own novel. The selling of torture is one of the most crucial issues of our time. Polls show that significant percentages of people now accept this abhorrent, illegal and immoral practice after so much repeated conditioning in the news and on their screens. Torture is pervasive, and yet has been rightly condemned as barbarism for centuries. Our own Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishment,” and always has. Perhaps the founders had significantly more wisdom than your average contemporary couch potato.
One film that stick with me on this torture issue is the first Charlie’s Angels movie(2000). Such an unlikely place to find a pro-torture message. This film is a favorite of little girls everywhere. My own daughter watched it repeatedly when she was 11 or 12, and it is a lighthearted romp. But there’s that one moment they just had to include… fucking Hollywood.
At one point in the middle of the Charlie’s Angels film an unnamed thug fights with Cameron Diaz (“Natalie”), and she quickly kicks his ass. Then she proceeds to torture him for information by grinding her boot into his throat. That’s the moment the film crosses the line from justifiable to morally questionable. In my view it’s flatly immoral by its matter of fact unquestioned acceptance and use of torture when convenient by one of the “angels.” This scene throws the entire film, and the people behind it and responsible for it, into question. In what circle is torture considered another tool of the trade? At what dinner parties do we stomp on people’s throats until they tell us the correct responses? Why is this content included in a film for young people, who are to idolize and identify with these women?
In an overwhelmingly fascist culture, it’s just entertainment. Who do we torture and kill next, Hollywood? Can’t wait to buy my ticket.
A new breakthrough at the UN Commission for Human Rights:
After eight years of stonewalling and resistance by US and UK authorities, the UN special investigator addressed the world body’s Human Rights Commission publicly, demanding the two nations cooperate with the investigation.
Ben Emmerson, the lead special investigator, described to the gathered UN dignitaries a setting of self-approved legal immunity among US and UK national leaders. He called the two governments’ standing policy, “A policy of de facto immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these acts.”
This is one for the Quotables page:
“Platitudinous repetition of statements affirming opposition to torture ring hollow to many in those parts of the Middle East and North Africa that have undergone, or are undergoing, major upheaval, since they have first-hand experience of living under repressive regimes that used torture in private whilst making similar statements in public.”
Emmerson directly calls out Barack Obama:
“The skepticism of these communities can only be reinforced if Western governments continue to demonstrate resolute indifference to the crimes committed by their predecessor administrations.”
Luke Rudkowski interviewed Congressman Timothy Huelscamp:
When the only people standing up for your rights are attendees at CPAC, then it’s time to reassess your mindless support of a criminal so-called “liberal” administration. We’re talking trashing the consitution, arming a domestic Gestapo, protecting previous war criminals including the Bush/Cheney junta many liberals were rabid to prosecute for years, and promoting CIA torturers in the current regime!
There’s something wrong in the white house people. The novelty of a black face there should have worn off about four years ago.
Argo & Zero Dark Thirty now get to lie to many more people, with their DVD and Blu-Ray releases. If you haven’t yet read about these monumental piles of propaganda, then here:
Short version: Argo makes the murderous CIA the heroes and embellishes enough to demonize all Iranians, wihch is grade-a war propaganda if you’re looking to start a new war on that nation. Zero Dark Thirty fabricates a justification for torturing people by falsely showing torture leading to bin Laden. Not much has changed since Leni Riefenstahl and the Nazis, except the propaganda has gotten more subtle and sophisticated.
Prof. Chussodovsky / Globalresearch has the evidence.
Image: Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope 2013) and General Jorge Videla (Murderous Dictator)
“The Dirty War”: Allegations directed Against Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio
Condemning the military dictatorship (including its human rights violations) was a taboo within the Catholic Church. While the upper echelons of the Church were supportive of the military Junta, the grassroots of the Church was firmly opposed to the imposition of military rule.
In 2005, human rights lawyer Myriam Bregman filed a criminal suit against Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, accusing him of conspiring with the military junta in the 1976 kidnapping of two Jesuit priests.
