Happy 69th Birthday, Kathryn Bigelow! Born today in 1951 as Kathryn Ann Bigelow, this American screenwriter, producer and film director has covered a wide range of genres in her films, as her small but impressive body of work has consistently dealt with issues of violence and tension.
Bigelow was an only child. Her early creative endeavors were as a student of painting. She enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in the fall of 1970 and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in December 1972.
While enrolled at SFAI, she was accepted into the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program in New York City, New York.
For a while, Bigelow lived as a starving artist, crashing in the loft of American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel ('The Diving Bell and the Butterfly') in influential American performance, video and installation artist Vito Acconci.
Bigelow later teamed up with American composer and pianist Philip Glass on a real-estate venture in which they renovated distressed apartments downtown and sold them for a profit.
Bigelow entered the graduate film program at Columbia University, where she studied theory and criticism and earned her master's degree.
Her most notable professors included Acconci, American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist Susan Sontag and American film critic Andrew Sarris.
Bigelow herself later taught at the private art university California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
While working with Art & Language, Bigelow began a student film. This would end up being the seventeen-minute 1978 American black and white short film 'The Set-Up'.
The short later found favor with Czech film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor Miloš Forman ('The Firemen's Ball', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', 'Amadeus'), then teaching at Columbia University, and which Bigelow later submitted as part of her MFA there.
Three years later, Bigelow co-wrote and co-directed her first full-length feature with the 1981 American outlaw biker drama/independent film 'The Loveless'. It featured Willem Dafoe as bike gang member Vance in his first starring role.
Originally titled 'Breakdown', 'The Loveless' has been compared to the 1953 American black and white outlaw biker drama film 'The Wild One'.
Six years later, Bigelow followed this up in co-writing and directing the 1987 American neo-western horror drama/crime film 'Near Dark'. With this film, Bigelow began her lifelong fascination with manipulating film conventions and genre.
The main cast included three actors who had appeared in the 1986 American action/sci-fi film 'Aliens'. Two years later, Bigelow married the film's director, James Cameron, in 1989.
Four years later, Bigelow directed an episode of the bizarre five-hour American sci-fi drama/thriller television miniseries Wild Palms in 1993. She also appeared in one episode as Mazie Woiwode, but went uncredited.
The miniseries was executive produced and co-created by Oliver Stone ('Salvador', 'Platoon', 'Wall Street', 'JFK', 'Natural Born Killers').
Two years later, Bigelow directed the first film of which she is best known. This was the 1995 American thriller/sci-fi film 'Strange Days'. Cameron, of whom had conceived the story, also co-wrote and co-produced.
Set against a hellish Los Angeles during the last two days of 1999, former policeman Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), of whom has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others.
While the bootlegs typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing the murder of a prostitute.
Nero then enlists a friend, bodyguard Mace Mason (Angela Bassett), to help find the killer -- and the two soon stumble upon a vast conspiracy involving the police force of which Nero once worked for.
Blending science fiction with film noir conventions, 'Strange Days' explores themes such as racism, abuse of power, rape, and voyeurism.
Voyeurism is also a major element due to the protagonist's extensive use of SQUID technology. The fact that the film was directed by a woman was even more controversial.
Filipino independent film critic Michael Mirasol noted that had 'Strange Days' been directed by a man, these scenes would likely have been criticized as sexist and misogynistic.
Many attributed the creative vision of 'Strange Days' to Cameron, diminishing Bigelow's perceived influence on the film.
Nevertheless, Bigelow insisted that the film does not glorify violence and that it has a positive purpose.
According to her, "I wanted to treat 'the system' fairly, because if it's the enemy, then we're the enemy, since by not changing it we're reproducing it...
The film ends in a strong insistence on hope. Ultimately it's humanity - not technology - that takes us into the next century and the next millennium."
Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, describing it as "a technical tour de force" and highlighted the film's astute use of SQUID technology.
He stated that "Bigelow is able to exploit the idea of what is happening; she forces her audience to deal with the screen reality, instead of allowing us to process it as routine 'action.'"
Although the story was conceived by Cameron around 1986, Bigelow had found inspiration after incidents such as the Lorena Bobbitt trial and the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the Rodney King verdict.
The film was shot entirely in the Greater Los Angeles Area over a period of seventy-seven nights. Some of the film's scenes, which offer a point-of-view shot (POV), required multi-faceted cameras and considerable technical preparation.
A major box-office bomb, 'Strange Days' almost derailed Bigelow's career, as five years would pass before she directed her next film.
Furthermore, many audience members attributed the creative vision of 'Strange Days' to Cameron, diminishing Bigelow's perceived influence on the film.
