ZERO DARK THIRTY: An Exploration of Violence
Annapurna PicturesIn Zero Dark Thirty, violence purely functions as something to be reacted against. For much of its runtime, the film exists largely in the aftermath of violent events. In his review, Philip French writes ‘the film opens with a blank screen and a soundtrack carrying the last words of people trapped on the higher storeys of the World Trade Center’. Bigelow never disguises the fact that Zero Dark Thirty exists as a reaction to 9/11 and the string of terror attacks that followed. Moments where violence is actually depicted within the film are incredibly brief, whether it be a bus exploding almost off-screen or the Camp Chapman suicide bombing that’s depicted in a singular wide shot, before cutting back to the reconnaissance at the heart of the film. What’s more important is the impact this violence leaves. After the London bombings, we observe news footage of the victims. Following Camp Chapman, the protagonist, Maya, pushes on more determined than ever, the camera lingering on a photo of her recently murdered friend, Jessica. Zero Dark Thirty never disguises the fact that violence is the main propulsive force within the story, but its depiction is something it only employs when absolutely necessary.
Violence is something that proves integral to contemporary action cinema, largely introduced as mass entertainment. It is, however, of secondary importance in this film, functioning to propel the plot forward, or exaggerate the dire situation of our characters. In his article for The New Yorker, Richard Brody claims that ‘if Zero Dark Thirty is a roller-coaster ride, it’s one with blinkers, one that keeps its viewer facing forward and allows no glance away from the action’ , but this is something that the film actively contradicts. The depictions of violence present are horrifying, listening to real victims of the 9/11 attacks or witnessing bombings that kill innocent people. What Brody visualises as an action film is instead one more geared toward horror. There’s no denying Bigelow understands the mass appeal of depicting violence on-screen. It’s something she’s built her earlier films like Point Break upon. Here, it’s approached in a way that aims to intentionally distance itself from the cult of popcorn-blockbusters of which Brody seems to believe Zero Dark Thirty is a member. It is, however, easy to see Brody’s point. Marketing for the film, particularly in the trailer released by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2012, highlights Navy SEALs in combat, burning helicopters and military bases at nightfall. Complete with the tagline ‘The greatest manhunt in history’, it’s not difficult to see how the marketing leans on brief moments of violence to draw in an audience, and sets a certain expectation.
Pautz takes the opposite stance, ‘we might presume the film is primarily about the raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound; however, the film depicts grueling hours of studying grainy footage of intelligence assets, unsettling interrogations, and the trials and tribulations of intelligence analysts work. The efforts of SEAL Team 6 are portrayed only in the waning minutes of the film’. This viewpoint grasps the area Zero Dark Thirty concerns itself with most, the meticulous research and reconnaissance that ultimately helped make the real-life operation a success. Bigelow understands that violence is integral to the climax of this story, Osama Bin Laden was never going to be assassinated through diplomacy. There is a different film that could be made from these events, one where Bigelow follows a team of Navy SEALs through training and combat, that crescendos with the same climax as this film, but once again, violence is simply not the point here.
Bowen seems to have the most balanced grasp of what the filmmakers achieve: ‘The film is staged as a nightmare of jargon and ultraviolence, courting tedium and confusion to show how these jobs grind people down into cogs within an expanding machine of surveillance and suppression’. It’s a description that acknowledges these infrequent bouts of violence, but realises that they are required to justify the administrative focus of the film. This is even acknowledged at the end of the first act with Jessica’s toast, ‘to big breaks, and the little people that make them happen’. Brody continues to argue that ‘the character (Maya) isn’t just a cipher but a filtered-out cipher, reduced to her function as the chief Bin Laden hunter. This is the way that all of the movie’s characters are depicted’. Whilst this is true, it exaggerates the point that Brody is concerning himself with a wholly different film. In successful action cinema, where violence is heavily emphasised, the audience needs relatable personalities to care about. That’s not the case here. Most of the characters within this film, whether they survive or not, are depicted as casualties of this war on terror. Zero Dark Thirty is devoted wholly to the process of discovery and the repercussions of it.