Several years later, the survivors of the “Dirty War” openly accused Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of complicity in the kidnapping of priests Francisco Jalics y Orlando Yorio as well six members of their parish, (El Mundo, 8 November 2010)
Bergoglio, who at the time was “Provincial” for the Society of Jesus, had ordered the two “Leftist” Jesuit priests and opponents of military rule “to leave their pastoral work” (i.e. they were fired) following divisions within the Society of Jesus regarding the role of the Catholic Church and its relations to the military Junta.
While the two priests Francisco Jalics y Orlando Yorio, kidnapped by the death squads in May 1976 were released five months later. after having been tortured, six other people associated with their parish kidnapped as part of the same operation were “disappeared” (desaparecidos). These included four teachers associated with the parish and two of their husbands.
Upon his release, Priest Orlando Yorio “accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over [including six other people] to the death squads … Jalics refused to discuss the complaint after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.” (Associated Press, March 13, 2013, emphasis added),
“During the first trial of leaders of the military junta in 1985, Yorio declared, “I am sure that he himself gave over the list with our names to the Navy.” The two were taken to the notorious Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) torture center and held for over five months before being drugged and dumped in a town outside the city. (See Bill van Auken, “The Dirty War” Pope, World Socialist Website and Global Research, March 14, 2013
Among those “disappeared” by the death squads were Mónica Candelaria Mignone and María Marta Vázquez Ocampo, respectively daughter of the founder of of the CELS (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales) Emilio Mignone and daughter of the president of Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Martha Ocampo de Vázquez. (El Periodista Online, March 2013).
María Marta Vásquez, her husband César Lugones (see picture right) and Mónica Candelaria Mignone allegedly “handed over to the death squads” by Jesuit “Provincial” Jorge Mario Bergoglio are among the thousands of “desaparecidos” (disappeared) of Argentina’s “Dirty War”, which was supported covertly by Washington under “Operation Condor”. (See memorialmagro.com.ar
)In the course of the trial initiated in 2005:
“Bergoglio [Pope Francis I] twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in 2010, his answers were evasive”: “At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads… by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.” (Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2005)
The Secret Memorandum
[This section was added on March 19, 2013]
The military government acknowledged in a Secret Memo (see below) that Father Bergoglio had accused the two priests of having established contacts with the guerilleros, and for having disobeyed the orders of the Church hierarchy (Conflictos de obedecencia). It also states that the Jesuit order had demanded the dissolution of their group and that they had refused to abide by Bergoglio’s instructions.
The document acknowledges that the “arrest” of the two priests, who were taken to the torture and detention center at the Naval School of Mechanics, ESMA, was based on information transmitted by Father Bergoglio to the military authorities. (signed by Mr. Orcoyen)
While a former member of the priests group had joined the insurgency, there was no evidence of the priests having contacts with the guerrilla movement.
“Holy Communion for the Dictators”
The accusations directed against Bergoglio regarding the two kidnapped Jesuit priests and six members of their parish are but the tip of the iceberg. While Bergoglio was an important figure in the Catholic Church, he was certainly not alone in supporting the Military Junta.
According to lawyer Myriam Bregman: “Bergoglio’s own statements proved church officials knew from early on that the junta was torturing and killing its citizens”, and yet publicly endorsed the dictators. “The dictatorship could not have operated this way without this key support,” (Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2005 emphasis added)
The entire Catholic hierarchy was behind the US sponsored military dictatorship. It is worth recalling that on March 23, 1976, on the eve of the military coup:
“Videla and other plotters received the blessing of the Archbishop of Paraná, Adolfo Tortolo, who also served as vicar of the armed forces. The day of the takeover itself, the military leaders had a lengthy meeting with the leaders of the bishop’s conference. As he emerged from that meeting, Archbishop Tortolo stated that although “the church has its own specific mission . . . there are circumstances in which it cannot refrain from participating even when it is a matter of problems related to the specific order of the state.” He urged Argentinians to “cooperate in a positive way” with the new government.” (The Humanist.org, January 2011, emphasis added)
In an interview conducted with El Sur, General Jorge Videla, who is now serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity confirmed that:
“He kept the country’s Catholic hierarchy informed about his regime’s policy of “disappearing” political opponents, and that Catholic leaders offered advice on how to “manage” the policy.
