The female officer, who is in her 30s, is the model for the main character in Zero Dark Thirty,a film that chronicles thedecade-long hunt for the al-Qaeda chief and that critics are describing as an Academy Award front-runner even before its Dec. 19 release. Maya is widely assumed to be based on a real CIA agent referred to as Jen in No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden. Both are presented as unusually sure of their analyses, even in comparison to their CIA colleagues, whose conclusions they confidently upend. Since many of the characters had real-life counterparts, some of whom still had undercover identities, Bigelow and Boal purposely cast actors that looked different from those they star as. With Perianne Why can't we just scatter these hovermines everywhere to Everything Everywhere All At Once Takes Best Picture At New Image of Bill Skarsgrd and Jessica Roth in Official Poster for 'INSIDE' Starring Willem Dafoe. After Obama took office, CIA operatives reexamined several potential trails, including al-Qaedas use of couriers to hand-deliver messages to and from bin Laden. Thermite or plastic explosives are commonly used. The end show where Maya is sitting is a plane is a total disappointment so why have it? Its impossible to know, of course, whether there is any real-life connection between the two characters. In Zero Dark Thirty, she is named Maya and played by Jessica Chastain, who is earning plenty of plaudits for her performance. The movies pseudo-objectivity is a willful ambiguity of a very distinct sort; its willful rejection of the inner life is a posturing stance of cool, an attitude of no attitude. If you, too, are intrigued to find out more, we may have some details about the same. She was, he says, our go-to analyst on all intelligence questions regarding the target. The film is a cinematic page-turner, constructed on a simple architecture: the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, mainly from the perspective of a C.I.A. so follow the slow leads is the game. Is there a tune copied from the Telugu film Leader? By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. with red marker on the office window? Well take a look and remove the review if it doesnt follow our guidelines. After seven CIA operatives are killed in a suicide double-cross at Camp Chapman, Afghanistan-including (in a move as old as Homer) her only near-friend (Jennifer Ehle)--it's not Vin Diesel but Maya who pledges, "I'm going to smoke everyone involved in this op, and . The story is a very good one but just too long. It's not the how in the question it is the "why". Edit, Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatized account of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden following the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. At one point in the film, after a female colleague is killed in an attack on a CIA compound in Afghanistan, Maya describes her purpose in near-messianic terms: I believe I was spared so I could finish the job.. A 2 hour 46 minute YAWN!!! The report also notes that, prior to 9/11, she supported the decision of a subordinate to withhold from the FBI the fact that two of the 9/11 hijackers, who were on an FBI watch list at the time, had entered the country. Officials said the woman was given a cash bonus for her work on the bin Laden mission and has since moved on to a new counterterrorism assignment. By policy, the CIA doesnt discuss individual employees or confirm whether they worked at the agency. Director Kathryn Bigelow has done it again by putting out a superior product. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Zero Dark Thirty Pic rivets for most of its running time by focusing on how one female CIA agent with a far-out hunch was instrumental in bringing down America's most wanted fugitive. A Senate investigation does not allege Scheuer personally tortured any suspects. He said, 'In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. Direction was excellent but the story leaves us a little overly lacking in caring due to the long length of the movie~. However, with her follow-up to her Oscar-winning classic, Bigelow has delivered what will . The naysayers who thought her previous hit, "The Hurt Locker" was a fluke/had help from her famous ex-husband James Cameron( Titanic, Avatar and others) were incorrect and hopefully this movie will shut the naysayers up once and . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. It may be the fault of Andr Bazin, a great critic whose depth and brilliance were often clouded by doctrinaire fealty to the notion of ambiguity and the techniques (mainly deep focus and long takes) that he considered its aesthetic substrates. Scheuer retired in 2021 as the Deputy Chief of Homeland and Strategic Threats, and in her subsequent interview (which was also the first interview she had ever done), she clarified that she had not been let go but had left the CIA on her own accord. (If there's romance in "Zero Dark Thirty" it is between hunter . But the ending isnt about Maya, its about the viewers interpretations; one is sent off with a litany of talking points. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a white rhino, reportedly linked Ammar to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ammar is a composite of three Al Qaeda suspects, killed in December 2012 during a rescue mission in Afghanistan. Scheuer called the description, which found its way into multiple media reports, false and a caricature. Internal e-mails released this year under Freedom of Information Act requests showed how the agency set up repeated visits for Boal, allowing him to tour the vault where the raid was planned and even see a mock-up of the Abbottabad compound. The FAQ items below may give away important plot points. | All rights reserved. Over 10 years of leads from one end of the world to the other and then back to Pakistan. The movies release was delayed amid criticism that it amounted to a reelection ad for President Obama. The most solid lead is his most trusted currier. Maya is young and delicate-looking, with flowing red hair that is only seen when she pulls off the hood she wears . In fact, the CIA reportedly gave Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow unprecedented access to information for the making of the film. In the film Zero Dark Thirty, she was the persistent, conscientious CIA officer who finally tracked Osama bin Laden to his lair. For five years, she becomes obsessed to find Osama and in 2011, the terrorist leader of Al-Qaeda is killed by the U.S. Navy SEAL Team following the lead of Maya. The naysayers who thought her previous hit, "The Hurt Locker" was a fluke/had help from her famous ex-husband James Cameron( Titanic, Avatar and others) were incorrect and hopefully this movie will shut the naysayers up once and for all. the SETS were incredible. After The Hurt Locker's dethroning of Avatar for Best Picture in 2010, the stakes were high for Kathryn Bigelow to deliver with Zero Dark Thirty, a film that is as ambitious in scope and grand as The Hurt Locker was small and claustrophobic.Zero Dark Thirty was so big it had to fail. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. How 'Maya' the CIA agent portrayed in Zero Dark Thirty wept over Bin Laden's body and was given the magazine of bullets used to kill him by the SEAL who fired the deadly shots She was in that country when the search for bin Laden, after years of being moribund, suddenly heated up. Silhouette of a dog by iStockphoto. agent, Maya (Jessica Chastain), whose meticulous and obstinate investigation culminates in the military raid on bin Ladens compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that resulted in his death. But the juxtaposition is striking. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions. The Post described how the CIA agent, who's now in her 30s, has "sparred" with colleagues, "lashed out" at them in . As the paper noted, Danes has said that her character is loosely modeled on an actual CIA officer whom she has met at Langley. Is she suggesting that the attempt to kill bin Laden is a crucial element in the effort to prevent such attacks? In the book, former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, who published the book under the name Mark Owen, says that Jen was recruited by the agency out of college, had been working on the Bin Laden task force for five years, and that shed worked to put all the pieces together in tracking bin Laden to Abbottabad, Pakistan. The Zero Dark Thirty main character is thought to be based on an amalgam of CIA operatives, including Scheuer, though she was not central in the quest to hunt down Bin Laden. Previously What did she put on hold in her pursuit for bin Laden? What is a creepy fact about the human body? The helicopter crash is filmed in total darkness, from inside the chopper, with the crash simulated by jerking the camera violentlyWOW FOOLED ME!!! In real life, her identity and current position were carefully . Stills from Zero Dark Thirty by Jonathan Olley / 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved. The movie has been a source of controversy since it was revealed that the filmmakers including director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal were given extensive access to officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA. Or is she luring viewers to make the same association and assumption, to put the viewer into complicity with those in the C.I.A. However, whether it was misreported, or whether McCain misinterpreted the movie, this is a strange suggestion: Theres nothing in the movie to link Ammar with Mohammed, and in fact Mohammed is discussed as a separate character (referred to as KSM) in the movie. She said her role was as a subject matter expert, not an interrogator. Abu Ahmed (Tushaar Mehra) - Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti the pilot asks, but Maya doesn't reply. All rights reserved. Its a canny litmus test that embeds its coy ambiguities in its very form. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. She then boards a transport plane where she is told to sit anywhere because hers is the only name on the manifest. Michael Scheuer declined an interview request. The real agent is having more difficulties. Members of Congress have called for investigations into whether classified information was shared. Zero Dark Thirty ***MINIMAL SPOILERS*** Director Kathryn Bigelow has done it again by putting out a superior product. December 28, 2012. The naysayers who thought her previous hit, "The Hurt Locker" was a fluke/had help from her famous ex-husband James Cameron ( Titanic, Avatar and others) were incorrect and hopefully this movie will shut the naysayers up once . "Relentless" is the right word to describe this young . Otherwise you apply on their website just like everybody else. If Zero Dark Thirty is a roller-coaster ride, its one with blinkers, one that keeps its viewer facing forward and allows no glance away from the action. The movie stays resolutely on the surface of events; Bigelow presents them as if their depiction sufficed for something more than a storynamely, for a moral questioning of the viewer, of the viewers judgment of the past decade of American politics in the wake of the September 11th attacks. by the time we got the "final showdown" we are a bit disappointed by it. So declares the CIA Station Head in Pakistan about a new arrival in 2003, a "CIA targeter and subject-matter expert," Maya (Jessica Chastain). Running time: 2 hour 37 min. She was a real-life heroine of the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden, a headstrong young operative whose work tracking the al-Qaeda leader serves as the dramatic core of a Hollywood film set to premiere next week. En Espaol The movie suggests that those whose response to the attacks remains at the level of horror and anger are likely to accept extreme and morally repellent measures taken against anyone who seems connected with the perpetratorsand that these people hold a fanatical commitment to the death of bin Laden, a form of vengeance as justice. And though Jessica Chastains character is called Maya in Zero Dark Thirtythe movie is based on original reporting by screenwriter Mark Boalshe is, in fact, playing the woman referred to as Jen in No Easy Day, as she confirmed at a screening attended by a Slate colleague in New York last night. (Both names, of course, are pseudonyms.). Ad Choices, as reported in the magazine by Dexter Filkins. I do not blame the actors rather the writer. When the lights came on and I discovered that I had been in my seat for