pbs高端访谈:《刺杀本拉登》引发对酷刑的批评

 　　JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight, this was Oscar nomination¹ day.

　　The civil war-era drama "Lincoln" led the pack with 12 nominations², followed by the fantasy "Life of Pi" with 11, and "Les Miserables" with eight.

　　Another new film, "Zero Dark Thirty," looking at contemporary history, received five nominations, including for best picture, best screenplay and best actress. But even before it's been released nationally, the film is generating a great deal of debate.

　　The movie starring Jessica Chastain as a tireless CIA operative sweeps from the haunting first moments of the 9/11 attack to the successful raid on Osama bin³ Laden⁴'s compound in Pakistan in May of 2011.

　　Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal previously⁵ collaborated⁶ on the Oscar-winning 2009 film "The Hurt Locker⁷." The new film tells viewers at the beginning that it is based on accounts from those involved in the manhunt.

　　3.jpg

　　KATHRYN BIGELOW, Director: It puts the audience in the shoes of those individuals at the heart of the hunt, so it's very experiential.

　　MARK BOAL,Writer: A movie that's riveting⁸, a movie that's powerful, a movie that's exciting, and a movie that takes you behind the scenes of a world that quite frankly⁹ is usually cloaked from public view.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Indeed, the film captures the sometimes dreary¹⁰, sometimes dramatic ways of so-called intelligence tradecraft: the dogged pursuit of sources, clues, patterns, anything that might lead to the capture or killing¹¹ of terrorists.

　　The controversy¹² has come over its at times graphic¹³ depiction¹⁴ of so-called enhanced interrogation and torture, including water-boarding. Several prominent lawmakers, including Republican Senator John McCain, himself a victim of torture in the Vietnam War, criticized the film for suggesting that such methods were helpful in finding bin Laden.

　　McCain spoke¹⁵ on CNN.

　　SEN. JOHN MCCAIN,R-Ariz.: First of all, the brutality¹⁶ depicted¹⁷ there is very disturbing. The story is that torture doesn't work. It is hateful. It is harmful, incredibly harmful to the United States of America. And to somehow make people believe that it was responsible for the elimination¹⁸ of Osama bin Laden, is in my view, unacceptable.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: McCain and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent two letters to the acting¹⁹ CIA director, demanding to know what information the agency had provided the filmmakers.

　　At a Washington, D.C., screening at the museum Tuesday night, protesters dressed as detainees to show their objections, while, inside, the filmmakers, who have said they deplore²⁰ torture, told the "NewsHour" the dramatized account was intended to highlight an extraordinary intelligence effort.

　　KATHRYN BIGELOW: Everybody's entitled to their opinion. And there's certainly a moral complexity²¹ to that 10-year hunt. But what I'm most proud of is that the film sheds light on the individuals, the professionals in the intelligence community that spent—in 10 years, gave their—dedicated their lives, some who sacrificed their lives, to this very successful operation.

　　MARK BOAL: One of the things we look when we look at a movie in my business or when we talk about a work of art is complexity and the ability of something to mean different things to different people.

　　JEFFREY BROWN:"Zero Dark Thirty" opens nationwide tomorrow.

　　I'm joined now by two journalists who've written widely on the 10-year hunt for Osama bin Laden and in recent weeks, on the new film. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker is author of "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals." Mark Bowden is author of "Black Hawk²² Down." His latest book is "The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden." He writes for the Atlantic and teaches journalism²³ at the University of Delaware.

　　Jane Mayer, you have written that "Zero Dark Thirty" —quote—"distorts a difficult history, seems to turn torture into morally neutral entertainment."

　　Give me the essence of the problem that you see.

　　JANE MAYER,The New Yorker: Well, I think the filmmakers say in the very beginning it's based on real accounts. So it sets up an expectation that it is going to be accurate history of what happened during those years in the war on terror.

　　And, instead, what it does is it distorts the history, I felt, by leaving out the complete moral and ethical²⁴ and political context in which this torture program took place. There were fights from start to finish about whether torture was something appropriate for the United States to get involved in. It's not just whether it worked, but it was whether we could do better and whether it was illegal and wrong.

　　And not a whiff of that is in this movie. And so I felt, by missing it, it missed the real drama of that period.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Mark Bowden, you wrote: "The criticism is unfair. Torture may be morally wrong and it may not be the best try obtain information from detainees, but it played a role in America's messy decade-long pursuit of Osama bin Laden, and 'Zero Dark Thirty' is right to portray²⁵ that fact. Explain.

