{"id":11801,"date":"2011-05-02T21:10:57","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T20:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=11801"},"modified":"2011-05-02T21:38:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T20:38:16","slug":"bin-laden-killed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/05\/02\/bin-laden-killed\/","title":{"rendered":"Bin Laden Killed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/bigpicture\/2011\/05\/osama_bin_laden_killed.html#photo27\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11802 alignnone\" title=\"The End of Osama bin Laden \/ A vendor walks past a sand sculpture of Osama bin Laden created by Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik on a beach in Puri, India May 2. (Stringer\/Reuters)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/The-End-of-Osama-bin-Laden.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden\">death of the world&#8217;s most wanted terrorist<\/a> is one of the biggest news stories of the year and will have\u00a0reverberations beyond the current news cycle.<\/p>\n<p>One of the perils about thinking and writing about films is that just as you are about to write something about the box office success of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Fast_and_the_Furious_(film_series)\">the Fast and the Furious franchise<\/a>, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/search?sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=bin+laden+dead#q=bin+laden+dead&amp;hl=en&amp;prmd=ivnsu&amp;source=univ&amp;tbm=nws&amp;tbo=u&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=owm_TfKbPMzB8QPL2MTRBQ&amp;ved=0CDwQqAI&amp;fp=b80f631c87568d25\">massive news story<\/a> breaks to remind you of more important things.<\/p>\n<p>So it was last night when <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZNYmK19-d0U\">the news of Osama Bin Laden&#8217;s death<\/a> was announced.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZNYmK19-d0U\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you want to check out some detailed and illuminating analysis of the story, then check out the following links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/nyti.ms\/khJUnK\">The New York Times report<\/a> on Osama bin Laden&#8217;s death<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/j9wFeH\">A very detailed piece by Marc Armbinder for The National Journal<\/a> on the team that killed bin Laden<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ReallyVirtual\">The Twitter account of\u00a0Sohaib Athar<\/a> who unwittingly reported the events going on in his town<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/mAKhUW\">The Wikipedia page<\/a> on the death of Osama bin Laden<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/newsweek.tumblr.com\/post\/5125080663\/this-one-says-it-all-photo-michael-appleton-for\">This soon-to-be iconic NYT photo<\/a> of New York fire fighters in Times Square last night<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/blog\/160332\/jsoc-black-ops-force-took-down-bin-laden\">Jeremy Scahill&#8217;s piece for The Nation<\/a> on the JSOC unit that killed bin Laden<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/asia\/pakistan\/8488236\/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-protected-by-Pakistani-security.html\">This Telegraph story about Wikileaks data<\/a> which suggests the Pakistan\u00a0government\u00a0was shielding bin Laden<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/bigpicture\/2011\/05\/osama_bin_laden_killed.html\">The Big Picture&#8217;s photo gallery of world reaction<\/a> to the story<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A major news event like this eventually gets\u00a0reflected\u00a0on the big screen, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deadline.com\/2011\/05\/pair-of-hunt-for-bin-laden-projects-could-be-timeliest-movies-now\/\">one story<\/a> is that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (the Oscar winning team behind The Hurt Locker) were actually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/risky-business\/how-will-osama-bin-laden-183979\">working on a film project<\/a> surrounding the hunt for bin Laden.<\/p>\n<p>Given the raft of non-fiction films that have been made about the war on terror unleashed by the 9\/11 attacks (the best among them <a href=\"http:\/\/www.channel4.com\/programmes\/911-the-falling-man\/4od\">The Falling Man<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/06\/30\/dvd-pick-taxi-to-the-dark-side\/\">Taxi to the Darkside<\/a>) perhaps some documentary filmmakers are already exploring how can make a film which incorporates the current news story.<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2008 I spoke to director Morgan Spurlock about his film <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/05\/06\/interview-morgan-spurlock-on-where-in-the-world-is-osama-bin-laden\/\">Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?<\/a> and we discussed why bin Laden hadn&#8217;t been captured.<\/p>\n<p>The received wisdom then was that he had eluded capture because he was in the rural, lawless border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that he was actually in a heavily fortified compound in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abbottabad\">Abbottabad<\/a>, right by the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pakistan_Military_Academy\">Pakistan Military Academy<\/a>, which is their version of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Royal_Military_Academy_Sandhurst\">Sandhurst<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/West_Point\">West Point<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Doesn&#8217;t it seem a little odd that the US had to stage a secret mission without the knowledge of their (supposed) ally in the War on Terror, to snatch the world&#8217;s most wanted man?<\/p>\n<p>And what about the reports, based on leaked US government files made public by <a href=\"http:\/\/wikileaks.ch\/gitmo\/index.html\">Wikileaks<\/a>, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/asia\/pakistan\/8488236\/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-protected-by-Pakistani-security.html\">suggest that Pakistan&#8217;s security forces were shielding bin Laden<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Given the <a href=\"http:\/\/fullcomment.nationalpost.com\/2011\/05\/02\/christopher-hitchens-osama-like-saddam-was-tracked-to-a-shrunken-domain\/\">billions of dollars of aid the US gives to Pakistan every year<\/a>, I imagine the consequences of bin Laden&#8217;s death will make for an interesting story, whether or not it ever becomes the subject for a film.<\/p>\n<p>Just a quick thought to end on. <\/p>\n<p>Whilst <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/05\/01\/obama-roasts-trump-white-house-seth-meyers\/\">Obama was roasting Donald Trump on Saturday night at the White House Correspondent&#8217;s dinner<\/a> (an event which included a bin Laden gag by SNL comedian Seth Meyers) he would have known all about the momentous operation which was about to take place.  <\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/mAKhUW\">More on The Death of bin Laden<\/a> at Wikipedia<br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/wanted\/wanted_terrorists\">The updated FBI Most Wanted page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The death of the world&#8217;s most wanted terrorist is one of the biggest news stories of the year, but how will it affect films about the subject?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2031],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}