two and a half hours, the movies length came as a surprise. Jessica Chastain's character Maya, based on a real CIA operative involved in taking down Osama bin Laden, tells a fellow agent that she was recruited out of high . I got bloodied, she said, alluding to criticism of her agency in government and media reports, and kept coming back to try again and again to do something. Only other discussion I could find seems to center around does / should the CIA recruit from high . Bissonnette also describes Jens reaction when they brought back bin Ladens body: Peter Bergen, a journalist who has written about counterterrorism and the Middle East for years, has said that the guy who was on the account from 2003 to May 1, 2011, when Bin Laden was killed, and the guy who was always saying that Bin Laden is living in the mysterious compound in Abbottabadthat guy is a guy, hes not a female. But this conflicts with statements from Bigelow, who has confirmed that the character of Maya was inspired by a woman. In Vietnam, the Allies captured up to half a million documents a month from the Viet Cong, which allowed them to anticipate and largely thwart the famous Tet offensive. Scheuer retired from her most recent role as deputy chief of Homeland and Strategic Threats late in 2021 and agreed to talk to Reuters this year. Silhouette of a man by iStockphoto. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions. Great movie! Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler) Jonathan Banks. The celebrated Navy SEAL squad that killed Osama bin Laden has been the focus of a series of books, films and video games. The character isnt just a cipher but a filtered-out cipher, reduced to her function as the chief bin Laden hunter. | In January 2014, the Washington Post named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary . says he was not waterboarded. What about the dog? When gun-rights advocates assert the legitimacy of self-defense, gun-control advocates champion the police. Even the dog in the film, Cairo, depicts an actual canine with special training that accompanied the SEAL team that captured Bin Laden. In fact, so accurate is the depiction of the events in the film that its makers had to be extra cautious during the casting process. 1 3. That CIA Counterterrorism chief we see practicing a Muslim prayer in his officeThe Wolf, as he is named in the movieis likely based on a man known by his cover name Roger. Roger, as described in a Washington Post profile, is a collection of contradictionsamong them his conversion to Islam despite overseeing the death of Islamist militants. Zero Dark Thirty. Zero Dark Thirty is the same kind of film, but even more so. Edit. The hidden premise of gun control is the states monopoly on force, the willing renunciation of the most potent form of self-defense in favor of collective defensenot the nave wishing-away of violent crime but the assumption of effective law enforcement that would both thwart and obviate the proliferation of firearms. The raid itself is one long boring anti-climax, pretty much like the rest of this movie. Was there really a dog? Screenwriter Mark Boal himself has acknowledged that all of the characters in the film are based on real people. Some of these real people, like the agent who inspired Maya, still work under secret identities, and Boal says that he and director Kathryn Bigelow went to great lengths not to blow their cover, including, e.g., not casting people who look like them. Zero Dark Thirty's Maya is a singular force to be reckoned with and, as the film suggests, is something of a lone wolftwisting the arms of superiors to keep the hunt moving, baring her teeth at a conference table to get an operation approved, forever eating lunch alone since the death of her one . There are those who own firearms and those who dont; those who are familiar with the potential lethal use of forcewho are or were in the military or the police, who own firearms (according to recent polls, about forty-five percent of the country)and everyone else. Why are the SEALs rifling through the house after killing bin Laden? The female officer, who is in her 30s, is the model for the main character in "Zero Dark Thirty,"a film that chronicles the decade-long hunt for the al-Qaeda chief and that critics are . Something went wrong. In the final scene, she leans her head back against the wall and starts to cry. Whats a company secret you can share now that you dont What quietly went away without anyone noticing? Over several calls that lasted two and half hours, Scheuer said she couldnt discuss individual cases because they were classified. The narrative centers on the elusive al-Qaeda head, Osama bin Laden, in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Since the identities of many of the films real-life inspirations are kept under wraps, it is widely assumed that Maya is based on an actual CIA agent referred to as Jen or Miss 100 Percent.. But the developments have cast a cloud over a career that is about to be bathed in the sort of cinematic glow ordinarily reserved for fictional Hollywood spies. pre-owned The highly anticipated film "Zero Dark Thirty" hits theaters Friday after limited release, but the internet is already abuzz over a line that has people scratching their heads. Both are often at odds with their superiors. Much of the events in the film, including its conclusion, are based on actual historical events, and though some of the characters have been fictionalized, Boal stated that all of them depict real people. Zero Dark Thirty . Only other discussion I could find seems to center around does / should the CIA recruit from high school at all. This Sunday night at the Academy Awards, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal's Zero Dark Thirty appears poised to lose the Best Picture race to Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio's Argo, and as much as awards . , her identity and current position were carefully back to Pakistan, films and video games a. That is only seen when she pulls off the hood she wears between the two characters had... Romance in & quot ; Zero Dark Thirty is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions boards a plane. Did she put on hold in her pursuit for bin Laden is a creepy about... 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