Bigelow employs a documentary-style of filmmaking in the film that makes its depictions of violence alarming and exaggerates the point that it exists to horrify rather than entertain. The violence within this film was always going to be more effective due to the shared personal experience most viewers have with the focal events going in. The fact these were real occurrences make their recreations far more disturbing to observe, something that Bigelow leans in on. Making the violence in Zero Dark Thirty gratuitous, or morphing it into a full-blown action film, would be borderline sadistic. The much-maligned torture scenes that open the film fall victim to criticism that they overstep the line, ‘torture is depicted as indirectly but indubitably useful in the search for bin Laden’. Once again, we can see that Bigelow is using violence – in this case torture – purely as a device, ‘Bigelow shows it in graphic detail, though not with anything resembling sadistic glee’. Zero Dark Thirty intentionally oversteps the boundary of film being an escapist medium and, instead, invites the viewer to come to terms with the techniques used within their own world. This helps the filmmakers garner the reaction they want regarding the film’s violence, that of horror.
Roger Ebert comments that ‘the film uses the modern style of underlit Shaky-Cam, with dialogue hard to follow and rapid action in shadows and confusion’. Unlike her previous film, 2008’s The Hurt Locker, Bigelow creates something un-cinematic with Zero Dark Thirty. The documentary format, combined with the recreation of real events, further bridges the gap between reality and fiction for the viewer. It never allows the audience to forget that these events actually happened. When writing about The Hurt Locker, Benson-Allott comments that Bigelow ‘interrogates genre conventions, specifically the way many war films distance or sanitise violence’, and the same can be said for Zero Dark Thirty.
Ebert continues, saying ‘the raid on the compound cannot logically be well-lighted and staged . . . the Zero Dark Thirty raid is not so much a payoff for the events that have been building onscreen, but is a masterstroke of fate’. This furthers the point that the film is counteractive toward generic violence in Hollywood cinema. The grand finale is usually reserved for explosive action sequences that cap off the preceding events in explosive fashion. In a sense, that’s what Bigelow does here, but in a manner that seeks to undermine audiences’ expectations of violence. The final raid is undeniably a compelling sequence, but it’s here that the films devotion to realism and discomfort with its violence fully comes to a head. The raid takes place at night, with lengthy moments or action beats, such as the dramatic crash landing of a helicopter, taking place in complete darkness. Couple this with the claustrophobic shaky cam following the Navy SEALs, the poorly lit interiors of the Abbottabad compound and the obstructive night vision perspectives, and it’s clear to see where the filmmaker’s priorities lie. We see our protagonists gun down the bad guys as we would in any other violent action film, but we also hear the cries of their newly-orphaned children, and the concerned townsfolk threatened. The film doesn’t seek to glorify these events, neither to dull them down into digestible entertainment. It seeks to actively challenge the viewers’ opinions of the morals of action cinema, as well as simply disturb.
There may be an argument that boils down this depiction of violence, to claim it is purely Bigelow’s directorial style, but that would be void. In a 1990 interview advertising her earlier film, Blue Steel, Bigelow comments ‘I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive. I think that an audience can be titillated by violence in a cinematic context’. This obsession with violence is clear and present in the majority of Bigelow’s earlier filmography, which can easily be defined as crowd-pleasing action films. Bigelow has been consistently evolving as a filmmaker, visible through observing her changing attitudes toward the function of violence.
Zero Dark Thirty is a film that intentionally exploits the viewers discomfort and over-familiarity with violence in order to make them question their own morality. This effect may provide a reason as to why the film was so divisive upon release, as it turns to the viewer and forces them to re-contextualise their worldview. Bigelow uses a variety of techniques to achieve this. The documentary style and fleeting moments of extreme violence counteracted with hours of boardroom conversations and reconnaissance emphasises the cause-and-effect nature of violence within cinema and reality. Zero Dark Thirty doesn’t exist without the real-life events that are depicted within the film. Instead of glorifying violence as entertainment, it condemns its existence, but understands that sometimes it can be necessary. Violence functions to propel action. For most of the film, Bigelow tries to insist that violence doesn’t necessarily need to incite violence. This approach is ultimately undermined in the final act, but the filmmakers make a point of creating a horribly uncomfortable atmosphere in the process. Bigelow concluded her 1990 interview with the following, ‘I don't believe in censorship in any form. One should make moral judgements for oneself. Someone who is disturbed could be sensitive to anything – look at the violence in the evening news’.
