Comments on: The Art of Torture

By: hops

hops — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:18:36 +0000

“…it’s just a short jump to Bigelow’s claim that depiction is not endorsement. I’m more inclined to think that the constant repetition of that same viewpoint without challenge throughout the film cumulatively amounts to an endorsement.”

wrong.
Constant repetition of that same viewpoint without challenge throughout the film cumulatively amounts to propaganda … which is what this film is…

providing sterilisation of motives for state torture, murder and
handy jettisoning of due process.

By: frisky

frisky — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 06:55:09 +0000

…characterised too often self-serving actions against enemies both real and imagined that disregard human rights and human life (ah, but ‘for the greater good’, eh?), revealed by the commentator in a flippant ‘oh they just commit a few errors’…. go figure….”

so far as i can see sir an all-too-real regard for human rights – not to mention the idea of winnable “hearts and minds” has been for as long as we can recall an always increasing component of the american program, and this has of course, simultaneously,tended to produce the very “quagmire” so beloved of defeatists worldwide – so, if i may hereby niftily combine response to both JT and Kelly – and quite possibly Tiresias too – i would ask; just how are we to understand at once the repulsion we feel toward any idea of there ever being any clean and definitive triumph, alongside our disgust at the thought that a nation like America would ever seek to portray itself as victim? There seems to be tremendous paradox at work here, and i can only begin to comprehend our capacity to bear such paradoxy, as if it were the very norm, by means of – oops ..hold on

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:34:09 +0000

Having just watched the fillum I can add only this from a liberal arty female POV;

Didn’t find it particularly gingoistic, actually. I’m convinced the American establishment genuinely do view themselves as victims and are pathologically unable to take the wider view in case their heads explode; probably a wise choice. I was expecting a lot worse, maybe that took the edge off.

I didn’t find the torture scenes very pro-torture. It seemed to be portrayed as furtive, morally dubious at best, no one seemed particularly proud of or comfortable with what they were doing nor was it depicted as magically effectual. I don’t doubt for a moment that kicking someone in the balls will sometimes get them to tell you something factual and to pretend that’s not true is just silly. The real point is that torture is neither legal nor ethical. I don’t think it was presented as either in this film. Lets keep our objections relevant.

I objected somewhat, in retrospect, to female tenacity/intelligence yet again being portrayed as a bit odd, somewhat pathological and irksome to those around said female. Not to mention requiring rapey masculine epithets. No one else’s brainwaves were portrayed as contentious. Mens’ remarks tended to be merely authoritative per se. Can we please just leave this 1950s shit in a landfill somewhere, and can other women please get on board with that too (if you’re going to present yourself as a feminist voice, C Bigelow?) It’s not badass to call yourself a motherfucker, it’s just moronic and reactive. Can I also ask why every last male actor was a fuggly nobody, aesthetic-wise, while the female lead was clearly required to conform to far stricter standards of conventional ‘beauty’? Hmmm…..

I also thought the murder of an aging diabetic in a hallway was responsibly depicted as the sordid, dubious business that it obviously was. I congratulate the film makers on their restraint in that respect.

Thought it was worth a look, tho.

By: JT

JT — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:13:25 +0000

Frisky writing a ‘waterfall of words’ as critique of the article, without once actually providing us with any substantial criticism of the piece (for example, can they really not identify any, or only a ‘few’ ‘ultimate points’?)… apart from presenting us with a ‘feeling’ they dislike critical analysis of American ‘terrorism’ policy, characterised too often self-serving actions against enemies both real and imagined that disregard human rights and human life (ah, but ‘for the greater good’, eh?), revealed by the commentator in a flippant ‘oh they just commit a few errors’…. go figure….

By: Tiresias

Tiresias — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 05:07:13 +0000

While important the role torture played or didn’t play and its effectiveness or otherwise detracts from what is surely the most disturbing aspect of the whole Bin Laden affair – the causal ease with which the US jettisoned the right, supposedly jealously-guarded and fundamental to Western society, that the State cannot, should not and will not punish without due process of law.

Bin Laden’s was an extra-judicial execution – and an unnecessary one given that he could have been bundled onto a helicopter and returned to the US for trial. While I have little doubt Bin Laden would have been found guilty – and probably would not even have denied being guilty – what we now know is that the US, and probably other Governments, regard due process of law as a luxury it will extend to its citizens, and aliens, only while convenient and not as a right.

By: frisky

frisky — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 03:46:34 +0000

lookum to me a lot like the standard waterfall of words from a writer whose ultimate points are few, and whose final thrust seems to be no more than a certain residual petulance regarding the fact that, in pursuit of an otherwise noble, real and worldly objective, the US continues to commit a number of errors? I should like it so much more if she was able to focus, with that much more relish, as it were, on the possible spiritual shape(s) of that objective – which i would call approaching the auto-critique of almost everything we try to achieve – by means of ease-of-annunciating the actual ethical shortcomings of the USA – and cease to fall back so heavily on the mere Naming of the Sin – here “jingoism”…? it may be instructive to recall here with GKC that – for instance – Rome was not loved because she was great; she was great because she was loved, and that Americans love America precisely because they hate what she is far from yet being ..

(also damnably weird that the writer appears to celebrate the character portrayed as ‘not suffering from a neurosis’ &c and then, a bit later in her concluding paragraph, fears this character to be the “dangerous obsessive” it “arguably still is”..)

Guess we have to sign off with another horribly glib “go figure”.. whereby we are invited to like what we like even as we affect so grandly to damn “the politics”