　　MARK BOWDEN,Author, "Black Hawk Down": Well, I think that it is a feature film that tries to present the story in broad strokes. And it shows, I think appropriately, that our early efforts to find bin Laden and the other al-Qaida leaders involved the use of these interrogation methods.

　　However, the film itself, I don't think, is neither pro-torture nor anti-torture. I think it just presents the story as it happened, and, in fact, in the early, more graphic scene, shows torture to be both repellent and futile²⁶.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Jane, this gets to part of one of the questions. And we saw the filmmakers talk about complexity of all this. How much do we even now today know about the early breakthroughs in the hunt for bin Laden and how they came about?

　　JANE MAYER: It depends which "we" you're talking about.

　　There actually is a huge record of this that's been compiled by the Senate Intelligence Committee 6,000 pages long, which has not yet been released to the public. So reporters like myself, even though I have spent years covering this, have many gaps. I spent a couple hours today trying to compile what's known about how we found bin Laden.

　　And, basically, there are five detainees that gave shreds²⁷ of information that got us to the courier that got us to bin Laden, as far as I can tell. There's a lot missing, which allows people with different points of view to manipulate the facts.

　　So you have got people in the CIA trying to make it look like what they did was great and had to be done.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: So are you saying—so, is it a question of torture not having worked or that in this movie they don't show that there was a great debate about whether it worked or whether it was moral?

　　JANE MAYER: Well, it's a combination.

　　Of course, you know, first of all, I should say I think the movie—filmmakers have a right to make any movie they want. I'm all for artistic²⁸ freedom. But in the same vein²⁹, as someone who really followed this history, I feel like I have the right to comment on what they have done.

　　And what they have done is, they have compressed a lot of very complicated facts into what's basically a slick kind of TV show sort of police procedural, where it's very gripping, and it's fun to watch, but there's no moral context. And, basically, the question of whether torture works, that's complicated. Sometimes, it did. Sometimes, it didn't.

　　Frequently, what happened was people lied. And what the CIA said in two very important cases is that they found bin Laden's courier because the lies tipped them off that there was something more going on. That's a very shaky kind of basis on which to claim that torture worked, to say, because they lied, it was a success.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Mark Bowden, come in on that. Respond. What do you see in this film?

　　MARK BOWDEN: Well, I think—I have written a book on the subject, so I can say with as much certainty as almost anyone at this point that torture didn't present the key information that led to bin Laden.

　　There was never a moment where someone under pressure coughed up a critical piece of information. The true story is a lot more complicated than that. And I think it's actually reflected fairly well in the presentation in the film, in that the early very repulsive³⁰ and, as I said, ultimately futile torture sequences are followed by one where they try different tactics with the detainee.

　　And he tells them a piece of information that is not directly relevant to what they're looking for, and then I don't think they—and it showed this way in the film -- neither they or the detainee recognize will become tremendously significant down the road. But that, nevertheless, is how that name of the courier first surfaces.

　　So in my way of looking at it, that's—it's not exactly what happened. Clearly, the detainee portrayed³¹ is an amalgam³². The dialogue is made up. But it reflects what—I think fairly accurately—what those early stages of the hunt...

　　(CROSSTALK)

　　JANE MAYER: I actually would disagree, in that—in one way, which is, this movie opens with someone being water-boarded.

　　Nobody who was water-boarded ever gave information that led to finding bin Laden. And this detainee is held by the CIA in the beginning of the movie. Basically, the first shreds of information that came out about the courier came from people down in Guantanamo, which were held by the military, not the CIA.

　　So this glorifies³³ the CIA's worst torture methods, turns it into kind of a straight line that's like a necessary evil that gets you from water-boarding to finding bin Laden. I would be surprised if many people in the country don't conclude torture is a necessary evil and that the ends justify³⁴ the means.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: That's where I wanted to go.

　　And I will come back to you, Mark, on this, because you sort of raised the "it's a movie" factor. Right? It's a drama. It's a dramatization. And I was thinking in my head today—we saw the nominations for another historical drama, "Lincoln."

　　I, like many people, saw it and liked it. And then we might realize that not everything is factual there. You're suggesting that that's OK in a sense, even though this is about more recent history, that we should see it as a kind of drama?

　　MARK BOWDEN: Yes, and I think that's how you should see it.

　　I think that I have been critical somewhat of the hype around the film, that it's journalistic. It isn't. It's, you know, as truthful³⁵ as any Hollywood movie—more than most—that purports³⁶ to be based on a true story.

