Stephen Colbert Grills Kathryn Bigelow On ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Torture [Video]

Stephen Colbert is widely known as a funnyman pundit, but the comedian sometimes bridges over into serious conversations on his program The Colbert Report. Case in point: Colbert sat down with Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow Tuesday, and pressed her about the controversy surrounding the torture scenes in the film.

Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatization of the investigation, hunt, and eventual capture of Osama Bin Laden, has received heavy critical praise, but also a strong dose of criticism for its depiction of torture. Writing for The New York Times, Frank Bruni wrote that torture is treated in the film as “something of an information-extracting necessity, repellent but fruitful.”

Colbert invited Bigelow onto The Colbert Report to discuss the movie, and while the host was in fine funnyman form, he seemed a bit obsessed with the subject of torture in the film.

“Was that given to you as accurate information?” Colbert asked of the film’s protagonist gleaning crucial information by watching interrogations. “Is that an accurate depiction?”

“I have to say, it’s part of the history, part of the story,” Bigelow replied. “Could you have found the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, without the detainee program? I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

Watch the video embedded below, via Mediaite. Did you see Zero Dark Thirty? What do you think was the message of the film regarding subjects like torture?

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