‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Probe Dropped By Senate Intelligence Committee

Zero Dark Thirty may have failed at the Oscars, as entertainment website DAWN noted on Monday, February 25, but not all the day-after news was bad for the filmmakers.

Reuters reported Monday afternoon that a Senate Intelligence Committee probe of filmmakers’ interactions with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been dropped, and that no actions will be taken.

California Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, joined with Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin and Arizona Republican Senator John McCain in expressing outrage at the graphic torture scenes of CIA detainees that is depicted in the film.

The Reuters report stated that a source “familiar with contacts between the filmmakers and intelligence officials said the CIA did not tell the filmmakers ‘enhanced interrogations’ led to Bin Laden.”

A statement from Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow would seem to indicate otherwise.

In December 2012, Bigelow stated that the scenes “were difficult to shoot,” adding, “I wish it was not part of our history, but it was.”

Bigelow then vehemently denied the film was “pro-torture,” a claim that won support from, of all people, Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore.

Moore defended Zero Dark Thirty in a column for The Huffington Post, stating that he could “understand why a lot of people on the left … believe the movie endorses torture. But that’s not how I saw it, I left the movie thinking it made an incredible statement against torture.”

While torture does get results in the film and, apparently, reality, Moore contested that “it doesn’t matter if it works. It’s wrong.”

Do you believe Zero Dark Thirty is pro- or anti-torture, and do you agree with the Senate Intelligence Committee to drop its probe into the film?

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