Film History Biography of Kathryn Bigelow
Today’s Very Important Dudette is director Kathryn Bigelow whose tomography reads like a sample platter of popcorn genre flicks. She’s done war, sci-fi, horror, thriller, noir; but here’s the cool part, her films many of which she had the hand in writing, often play around with well warned genre conventions and of being entertaining genre exercises and really subtly smart films that often prove questions about gender and family and power. Basically her films are smart for your brain and exciting for your eyeballs at the same time.
She’s getting well deserved near unanimous praise for her new war or action-suspense movie the Hurt Walker. A lot of people are really excited about this movie; and we hope that we’re on the verge here of a better late than never Kathryn Bigelow renaissance; because so far, she has been criminally under celebrated, which of course is why we’re doing this video in the first place.
Kathryn Bigelow started out as a talented painter but eventually got herself schooled in Film Theory in Criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. Four years later she finally made her first feature, The Loveless. This starred Willem Defoe as the leader of a tough 1950’s motorcycle gang that stops in a small town for repairs. The whole film is basically one big nod to the Wild Ones, starring Marlon Brando, which is about this genre as you can get. Only in Bigelow’s film, things get twisted around a little bit as the town’s people are just as weird as the bikers themselves. And of course, things get a little freaky.
Next she co-wrote and directed Near Dark which is a cult classic of the horror -. Only what’s interesting, this film started out as a straight western but Kathryn Bigelow was unable anybody on that idea, so she and her writing partner Eric Red, matched together their western ideas with a horror slant. And what resulted, was one of the coolest takes of the vampire myth ever committed to film. And the word vampire isn’t even uttered once throughout the movie; which to me makes it all the creepier. There’s absolutely no glamour or romance involved with these blood thirsty, white trash killers. They are monsters pure and simple. And the vulnerable male protagonist should probably just stay away from the hot blonde one, but of course, he doesn’t. Near Dark is basically the anti Twilight. It’s fantastic.
Next Kathryn Bigelow wrote and directed Blue Steel which has nothing to do with Zoolander. Blue Steel stars Jamie Lee Curtis as a cop, who shoots an armed robber on her first day on the job; but somebody takes the gun so she gets suspended from the force for shooting an unarmed man. Also there’s a serial killer who’s obsessed with her, you know this movie has lots of suspense. And it got lots of critical praise as well.
Blue Steel was enough of the break that hit for Kathryn Bigelow that the next logical step for her was to direct Point Break. God I love that movie. You know on the surface, on top of the action and the guns and the explosions, there’s sky diving and surfing and bank heists but underneath all that, is the story of two ultra macho dudes, who are quite possibly in love with one another. It’s brilliant and it features some of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as Surf Nazi.
Bigelow followed up Point Break with the underrated sci-fi, noir film, Strange Days. And in another genre-twisting, gender-bending Kathryn Bigelow move she cast Ralph Fiennes, as the loser, ex-cop, virtual reality peddler and Angela Bassett as the strong, supportive, female friend. If you haven’t seen it already, add that to your list. She then made a non-genre film about relationships and also a submarine movie featuring Harrison Ford doing a bad Russian accent. But both of those came out over six years ago.
Finally, last September Kathryn Bigelow burst on the festivals circulating her latest film The Hurt Walker. I know Mike seen it and he did watched this instead― the video about it. But I haven’t seen it, although I’m really excited to see it. Because it’s suppose to be this slick, well put together self aware, not overly political action movie that just happens to be set in modern day Iraq.
It certainly stands out against the back drop of less than stellar summer fair. Therefore you should probably go see it and if you’re a fan genre films why not host a Kathryn Bigelow marathon this weekend. You can impress your friends by pointing out her uncanny ability to turn all these genres inside-out, while simultaneously lacing each film with provocative sub text. You’ll come across as a genius. Don’t you want that?