The Hurt Locker (2008)
directed by Kathryn Bigelow
One of four women directors to be nominated for an academy award, Kathryn Bigelow is up against sure-shot James Cameron. No light weight her self; Bigelow was married to James Cameron, which seemed to be a working relationship. Cameron wrote the script for Bigelow’s 1995 movie, Strange Days.
But to her own right, the deeply poetic and sincere attempt to portray the French novel, The Weight of Water, (starring Sean Penn, Catherine McCormack, and Elizabeth Hurley) successfully works as a period piece that also takes place in the present moment. Through this type of authorial direction, she is able to write with her camera, as a writer, a novel.
In the French cinema tradition, Alexander Astruc first wrote about la camera-stylo, or in English, the camera-pen. This notion was to draw the correlation between the respect authors/writers achieved, and correlate to film directors. In this sense, Bigelow has certainly shown her penmanship for craft.
The Hurt Locker, her portrayal of bomb diffusers in Iraq and Afghanistan, was finished in 2008. SSG William James (Jeremy Renner), our main character, carries the stress of his character well, and wins his audiences heart by his approach. At one point shedding his bomb suit to diffuse a trunk load of bombs because if he is going to die, he wants to die comfortable, shows the twisted-ness of diffusing bombs.
Although a bit glorifying, the film does a good job of showing how a normal life is sacrificed when a person takes on a job like this and is good at it. I think the fact that a woman directed this is what makes the film so surprising for the American film market. The homo-erotic overtones are definitely prevalent, but the reigning sentiment of nationalism and American pride is unmistakable.
Bigelow’s films generally run with themes of machismo but I am unsure if they are critical or perpetuating. Either way, she is getting films made, and is pretty darn good at it.