Jorge Videla said he had “many conversations” with Argentina’s primate, Cardinal Raúl Francisco Primatesta, about his regime’s dirty war against left-wing activists. He said there were also conversations with other leading bishops from Argentina’s episcopal conference as well as with the country’s papal nuncio at the time, Pio Laghi.
“They advised us about the manner in which to deal with the situation,” said Videla” (Tom Henningan, Former Argentinian dictator says he told Catholic Church of disappeared
, Irish Times, July 24, 2012, emphasis added)It is worth noting that according to a 1976 statement by Archbishop Adolfo Tortolo, the military would always consult with a member of the Catholic hierarchy in the case of the “arrest” of a grassroots member of the clergy. This statement was made specifically in relation to the two kidnapped Jesuit priests, whose pastoral activities were under the authority of Society of Jesus “provincial” Jorge Mario Bergoglio. (El Periodista Online, March 2013).
In endorsing the military Junta, the Catholic hierarchy was complicit in torture and mass killings, an estimated “22,000 dead and disappeared, from 1976 to 1978
… Thousands of additional victims were killed between 1978 and 1983 when the military was forced from power.” (National Security Archive, March 23, 2006).
Abu Zabaydah was repeatedly tortured and his torture statements were used by the 9/11 Cover Up Commission as a foundation of their bogus report. But now what is the US Government saying about Mr. Zubaydah?
“For example, in response to the habeas corpus petition filed by Zubaydah’s defense team, the government stated that it does not contend that Zubaydah had “any direct role in or advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.” [7] The same response states that the government no longer claims that Zubaydah was ever “a member of al-Qaida or otherwise formally identified with al-Qaida.” But footnote 35 to Chapter 5 of the 9/11 Commission Report states the exact opposite. According to this footnote, “Abu Zubaydah, who worked closely with the al Qaeda leadership, has stated that KSM originally presented Bin Ladin with a scaled-down version of the 9/11 plan, and that Bin Ladin urged KSM to expand the operation with the comment, ‘Why do you use an axe when you can use a bulldozer?’” [8] That’s pretty extensive and intimate knowledge for someone who was never associated with al Qaeda.”
Read the full article for a discussion of the lies of longtime Democratic Party henchman Lee Hamilton, who similarly covered up the Iran Contra drug running by CIA and their mercenary terrorists in Central America.
Zubaydah is a likely stand in for one of the tortured victims in Kathryn Bigelow’s homage to torture Zero Dark Thirty. I prefer to seek the actual truth, thank you very much.
The 9/11 Cover Up links right back to the new Reichsmarshall John Brennan.
A so-called judge ruled that Pvt. Manning could be tortured and detained for over 1,000 days, and this now counts as a “speedy trial.”
“On PFC Bradley Manning’s 1,005th day in prison without trial, military judge Denise Lind ruled that the government has not deprived him of his due process right to a speedy trial. Rules for court martial require the military to arraign defendants within 120 days, and more than 600 passed before prosecutors arraigned Bradley” -FreeBradleyManning
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence”
All-American Babe Who Didn’t Torture Anybody Wins Oscar
One more waterboarding for Bigelow and Boal. Glenn Greenwald, who always keeps his razor sharp, gives a needed fuck you to the bootlicking film critics who ignore morality, ethics and propaganda, even when it’s right in their faces.
Zero Dark Thirty, the CIA and film critics have a very bad evening
The stigma attached to the pro-torture CIA propaganda vehicle, beloved by film critics, results in Oscar humiliation
By Dennis Loo
During Jack Nicholson’s announcing the Best Picture Oscar last night he brought in direct from the White House First Lady Michelle Obama as his co-presenter to announce the winner. Flanked by men and women in full military dress complete with awards regalia, Michelle congratulated Hollywood for its work.
Behind Michelle we don’t see a group of actors, creative types, children, regular Americans or even distinguished civilian Americans. This isn’t a Veteran’s Day broadcast either. This is the Academy Awards, the principle awards show for films.
In helping to introduce the 2013 Best Picture, the First Lady looks like she’s about to announce the Medal of Honor or the Distinguished Cross.