On a budget of $42 million, 'Strange Day's only grossed $8 million at the box office. This was due in part to the poor marketing strategy and lack of audience understanding.
Upon release, 'Strange Days' polarized film critics; some reviewers praised its gritty atmosphere and the performances by Fiennes and Bassett, while others criticized it for failing to comment on its violence.
Nevertheless, the film's critical standing has improved over the years, with many fans feeling that the film has been overlooked by a casual mass audience and misguided critics.
At the 22nd Saturn Awards, Bassett won Best Actress and Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director award.
It was 'Strange Days', 'Blue Steel' (1990) and 'Point Break' (1991) that merged Bigelow's philosophically minded manipulation of pace with the market demands of mainstream filmmaking.
'Blue Steel' was shot on location in New York due to financial considerations and because Bigelow doesn't "like movies where you see a welfare apartment and it's the size of two football fields."
The title of 'Point Break' refers to the surfing term of the same name, where a wave breaks as it hits a point of land jutting out from the coastline.
On a budget of $24 million, 'Point Break' grossed $83.5 million at the box office. However, the film remains one of her lowest rated films, both in commercial reviews and academic analysis.
Critics argued that it conformed to some of the clichés and tired stereotypes of the action genre and that it abandoned much of the stylistic substance and subtext of Bigelow's other work.
In the process of making these three films, Bigelow became recognizable as both a Hollywood brand and an auteur.
All three features rethought the conventions of action cinema while exploring gendered and racial politics.
During the same year that 'Point Break' was released, Bigelow and Cameron were divorced.
Two years later, Bigelow directed three episodes for the small screen between 1997 and 1998 for NBC's American police procedural crime drama television series "Homicide: Life on the Street" (1993–1999).
In the late 2000s, Bigelow directed the second and final film of which she is best known. This was the 2008 American war/action thriller film 'The Hurt Locker'.
Upon release, the film earned near universal acclaim from critics, who praised Bigelow's directing, Jeremy Renner's performance, the writing, and the action sequences.
The screenwriter, American journalist, screenwriter and film producer Mark Boal, drew on his experience during the invasion of Iraq during embedded access to write the script.
The following year, 'The Hurt Locker' was nominated for nine Oscars but won six for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. This occurred at the 82nd Academy Awards in early March 2010.
Bigelow was also the fourth woman in film history to be nominated for the honor of Best Director, as well as being only the second American woman to attain the privilege.
She also later won the Directors Guild of America award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (becoming the first woman to win the award).
A competitor in the category was her ex-husband Cameron, of whom directed the juggernaut 2009 American sci-fi/action film 'Avatar', which had a budget of $237 million, grossing a staggering $2.79 billion at the box office.
However, 'The Hurt Locker' was far less expensive to make. On a budget of $15 million, the film relied on the use of hand-held cameras, long takes, and diligent sound design. Overall, it grossed $49.2 million at the box office.
In her acceptance speech for her Oscar, Bigelow surprised many audience members when she didn't mention her status as the first woman to ever receive an Oscar for Best Director.
In the past, Bigelow has refused to identify herself as a "woman filmmaker" or a "feminist filmmaker." However, she has been criticized for the violence in her films.
Among her credits, Bigelow is also known for directing 'Near Dark' (1987), 'The Weight of Water' (2000), 'K-19: The Widowmaker' (2002), 'Zero Dark Thirty' (2012), and 'Detroit' (2017).
Bigelow is known for her shifting relationship with Hollywood and its conventional film standards and techniques. She is noted for her acton films that often featured protagonists struggling with inner conflict.
Her work "both satisfies and transcends the demands of formula to create cinema that's ideologically complex, viscerally thrilling, and highly personal".
Bigelow has had success both ascribing to conventional Hollywood cinema techniques as well as creating her own unique style that pushes against mainstream conventions.
She is also known for entrenching social issues of gender, race, and politics into her work of all genres.
While Bigelow's films are often categorized in the action genre, she describes her own style as an exploration of "film's potential to be kinetic".
Her frequent and notable action sequences are unique because of her use of "purpose-built" camera equipment to create unique mobile shots that are very distinctive and indicative of the physicality of her work.
In many of her films, such as 'Point Break', 'Strange Days' and 'The Hurt Locker', Bigelow has used utilized mobile and hand-held cameras.
Perhaps what Bigelow is most well-known for is her use of extensive violence in her films. Most of her films include violent sequences and many of them revolve around the theme of violence.
Violence has been a staple in Bigelow's films from the beginning of her career. Throughout it, she has been known for her tendency to go to extremes for her films.
Bigelow has been active from 1978–present.
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