Senators go to war over 'torture' in new bin Laden blockbuster movie
A bipartisan group of three senators has written to Sony calling for a disclaimer to be added to the film Zero Dark Thirty on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The New York Times has said the film is replete "with jarringly gruesome scenes of torture as Central Intelligence Agency officers seek information."
The senators say the film is “grossly inaccurate” in its suggestion that torture produced the tip that led the US military to find terrorist leader bin Laden.
The three - including democrat Dianne Feinstein and republican former presidential candidate John McCain, have written to Sony CEO Michael Lynton criticising the veracity of Kathryn Bigelow’s film.
Bigelow won the best film Oscar in 2010 with the Hurt Locker and this movie is also tipped for high honours. She disputes the Senators' interpretation.
The senators - members of the Senate Intelligence committee — insist Sony add a disclaimer to the film, which currently opens with a statement that the film is ‘based on first-hand accounts of actual events.’
McCain has insisted that the waterboarding of a senior al-Qaida member did not provide information that led to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
“We are fans of many of your movies, and we understand the special role that movies play in our lives, but the fundamental problem is that people who seeZero Dark Thirty will believe that the events it portrays are facts,” the three senators wrote.
“The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner.”
In their letter to Sony, the three said the “use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America’s values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged.
"It remains a stain on our national conscience. We cannot afford to go back to these dark times, and with the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right.”
Director Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal said in a statement from Sony that they depicted “a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden.”
Bigelow and Boal say the film shows no single method was responsible in the successful manhunt for bin Laden.
The film opens in New York and Los Angeles this week and across the US and internationally in January.