This tableau isn’t so inappropriate after all, for when she opens the envelope, the winner is (drum roll please): Argo! A film that depicts the Iranian Revolution through the eyes of the CIA, the people who brought the tyrant Shah to power in Iran through a coup in 1953, overthrowing the extremely popular Mossadegh who tried to nationalize the oil fields (which sealed his doom from the perspective of Big Oil and the U.S. Empire). The CIA provided torture instruction and equipment to the Shah for decades so that he could torture and kill his opponents in Iran (his opponents being the vast majority of the people). The 1979 Iranian Revolution drove him and the U.S. and the CIA out. As one of the film’s producers, Grant Heslov, says in a half an hour “The Making of Argo” piece: he’s proud of the film because it humanizes the CIA and makes us proud of them.
So Michelle Obama’s chosen backdrop of a military entourage does make sense after all in this season of all things military and secret agents/special ops. It’s just jarring to see it if you’re not completely seduced by the Military Security State.
***
I was very pleased to see that Zero Dark Thirty, despite being touted heavily by major movie critics upon its release a few months ago as the best film of the year which they said would sweep multiple awards at the Oscars, including Best Picture, was shunned by Hollywood, garnering only one Oscar, a tie for sound editing with the James Bond flick “Skyfall.”
A funny thing happened on the way to the podium for the makers of ZDT: people smelled a rat and wrote about it. This was something that took some time to build because as late as the Golden Globes, the biggest pre-Academy Awards show whose winners frequently predict the Oscar winners, Jessica Chastain (who played Maya the CIA torturer/killer in ZDT) won the Golden Globes’ Best Actress.
The shunning of this film that revels in torture came about clearly because of the stinging criticism and protests against it by a number of writers and activists, including notably actors such as David Clennon and Ed Asner, columnist Glenn Greenwald, director Alex Gibney, Jane Mayer, and others including myself, and World Can’t Wait which, among other things, staged a sarcastic first annual Leni Riefenstahl Award by the Committee for Sanitizing Crimes Against Humanity in Film outside of the Oscars yesterday, which I was pleased to join as, playing against type, John Yoo, to give out the First Annual Leni. Actor David Clennon, whose work in breaking ranks in Hollywood publicly condemning the film for its immoral endorsement of torture, played a signal role, joined and helped to make this counter-awards’ event.
We had trouble finding a place to do our performance piece, however, as a wide swath of the areas around the Hollywood and Highland area where the Oscars were happening were closed down to traffic and the foot traffic severely restricted by the police, another example of the Military Security State exercising its muscle to make sure that the spectacle occurred without the public having more than a glancing opportunity to be physically present or even very proximal physically.
Bigelow and her co-writer Marc Boal did not help their cause when criticisms of their docu – propaganda (docu-ganda?) piece were aired. Bigelow and Boal purposefully mischaracterized their critics as attempting to censor their film and mischaracterized what was in their film, as if people couldn’t recognize these misstatements after seeing the films for themselves. In this case it wasn’t Hollywood itself that pressed the attack on ZDT but mostly political writers. Hollywood, however, responded to that and it’s a good thing.
In a related matter, The New York Times is reporting today in its top story that the Afghan government has banned U.S. forces from operating in Maidan Wardak Province. Maidan Wardak is southwest of Kabul and is “the American military’s main source of offensive firepower from the area.” It is also a staging area for Taliban attacks. The reason for the ban from the Karzai government, a puppet of the U.S.? Fury among Afghans for the U.S. Special Forces torturing and killing villagers.
Our Special Forces? Our military? The kind of people that First Lady Michelle Obama surrounded herself with during the Academy Awards announcing the Best Picture?
By announcing the ban, the government signaled its willingness to take a far harder line against abuses linked to foreign troops than it has in the past. The action also reflected a deep distrust of international forces that is now widespread in Afghanistan, and the view held by many Afghans, President Hamid Karzai among them, that the coalition shares responsibility with the Taliban for the violence that continues to afflict the country.
…Afghan officials said the measure was taken as a last resort. They said they had tried for weeks to get the coalition to cooperate with an investigation into claims that civilians had been killed, abducted or tortured by Afghans working for American Special Operations forces in Maidan Wardak. But the coalition was not responsive, they said.
