"Zero Dark Thirty" director Kathryn Bigelow defended the film's depiction of torture in an essay in the Los Angeles Times.
"I do wonder if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these U.S. policies, as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen," she wrote.
Progressive groups and intelligence officials have been unlikely allies in condemning the film, which some critics say portrays torture as integral to obtaining information that lead to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.
A bipartisan group of senators, including John McCain, who suffered four years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, expressed concerns, and the acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell, posted a letter to agency employees saying, "Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts."
"The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin," wrote Morell. "That impression is false."
Bigelow's response didn't deny that the movie depicted torture as an important method of interrogation.
"Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue," she wrote. "As for what I personally believe, which has been the subject of inquiries, accusations and speculation, I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work. Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn't mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn't ignore. War, obviously, isn't pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences."
And Bigelow pointed out that whatever the depiction of torture, she was trying to stay true to the story, not whitewash history or act as an apologist.
"Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement," she wrote. "If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time."
Bigelow called herself a "lifelong pacifist," but acknowledged that the hunt for bin Laden was accomplished by talented but imperfect individuals.
"Bin Laden wasn't defeated by superheroes zooming down from the sky," she wrote. "He was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation."