- ZERO DARK THIRTY
Director Kathryn Bigelow’s drama about the hunt for Osama
bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty, trailer has debuted, and with it comes a
interesting interview with the director about this film, which will certainly
spark a debate.
Zero Dark Thirty Poster |
The Oscar-winning director was already working on the
project with her The Hurt Locker scribe Mark Boal when bin Laden was killed on
May 2nd, 2011 by the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six.
Boal and Bigelow then began re-working the script in order
to incorporate the real-life events, while keeping the film details shrouded in
mystery.
The December release comes under quite a bit of controversy,
as U.S. Representative Peter King and the republican group Judicial Watch have
questioned whether President Obama’s administration shared confidential details
about the mission with Bigelow’s production.
Bigelow and Boal have now finally spoken up about the
project, addressing the political controversy, the reworking of the script, and
just what exactly Zero Dark Thirty entails.
During a lengthy discussion with EW, Bigelow talked about
how the real-life events affected their project:
“The minute we heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been
killed, what we had been working on became history. As interesting a story as
that would have been to tell, the news re-directed our entire efforts. It
changed the movie idea forever.”
Boal admitted that he “tossed out” his script for the first
film once bin Laden was killed, but said that his research had not gone to
waste. Many of the contacts he had made
carried over, and “the years [he] spent talking to military and intelligence
operators involved in counterterrorism” were helpful to this new version of the
project as well.
Before winning the Academy Award for The Hurt Locker
screenplay, Boal began his career as a journalist.
With the political controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty,
it’s not exactly shocking that he and Bigelow are taking a “no comment” stance
on some of the more specific questions, with Boal adding, “I’m going to protect
my sources.”
Asked about the film’s politics, Boal adamantly states that
there are none:
“There’s no political agenda in the film. Full stop. Period.
A lot of people are going to be surprised when they see the film. For example,
the president is not depicted in the movie. He’s just not in the movie.”
Boal’s stated goal with the pic was to find the human element
to this decade-long manhunt:
“I was looking for the human component, and I was also
looking for the untold story. You spend enough time looking at these stories
and what’s out there is true but partial, incomplete. I was interested in the
human element and I was interested in the element that had yet to be
portrayed.”
EW’s article reveals that Joel and Nash Edgerton are playing
members of SEAL Team Six, Kyle Chandler is the CIA’s top official in Pakistan
and Mark Strong plays another CIA analyst, with Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke,
Edgar Ramirez, Harold Perrineau, Jennifer Ehle, and Mark Duplass portraying
other intelligence agents. Boal
describes the cast of characters thusly:
“It’s an ensemble of covert-ops teams — ground branch [field
agents], case officers, spies, analysts, and operators.”
Bigelow cautions that Zero Dark Thirty can’t be categorized
into one genre, adding that the film aspires to be more than simply
entertainment:
“I guess you could call it many things. It’s a thriller,
it’s a drama, it’s a mystery, it’s historical, it’s one of the great stories of
our time. It traces the anatomy of the decade long hunt for the world’s most
wanted man… This is an amazing story about the triumph of will, dedication, and
duty. [It’s] about the real life heroes in the intelligence community who
worked behind the scenes day and night on what was perhaps the toughest
assignment of their lives. As such, it’s a story that needs to be told
respectfully.”
The road to Zero Dark Thirty’s release is not a straightforward
story, and we’ll definitely be hearing a lot of heated discussion over the
film’s history, intentions, and merits over the next few months.
Zero Dark Thirty opens on December 19th.
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