Kathryn+Bigelow

Back to IB Film > Director Study

** Kathryn Bigelow **



** Biography ** Kathryn Bigelow is an American film director, born November 27th 1951 in San Carlos, California, USA. She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director, which she obtained from the 2009 film //The Hurt Locker//. To begin with her passion was painting, and in 1970 she enrolled in the San Fransisco Art Institute and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1972. She also gained a scholarship into the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study programme, in New York City. She worked as an assistant to the painter Vito Acconci. Her film career began after she entered the graduate film programme at Columbia University, studying theory and criticism to earn her master's degree. She made her first short film at Columbia, //The Set-Up//, in 1978. It was 20 minutes long, and centered on themes of violence, which she continued to apply to her films throughout her career. She also modeled for a Gap advertisement in the early 1980's, and acted in films such as Lizzie Borden's 1983 //Born In Flames//, in which she was a feminist newspaper editior, and she portrayed the leader of a cow girl gang in the 1988 music video of Martini Ranch's //Reach,// directed by her ex-husband James Cameron//.// Bigelow and Cameron were married from 1989 to 1991, and even following their divorce they maintained a friendly relationship.

** Key Films **
 * Her first full-length film she directed with Monty Montgomery, which was //Loveless// in 1982. It was a biker movie, featuring Willem Defoe as the leading role.
 * In 1987 she co-directed and co-scripted //Near Dark// with Eric Red, a Vampire Western, with little-known actors as the leading roles.
 * Bigelow and Red teamed up again in 1990 to make the action-thriller film //Blue Steel,// starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a young police officer, who gets stalked by an insane killer, played by Ron Silver.
 * One of her most famous films was //Point Break//, in 1991, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, portraying the story of an FBI agent going undercover as a surfer to arrest a team of surfer robbers.
 * In 1995, she directed //Strange Days//, which was written and produced by her ex-husband, and famous director, James Cameron.
 * Her 2002 film //The Weight of Water// was based on the novel by Anita Shreve, and was about the lives of two women trapped in stifling relationships, the themes deviating from those of her typical action and violence motion pictures.
 * Harrison Ford starred in her 2002 film //K-19: The Widow Maker,// which depicted the lives of a group of men aboard the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered submarine.
 * Bigelow's most recent success has been //The Hurt Locker// in 2009, an action film about bomb-disabling sildiers in post-war Iraq, with Jeremy Renner, Brian Geragthy and Anthony Mackie as the leads. It won an Oscar in 2010 for Best Picture, and was nominated for and won a variety of other awards.



** Articles of Analysis ** [] [] -Articles from //The Independent// newspaper and //Vanity Fair// magazine in regards to Bigelow's success.

** Influences **
 * ** James Cameron **
 * Anne Rice
 * Sam Peckinpah
 * Lawrence Wiener
 * Richard Serra
 * Francisco Goya
 * Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
 * Constantine Brancusi



** Awards **
 * ** //Strange Days// (1995) won the Saturn Award for Best Direction. **
 * //The Hurt Locker// (2009) gained Bigelow such awards as:
 * [|Academy Award for Best Picture]
 * [|Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Director]
 * [|London Film Critics Circle Award for Director of the Year]
 * [|National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director]
 * [|New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director]
 * [|New York Film Critics Online] Award for Best Director
 * [|Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director]
 * [|Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Director]
 * [|Producers Guild of America Award] for Theatrical Motion Pictures
 * [|San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director]
 * [|Santa Barbara International Film Festival] Award for Outstanding Director of the Year
 * [|Seattle International Film Festival] Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director
 * [|Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Director]
 * [|St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Director]
 * [|Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director]
 * [|Venice Film Festival][|SIGNIS] Grand Prize Award
 * [|Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association] Award for Best Director



** Quotations ** "I don't believe in censorship in any form" "I don't want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going" "I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive" "Something becomes personal when it deviates from the norm" "There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that its really possible"

** Critical Reception **[]
 * She was named the first female director to win Best Director at the Critic's Choice Movie Awards, for the 2009 //The Hurt Locker.// **
 * She is also considered to be "one of the most interesting action directors in recent film history". **

** Links ** ** [] ** ** [] ** ** [] ** ** [] ** [] []