With her gripping take on the Iraq conflict, Kathryn Bigelow has succeeded where other film-makers have failed. She tells DONALD CLARKEabout being drawn to men in danger
KATHRYN BIGELOW has plenty to be happy about. Over the last few years, any number of smart directors have tried to flog the war in Iraq (and occasionally Afghanistan) to a stubbornly resistant public. Yet the films – remember the stupid Redactedand the appalling Lions for Lambs– have tended to fall flat with both critics and audiences.
Bigelow's The Hurt Lockerhas finally delivered the goods. This utterly gripping, reassuringly non-polemical film relates the experiences of an officer from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) as he attempts to disable car bombs and defuse suicide bombers in the streets of Baghdad. Scripted by Mark Boal, a journalist who was embedded with the EOD in 2004, the film has become the most positively reviewed picture in the US this year.
Striding into a trendy hotel in London’s Fitzrovia, Bigelow – all six feet of her – declares herself cautiously delighted with the response.
“I suppose you do try and temper your expectations when you make a film,” she says. “You try and execute it to the best of your ability. We had a great script and a great cast. But it has to speak for itself. You have to wait and see what ears it eventually falls upon.” The youthful, good-looking Mark Boal, who has accompanied Bigelow to most interviews, ambles in and adds a supportive footnote.
“We were happy that the response from people who were in Iraq during the right timeframe has been so positive,” he says. “Right up to generals, we’ve had support. The occasional person has said: ‘Oh that badge is upside down.’ But that sort of thing happens in an independent film.”
Before moving on to analyse The Hurt Locker(and inadvertently sending Boal into a great big huff), the conversation turns to Bigelow's whereabouts these last few years. Originally a fine artist, then a film academic, the chiselled Bigelow – now an implausible 57 – emerged as a force in the 1980s with the raw biker flick The Lovelessand the gripping vampire drama Near Dark.
Then as now, female directors were disgracefully rare in Hollywood and her decision to focus on the action genre distinguished her even further. The witty and exciting Point Break, starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves as surfers on different sides of the law, has endured long enough to be rated some sort of classic. Blue Steel, in which police officer Jamie Lee Curtis cleans up the city, is now a key text for feminist film academics.
It has, however, been seven long years since her last film, the submariner drama K-19: The Widowmaker, failed to annihilate the box office.
"Well, you know, we started trying to make The Hurt Lockerin 2005," she says. "And we were shooting it in 2007 and summer of 2008. So that's actually fairly fast. I worked in a television series and then became aware of Mark's embedding in Iraq."
So she hasn’t had her feet up all that time? “Oh God no. I wish I had.”
The Hurt Locker, a modestly budgeted independent production, is less flashy than Bigelow's mainstream pictures. Shot with a mobile, energetic camera by the great Barry Ackroyd, a frequent collaborator with Ken Loach, the picture stars Jeremy Renner as the new team leader of a bomb disposal unit, whose previous, much-admired chief has just been blown into atoms. Loosely structured, but never less than thrilling, the picture pinballs Renner from a car bomb to a gruesome discovery in a bomb factory to a tense stand-off with distant snipers.
Once again, Bigelow turns her camera towards men in danger.
“Looking at the continuity of my films, I’ll leave the analysis to you,” she says before diving into a characteristically highbrow treatise. “I am drawn to strong characters, evocative characters who find themselves in dangerous situations. It does allow for an experiential, subjective type of film-making in those evocative situations.”
Well, quite. One of the wonders of The Hurt Lockeris the way it balances proper horror at the wretchedness of war with an understanding of the dynamics of cinematic violence. That is to say, it feels simultaneously revolting and thrilling.
“We are aware of that. We have talked a lot about the balance between entertainment and substance,” she says. “We know we have a responsibility. This is a conflict that is ongoing and nobody knows until quite when. My hope is that it reminds you that there are men and women in dangerous situations. But you do have to strike a balance between entertainment and substance. You have to be responsible.”
Successfully finding that balance has helped put distance between The Hurt Lockerand the other, more worthy Iraq films that preceded it. The film is also distinguished by its apparent unwillingness to take a conspicuous stand on the rights and wrongs of the war. Focusing on a division whose job involves few moral compromises – the protagonist is, after all, solely concerned with savinglives – Boal's script shows soldiers in combat with native guerrillas, but never seeks to analyse the political foundations of the conflict.
The fact the film has received criticism from both the right (the soldiers are too dissolute) and from the left (the picture is too gung-ho) demonstrates its political neutrality quite convincingly.
While Boal begins to squirm (what’s up?), Bigelow offers a fluid, articulate analysis.
“Is a political tract in a film denoted by a character making speeches?” she asks. “That I would not characterise as ‘politics’ one way or another. I think it’s a very nuanced script that invites you to make an informed opinion.
“It is not my job, as the film-maker, to judge or to comment on policy or to make policy. On the other hand, if you have the most dangerous job in the world, and you’re walking towards danger while everyone else is walking away, then that is probably not the best time to let us know your opinion of the occupation.”
It is, however, interesting to compare the film with those pictures that have taken a stance. Paul Haggis's In the Valley of Elah, to this point the best drama dealing with the Iraq conflict, was openly critical of certain attitudes and assumptions within the US Army.
Interestingly, that film was based on a story by Mark Boal. Some conservatives really were very annoyed by Elah. Weren’t they? “Well, I’m sorry if it annoyed people,” he says and folds his arms huffily.
I think I clarified it was my other favourite film based around the Iraq conflict. No criticism is implied. But it is interesting to ponder the two different approaches.
“Yes. There is a difference,” he sighs. “They are different movies. They have two different directors. They have two different scripts. I see the difference, sure. I’m not sure what your question is. But I do see the difference.”
After which, he sinks into the corner of the sofa and pulls a face like a child whose just been denied a fourth bowl of trifle. Bigelow continues gallantly and every now and then tries to bring him into the conversation, but he contributes only reluctantly.
Anyway, all this gives me a chance to fire a question at Bigelow that has been following her around for a quarter of a century: why are female directors still as rare in Hollywood as they were when she started out? If she gets nominated for an Oscar next February – and she very well might – she will become, after Sofia Coppola, the second American woman to receive that honour.
“God, I really don’t know,” she says. “Do you have a decent answer? Maybe it’s the lack of effective role models. I think you’ll have to devise an answer and then let me know. Next time we meet, hopefully you’ll have to fight your way through female directors to get to me.”
Let’s hope so. Not that it’s hard to spot the colossal Bigelow in the milling crowd.
The Hurt Lockeropens next Friday