…
The provincial government in Maidan Wardak expressed support for the ban. “There have been lots of complaints from the local people about misconduct, mistreatment, beating, taking away, torturing and killing of civilians by Special Forces and their Afghan associates,” said Attaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial government.
He cited a raid on a village on Feb. 13, when American troops and Afghans working with them detained a veterinary student. “His dead body was found three days later in the area under a bridge,” Mr. Khogyani said, prompting protests against foreigners.
Mr. Faizi said that villagers in Maidan Wardak had reported a number of similar episodes in recent months, including the disappearance of nine men in a single raid. “People from the province, elders from villages, have come to Kabul so many times, and they have brought photographs and videos of their family members who have been tortured,” he said.
So while Hollywood both rejects and accepts the CIA’s preferred view of itself, the fact of U.S. military and CIA activities are emblazoned on the front pages of The New York Times again. Efforts to combat falsified history and the promotion of crimes as heroism and patriotism made and make a difference, as evidenced by Hollywood’s shunning of the pre-Academy Awards favorite in ZDT. Much more, however, must be done.
Alternative Oscars happening today at 3pn.
I actually addressed the Leni Riefenstahl / Kathryn Bigelow comparison here.
Jennifer A Epps
Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite film director who isn’t Scorsese. And even then, it’s getting very close. When I ambled out into the light after the L.A. native’s sixth feature, the psychological period epic The Master, I felt like I had just seen one of the greatest American films in a couple of decades. If you haven’t heard much about it, however, that’s because it isn’t nominated for any Oscars in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, or Best Score categories – in all of which cases it was robbed, in my humble opinion. It did still, nonetheless, receive 3 Oscar nominations for the work of each of its principal actors (Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams). The acting was so rich and full it was impossible not to notice, but the Academy has treated the success of The Master’s cast as some kind of fluke, as if they could all just give spectacular performances without the words, story, and characters P.T. Anderson supplied them with in the first place, or the nuanced direction he gave them to guide them through some challenging and unusually-paced material.
One hears a lot about Kathryn Bigelow being snubbed by the Academy this year, and the question of whether this was in reaction to how she depicted torture in Zero Dark Thirty. One also hears about Ben Affleck, Quentin Tarantino, and Tom Hooper being left out of the Best Director category while their films were all nominated for Best Picture (though obviously when there are only 5 directors nominated yet 9 Best Picture nominees, there have to be some exclusions). What’s given little attention, however, is how severely Anderson and The Master were overlooked by the Academy (and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) in the top categories. In fact, Anderson was not even part of the “directors’ roundtables” assembled by various news agencies early in the awards season. The reason for this perhaps is that Anderson’s work is so stubbornly idiosyncratic. The Master is even more uncompromising than There Will Be Blood; both of these surprising films exist in alternate universes of filmmaking with scant interest in building a story along familiar lines, cutting where audiences expect a cut, or scoring a scene in a way that sounds like other movies.
This weekend, there’s a chance for the British Academy to take a stand for originality at the BAFTAs, as The Master is nominated (once again) for awards for all three of its principal actors, as well as for Original Screenplay. And next weekend, the Writers’ Guild could recognize Anderson’s screenplay at the WGA Awards. However, I’m not sure anyone is holding their breath at this point, since there’s a little thing called “momentum”, and The Master seems to have lost that, while other, more commercial fare, has surged ahead.
But it is important to note that the title of this review is not strictly accurate. The Master, and Anderson’s impossibly fertile talent, is not completely ‘unacknowledged.’ For one thing, Anderson took home the second highest award at the Venice Film Festival, the Silver Lion, for Best Director. The Venice jury also awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor to both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. And apparently, the jury also wanted to award The Master the top prize at Venice, the Golden Lion, for Best Film, but new rules limited the jury to no more than two awards per film, no matter how exceptional the film. (The third award The Master picked up at the City of Canals was from the critics, the FIPRESCI award for the best film in competition.)
The Master has been a critical darling at home, too. Early in the awards season, it picked up a boat-load of trophies from critics’ associations across the U.S. Its wins are noted in the table below. That won’t help anyone in their Oscar pools, but it shows how far apart the critics and the Academy are. And it is worth keeping in mind when The Master is released on DVD on Feb. 26th, two days after the Oscars.
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