　　I do think that when we get into the particulars of who first mentioned the name of Ahmed, the Kuwaiti, and under what circumstances, I don't think any of us knows precisely³⁷ what happened. But I do think it's fair for the filmmakers to show that in those early years the mistreatment of detainees during interrogation was fairly commonplace. And I think it's portrayed as very ugly and in a very, I think, compromising way. So...

　　JANE MAYER: Can I say one thing more?

　　(CROSSTALK)

　　JANE MAYER: And I'm a big fan of Mark's, but I just think that what it doesn't show is, even in those earliest scenes, when the first detainee was water-boarded, there was—some of the people in that room threw a fit.

　　You do not see that in this movie. There was an FBI agent who walked out and said, I won't have anything to do with this, it's illegal, it's wrong, it's what our enemies do.

　　There's not a character in this movie who raises the question about whether torture is right or wrong, let alone whether it works.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let me ask you just very briefly³⁸, though, in our last 30 seconds. Your fear here is that this portrayal³⁹ will impact public understanding and possibly policy?

　　JANE MAYER: I think pop culture is incredibly powerful.

　　I think the TV show "24," if you look at the numbers, changed public opinion and made people much more comfortable with torture.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: And, Mark, a last word from you on the same thing. You think this will affect public policy and public perception?

　　MARK BOWDEN: I think it will affect the way people remember this story.

　　I personally didn't take away, as Jane has, a strong message on the subject of torture one way or the other. I did, for instance, from the show "24," which is clearly pro-torture—not from this, though.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Mark Bowden and Jane Mayer, thank you both very much.

　　JANE MAYER: Thanks for having me.

　　MARK BOWDEN: Thank you.

1 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

2 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

3 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

4 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

5 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

6 collaborated   

合作( collaborate的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• We have collaborated on many projects over the years. 这些年来我们合作搞了许多项目。
• We have collaborated closely with the university on this project. 我们与大学在这个专案上紧密合作。

7 locker   

n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人

参考例句：

• At the swimming pool I put my clothes in a locker.在游泳池我把衣服锁在小柜里。
• He moved into the locker room and began to slip out of his scrub suit.他走进更衣室把手术服脱下来。

8 riveting   

adj.动听的，令人着迷的，完全吸引某人注意力的；n.铆接（法）

参考例句：

• I find snooker riveting though I don't play myself.虽然我自己不打斯诺克，但是我觉得它挺令人着迷。
• To my amazement,I found it riveting.但令我惊讶的是，我发现它的吸引人处。

9 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

10 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

11 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

12 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

13 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

14 depiction   

n.描述

参考例句：

• Double rhythms, resounding through the lyric depiction and connecting with each other, indicate the thespian place of mankind and the cognition of the writer to this thespian place. 这双重旋律互为表里，表明了人类的某种悲剧性处境以及作家对这种悲剧性处境的感受和认识。
• A realistic depiction of scenes from everyday domestic life. 日常家居生活的写实画。

15 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

16 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

17 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。

18 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

19 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

20 deplore   

vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾

参考例句：

• I deplore what has happened.我为所发生的事深感愤慨。
• There are many of us who deplore this lack of responsibility.我们中有许多人谴责这种不负责任的做法。

21 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

22 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

23 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

24 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

25 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

26 futile   

adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的

参考例句：

• They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败，他们全部被杀，无一幸免。
• Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。

27 shreds   

v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件）

参考例句：

• Peel the carrots and cut them into shreds. 将胡罗卜削皮，切成丝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I want to take this diary and rip it into shreds. 我真想一赌气扯了这日记。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

28 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

29 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

30 repulsive   

adj.排斥的，使人反感的

参考例句：

• She found the idea deeply repulsive.她发现这个想法很恶心。
• The repulsive force within the nucleus is enormous.核子内部的斥力是巨大的。

31 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

32 amalgam   

n.混合物；汞合金

参考例句：

• To counter this myth,we explained that we're really an amalgam of little guys.为了打破这个神话，我们解释说，我们确实是由一群小小的老百姓所组成的混合体。
• American literature is to our eyes a curious amalgam of familiar and strange.我们认为，美国文学把我们所熟悉的和陌生的东西奇妙地结合起来了。

33 glorifies   

赞美( glorify的第三人称单数 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣

参考例句：

• He denies that the movie glorifies violence. 他否认这部影片美化暴力。
• This magazine in no way glorifies gangs. 这本杂志绝对没有美化混混们。

34 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

35 truthful   

adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的

参考例句：

• You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心，他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
• I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。

36 purports   

v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• She purports to represent the whole group. 她自称代表整个团体。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The document purports to be official but is really private. 那份文件据称是官方的，但实际上是私人的。 来自辞典例句

37 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

38 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

39 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
• The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。